Groundwater

A side interest in munitions disposal led to the making of a reproduction of a "Crabtree" discharger. According to LtCol E.E. Wakeling ERD, one of the first pieces of equipment produced for British bomb disposal officers in 1939 was a "Crabtree" discharger. This was a simple device that plugged into the fuse of an unexploded bomb (UXB) shorting out and discharging the internal electrical source thus rendering the fuze inert. Unfortunately, the usefulness of the Crabtree lasted only a couple years until German designers complicated the fuze mechanism to prevent unexploded bombs from being easily defuzed. Real Crabtree dischargers are rare and I thank the British Ordnance Collectors Network whose members provided photos and scaled drawings.