Original U.S. WWII Pair of Mines and Booby Traps War Department & Navy Department Booklets - (2) Items

Original Items: Only One Lot Available. This is a wonderful pair of books that serves as a training and identification resource for American Soldiers (and Allies) on enemy munitions. The books show the user the different type of booby traps, mines, anti-personnel/tank mines, different types of fuses and so on. These are the types of books that saved lives during the war and still continue to do so in today’s military.

They include “Don’t get killed by MINES AND BOOBY TRAPS” by the War Department, and “BOOBY TRAPS” by the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Navy Department.

A great pair of pamphlets ready for further research and display.

A military booby trap is designed to kill or injure a person who activates its trigger, or employed to reveal the location of an enemy by setting off a signalling device. Most, but not all, military booby traps involve explosives.

Part of the skill in placing booby traps lies in exploiting natural human behaviors such as habit, self-preservation, curiosity or acquisitiveness. A common trick is to provide victims with a simple solution to a problem, for example, leaving only one door open in an otherwise secure building, luring them straight toward the firing mechanism.

An example that exploits an instinct for self-preservation was used in the Vietnam War. Spikes known as punji sticks were hidden in grassy areas. When fired upon, soldiers instinctively sought to take cover by throwing themselves down on the ground, impaling themselves on the spikes.

Many purpose-built booby-trap firing devices exist such as the highly versatile M142 universal firing device (identical to the British L5A1 or Australian F1A1), or Yugoslavian UMNOP-1 which allow a variety of different ways of triggering explosives e.g. via trip wire (either pulling it or releasing the tension on it), direct pressure on an object (e.g. standing on it), or pressure release (lift/shift something) etc.

Most explosive booby traps use between 250 g and 1 kg of explosive. Since most booby traps are rigged to detonate within a metre of the victim's body, this is adequate to kill or severely wound.