Bomb disposal officer

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 8

Bomb disposal officer

English-born Major Boyd Squires, Chief Ammunition Technical Officer at Bumham Camp, had two postings as a bomb disposal officer in Northern Ireland. The first was low key, the second intense.

“Clear, logical thinking, sharing ideas as a team and then concentrating individually and acting as a team were the keys to our success, and the way we controlled stress. “The individualistic, over-confident ‘cowboy’ types were the ones we didn’t want,” he says. They were eliminated by the aptitude test. He explains that when the bomb call came they got ail available details and on the way to the

scene absorbed these and considered options, taking care not to prejudge the situation. In this way they got “psyched up.” On arrival they would carry out set procedures of determining as far as possible the size and location of the bomb, sealing off the area, establishing a safe control point and interviewing witnesses.

The situation would be further discussed by the group, including the driver, a very practical man who often came up with an innovative and appropriate idea, says Major Squires.

The bomb would then be disposed of where possible by remote means. The aim was always to render it harmless before

it went off whilst ensuring that the operator faced as small a risk as possible.

He recounts one scare on looking back after demobilising a bomb and finding that what they thought had been a straightforward timing device had, attached to it, a sophisticated anti-hand-ling device which hadn’t fired. Other factors which helped control stress, he says, were being busy but not overworked, and keeping fit. He thought he had come through psychologically unscathed, he says, until shortly after his first three days leave back in England after the second posting when he had no recollection of how he had spent the time.