One of the finest ever Thames Television productions. The first and only time that London's bomb disposal heroes were ever recognised on screen through solid and tense drama!
In the 1980's I still pretended my time in the U.S. Army in Vietnam had not impacted my life. DANGER UXB forced me to begin recognizing I, too, was forever changed. Watching this, alone in my comfortable, safe living room, allowed me to start grieving. My thanks to all involved. Blessings.
I was on an active EOD team dealing with terrorism, IEDs, shootings and armed robberies when this series was aired, at least 50+ ops, possibly up to 80 incidents attended. I heard of the show, never saw it. But watched it for the first time 2 years ago, so I can agree with what you say.
As one of only 100 in America that knows of this show, thanks for making a doc about it! I remember it finishing very dark. The best films can leave you feeling sad.
I know there are more than 100 of us Americans who are fans of the show. Most Americans are not familiar with it but there must be more than one million, likely more than ten million, who do. If you saw it, you remember for the rest of your life.
I really doubt that because it was on masterpiece theater and I watched it with my family every Sunday night and was always bummed when it was over because it was such a good show and that men I had to go to bed and get ready for school the next day. Don't know why it was never rerun on and I've never even seen it on any of the streaming channels. But if I remember the ending correctly it was probably too gritty for most people to want to see again knowing how it ends
I very much enjoy this series. It brings to us a part of the Battle of Britain that most people probably don't know about. I'm fortunate to have the whole set on DVD (still available through Amazon) and I take it out every couple years and watch it through. It doesn't get old. In the US we only had one similar instance. A Japanese balloon bomb killed the wife and 5 children of a Reverend and injured him. It is reminiscent of the butterfly bombs. The British are, without a doubt, among the very best in providing top documentaries.
Thanks for making this available. Obviously I’m not the only one who thoroughly enjoyed this series when it was first screened! Good scripts rooted in an extraordinarily dangerous reality. I remember also the great supporting cast especially Maurice Roeves and Ian Cuthbertson.
Excellent series. It ran in the US on "Masterpiece Theater" on PBS around 81. Interesting how the lessons on bomb disposal have stuck with me all these years. I think it was an episode of "Foyle's War", years later, that had a bomb disposal sequence in it. The officer went at the locking ring with a hammer and chisel, *before* he put the Crabtree discharger on the fuse. I shouted "oh no!", as the officer should have been blown to kingdom come because he did not discharge the fuse first.
*_"I think it was an episode of "Foyle's War", years later, that had a bomb disposal sequence in it."_* Exactly so. It's called "War of Nerves". I suspect the main character, Captain Hammond, was pretty closely modelled on Brian Ash, down to the MG sports car.
@@thethirdman225 I don't recall the model of car he drove. I would not think it unusual for a young, single, man to be driving an MG at that time. I only remember him beating on a bomb with a hammer, before discharging the fuse. The thing is, the supplements on the Foyle DVD set talk about the historical research the writer did for each episode. The tools the guy had, hammer, chisel, crabtree, were correct, but he got the sequence wrong.
Watched it when first aired, great tv loved every minute so when i saw a DVD box set about 20 years ago, well i snapped it up. Thought it was just, so different to anything on tv before. They certainly did leave us wanting more!
Hurt Locker was a macho joke. Horrible! Too bad the producers were looking to make a buck with ridiculous action, when the real bomb technicians would have been methodical and careful.
G'day to you, Thanks for this, a greatly talked about series, very edge of the Seat Drama, shame so many of the Actors no longer with us! Armadale West Aust.
I remember this series and I distinctly remember the butterfly bomb episode resulting in at least one occurrence of someone watching the episode and suddenly realising that their WWII ornament was a butterfly bomb.
It was one of my favorite PBS programs when I watched it in the States in the early 1980s. I'm not sure why they claim it was the first filmed TV series in England because there had been many others prior to it such as "The Avengers". During my own military career I had only limited EOD experience, but one thing I do remember well was taking a two-day short course at an Air Force munitions site where we were taught, among other things, how to remove the fuses of the MK82 500 pound general purpose bomb. All of the instructors wore desert camouflage pattern uniforms while we wore the standard green pattern. We were told up front that if you ever saw someone in desert camouflage running away, your only job was to try to catch up with him.
Never forget the omg moment the lead actor got blown up on the pier. But I waited to comment because I suddenly doubted if I remembered it correctly. Then here it was again, just as sudden, just as brutal. I will say I pictured his drop into the water as being a longer fall but that just shows the impact the moment had on me as a kid. Brilliant tv and here we have some context and explanation of the devices and the times. I would have liked to see the scene that Verity Lambert had cut for time, hopefully it will turn up as an extra on the dvd because I'm off to buy it - this, and the equally enthralling Colditz
A little bit of trivia. There were more British bomb disposal experts killed after the war trying to defuse those pier bombs than were killed trying to defuse the German bombs during the war.
I loved every one of the episodes of "Danger UXB." Masterpiece Theater's Alistair Cooke and his episode introductions made them all the more enjoyable.
I thoroughly enjoyed the series when it was released in the United States on PBS’s Masterpiece Theater. It’s an extraordinary story about the most dangerous job anyone could have had during the Second World War. Just magnificent work by the script writers, actors, directors, and set designers.
Wow! Talk about a blast from the past! 😂 watched this as a kid when it first aired, it had an excellent cast,extremely well written and it was absolutely gripping every episode! It was real quality television ❤👌Thank you for putting this up 👍
UXB was an amazing series. Having been a weapons technician in the USAF, I had assembled and installed many bomb fuzes in Vietnam. For me, it was an intensely interesting drama and kept me on the "edge of my seat" for most episodes. Technically, I found it very convincing and believable. Those men had incredible courage to defuse unexploded bombs; some fuzes were designed to explode during any attempt to defuse them; some I installed were of that type. This series should be rerun or at least released on DVD. It would be a big hit again.
Belgian here. I wish our national television had afforded the same honour to our ordnance disposal squads of Flanders Fields. They’re fourth generation already, and still at it!
Thanks for this, it's an excellent documentary. Didn't know 21 C films did this series, they did an excellent job. I remember watching it when it came out in 79, it used to be on UA-cam but no longer is unfortunately. Around that time there were some cracking programs on ITV, Sherlock Holmes, The Sweeney, golden TV.
One of the best. I have the DVD set of the series. I trained as an EOD technician transferred out to the Engineers towards the end of the course due to an issue with no legal effects and ended up serving 2 years active duty and the rest of over 27 years in the Army reserves training recruits as cavalry scouts.
Superb series, I absolutely loved it here in the US. The DVD set is a cherished possession in my library. Confess I was completely smitten with Judy Geeson at the time.
My grandmother was born in 1910, the eldest of eight. Four girls and four boys. One of her brothers was a merchant seaman, another was a prisoner of the Japanese, a third was in the RAF and the youngest was "in Bomb Disposal". One night he and an officer were working on a 1 ton aerial land mine when it "went orf". His mother asked if she could have his wrist watch. The reply was "I'm sorry, but we haven't found it yet. In fact, ahem, we haven't found anything...... yet."
One of my instructors in the ATC squadron I was a cadet with, worked on this series doing communications for Thames TV. I can remember one instance where his land rover was covered in mud, this was the episode filmed round the old beckton gas works where the sappers found a second bomb and pushed it into the Thames where the effects team detonated a charge and covered everything with mud. Apparently the real RE UXB team were dealing with another ww2 bomb at the other end of the site. RIP Ted Ball
this was required viewing at my house when this first came out-My mom lived through the blitz. my granddad's front step was cracked by a UXB and he never had it fixed decades after the fact saying it was his lucky charm-the school across the street took a direct hit and i remember seeing where the bricks didn't quite match up where they were rebuilt Verity Lambert was the original producer of dr. Who in 1963
Oh god - I remember sweating through every episode! What added to it was my mum telling me about her experiences - for instance she worked at SOE in the New Forest during "butterfly summer" - they got quite a lot down there - she said that she would go for a ride and, when the breeze picked up, there'd be an occasional "bang" in the distance as a butterfly bomb dropped out of a tree! (she also said that the government put a complete "D notice" on the whole thing - if the Germans had actually realised how much those damn things paralysed whole areas, they'd have been dropping them by the truck load!).
I cannot think of a more unrecognized branch of the military as Bomb Disposal. Absolute heroes. How anyone could volunteer to take on this job is beyond me.
I used to come home from school at Lunchtime as kid to watch this and another drama called " The Cedar tree".. Nice to see it in Colour as we only had a black & White TV set back then. Brilliant telly .
I fondly remember this show and even though I realised it couldn't go on because of the progression of the war in the series, I was very disappointed when it ended and that there wouldn't be more. With hindsight I wonder if there was any thought as to whether it could or should have been strung out longer for at least another series, but I can also see that there were only so many different stories you could do. I briefly met Maurice Roeves at a convention he attended a year or so before he passed and in the brief moment I had with him, I remarked on Danger UXB, even though he was there for something else he did. That does make me curious as to when this was made. Sounds & looks like it was about 15 years ago.
I was serving on an active EOD team at the time, but never saw the series, I heard of it as people often said to me, "aah, UXBs" when they asked what I did in the army. But the 'UXBs' we dealt with were IEDs a slightly different issue.
We have the series on DVD, partly because we watched it all, together with my wife's parents about 11 years ago. I had worked in productions, so it's great to hear the actors and technical crew talk about how it was shot and directed. To do a full blown location shoot on film, with very tight deadlines really is a bit like a war with live bullets going off over your head. The director has to grip the crew by the neck and make it GO. if not you simply can't get the work done.
I remember as a kid in the 60's and 70's there was a bomb case outside some offices behind a wall in Hatherton road where solicitors are now. Why it was there and where it went, who knows.
I saw part of this being filmed. As a student at King's College London in the late seventies, I stayed in Halliday Hall on South Side. Just next door to the school, St Gerards RC Secondary Boys School, opposite the Windmill Pub on Clapham Common In one of the scenes of the series where they're using the schoolyard as their bomb disposal depot you can see the window of the room below mine in the background of the shot.
I got to see a fair amount of this show on PBS in America, as a child. I remember it as drama and this show held its own with anything made in the U.S.
Seem to remember seeing a IRA type bomb disposable film. Missed this series first time around. I think just war'ed out back in the 70's with Colditz and Tenko. And Dad's army on tv.
Some of the GC groups displayed in VC/GC section at the Museum in London were for Bomb Disposal. Nobody ever got 2 GCs but a couple were awarded a GC and a GM. There was a local old gent who had worked as a clearance diver clearing out all the unexploded munitions from Rabaul Harbour after WW2. Quite a character who'd also lived a very interesting and adventurous subsequent life until his fairly recent death. I guess if sharks, crocodiles and unexploded bombs and mines hadn't touched you, you could approach most of life's vicissitudes with equanimity. 😱
I watched this series when it first aired. It was good then. But over the year's I met someone who's father help in supplying the props and such for the series and was told that all the gadgets used were not props but actual items that were used to do the work. They were gleaned from the museum, for one and from ex uxb personal. I finally managed to get the complete DVD series several years ago and regularly sit and watch it. And just like all rewatching manage to catch things that I missed before. Now having seen this. I want to see the unedited version of the lecture of the bmb and how they were disabled. From the series. It must be out there somewhere???
I well remember when they were filming this in my little patch of south London, they painted out the white lines and had/asked all those with cars to move them to keep the scenes accurate.
A truly great series. Poor bastard wants to build bridges, goes into Royal Engineers and ends up in EOD. Cool MG car too. All sorts of details about World War Two you will not see elsewhere and great acting.
When on 5131 BD, we used to watch this in the crew room. It was more of a training series for us, as all the procedures and kit we still use today. I think we all bought it on DVD and bored our loved ones to death, with naration.
There was an Army transport museum at Beverley in East Yorkshire which had a butterfly bomb on display. When the museum closed they were not sure if it was live or not so the bomb disposal people took it away and blow it up. I had visited that museum several times and, like many others, actually saw the bomb. When I first read about this I did wonder why no one had checked before.
This is the show that started me noticing that American television wasn't very good, then I started to find out that some of the best American television, actually, were remakes of British television. Steptoe and Son became Sanford and son, Casualty became ER, etc..
The episode "17 Seconds to Glory" Where there is a land mine in a house and the fuse is facing the wall and inaccessible is based on Ivan Southall's book "Softly Tread the Brave" about John Stuart Mould and Hugh Syme who were Australian RANS officers assigned to the RMS Division at HMS Vernon. A gripping read but sadly it is long out of print though second hand copies can be found.
When I enlisted in the US Air Force in the 1980s, my recruiter asked me if I wanted to train for explosive ordinance disposal. I asked if that included nuclear weapons. He said, "Yes," and I said, "No."
I thought this series was great television drama, and the subject fascinated me. I bought the book about the subject. I think it was the same book as mentioned here. I can't put my hand on it at the moment, because I have books everywhere, probably at least 1500 by now!
Also, 1973, 4-part BBC series "The Dragon's Opponent", with Ronald Pickup and Virginia McKenna, based on the real-life 'bomb-disposing' career of the Earl of Suffolk.
Danger UXB (1979), along with Piece of Cake (1988), A Perfect Hero (1991), and Oppenheimer (1980) were excellent mini-series about WWII. I watched all of them when they first aired in the US and bought each series when they were released on DVD. I much prefer the seven episode production of Oppenheimer over the 2023 movie. There was more time to develop the characters other than Dr. Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss. Kitty Oppenheimer had a much more greater impact in the mini-series.
My Grandfather used to do this he was at the Somme in the first war but was to old for the second so they sent him to Bomb disposal because of what he had learnt in the first, he was on duty one day when he had a date with a young lady ( who turned out to be my Grandmother ) so his best mate stood in for him, he was killed by a bomb what went off, he never forgave himself he told me that in his 70s, later when he was ill they operated on him and found a bullet and the tip of a bayonet in him which had been in him all those years nobody knew he never mentioned it, he died a year later, wish he was around so I could talk to him now I am older.
One of the finest ever Thames Television productions. The first and only time that London's bomb disposal heroes were ever recognised on screen through solid and tense drama!
Maybe on TV, but it was portrayed as far back as The Adventures of Tartu in the early 1940s.
Couldn't agree more, this is one of the television series ever made it's absolutely brilliant 👏👏👏👍👍
@@501sqn3 They certainly don't make television series of this high standard anymore!!
The series showed bomb disposal in other parts of the country.
Quite simply a BRILLIANT SERIES. Five Star without a doubt.
In the 1980's I still pretended my time in the U.S. Army in Vietnam had not impacted my life. DANGER UXB forced me to begin recognizing I, too, was forever changed. Watching this, alone in my comfortable, safe living room, allowed me to start grieving. My thanks to all involved. Blessings.
I was on an active EOD team dealing with terrorism, IEDs, shootings and armed robberies when this series was aired, at least 50+ ops, possibly up to 80 incidents attended. I heard of the show, never saw it. But watched it for the first time 2 years ago, so I can agree with what you say.
Feeling sorry for yourself, eh? Ever think about the 1-2 millions killed by America in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam?
As one of only 100 in America that knows of this show, thanks for making a doc about it! I remember it finishing very dark. The best films can leave you feeling sad.
I know there are more than 100 of us Americans who are fans of the show. Most Americans are not familiar with it but there must be more than one million, likely more than ten million, who do. If you saw it, you remember for the rest of your life.
I really doubt that because it was on masterpiece theater and I watched it with my family every Sunday night and was always bummed when it was over because it was such a good show and that men I had to go to bed and get ready for school the next day. Don't know why it was never rerun on and I've never even seen it on any of the streaming channels. But if I remember the ending correctly it was probably too gritty for most people to want to see again knowing how it ends
I remember watching it here in the US on PBS.
It used to play on Masterpiece theatre when I was a kid. Of course, the burlesque hall episode was my most fondly remembered....
@@joeelliott2157 I grew up watching this in Trinidad, West Indies....
I very much enjoy this series. It brings to us a part of the Battle of Britain that most people probably don't know about. I'm fortunate to have the whole set on DVD (still available through Amazon) and I take it out every couple years and watch it through. It doesn't get old. In the US we only had one similar instance. A Japanese balloon bomb killed the wife and 5 children of a Reverend and injured him. It is reminiscent of the butterfly bombs. The British are, without a doubt, among the very best in providing top documentaries.
Thanks for making this available. Obviously I’m not the only one who thoroughly enjoyed this series when it was first screened! Good scripts rooted in an extraordinarily dangerous reality. I remember also the great supporting cast especially Maurice Roeves and Ian Cuthbertson.
Excellent series. It ran in the US on "Masterpiece Theater" on PBS around 81.
Interesting how the lessons on bomb disposal have stuck with me all these years. I think it was an episode of "Foyle's War", years later, that had a bomb disposal sequence in it. The officer went at the locking ring with a hammer and chisel, *before* he put the Crabtree discharger on the fuse. I shouted "oh no!", as the officer should have been blown to kingdom come because he did not discharge the fuse first.
*_"I think it was an episode of "Foyle's War", years later, that had a bomb disposal sequence in it."_*
Exactly so. It's called "War of Nerves". I suspect the main character, Captain Hammond, was pretty closely modelled on Brian Ash, down to the MG sports car.
@@thethirdman225 I don't recall the model of car he drove. I would not think it unusual for a young, single, man to be driving an MG at that time. I only remember him beating on a bomb with a hammer, before discharging the fuse. The thing is, the supplements on the Foyle DVD set talk about the historical research the writer did for each episode. The tools the guy had, hammer, chisel, crabtree, were correct, but he got the sequence wrong.
@@stevevalley7835 Private cars were very rare in WWII due to petrol rationing.
just rewatched this series last week, it still stands up
It's been several years for me. Time for a rewatch, I'd say, but where?
This was the most suspenseful TV series I ever saw. It also had a lot of interesting history in it.
Brilliant series, never missed an episode. wasn't this on TV in the late 70's 78/79
One of my favorite TV series of all time. My cousin got me a monument from the PBS party that I still see every day in my home office.
Watched it when first aired, great tv loved every minute so when i saw a DVD box set about 20 years ago, well i snapped it up. Thought it was just, so different to anything on tv before. They certainly did leave us wanting more!
Ooh. First here. I really enjoyed Danger UXB when first broadcast.
Much more than the Hurt Locker despite the oscars :-}
Hurt Locker wasn’t a movie. It was a Frankenstein mish mash of cliches all joined together.
Hurt Locker was a macho joke. Horrible! Too bad the producers were looking to make a buck with ridiculous action, when the real bomb technicians would have been methodical and careful.
G'day to you, Thanks for this, a greatly talked about series, very edge of the Seat Drama, shame so many of the Actors no longer with us! Armadale West Aust.
My father and I were glued to the TV when Danger UXB came on. Gripping stuff!
I remember this series and I distinctly remember the butterfly bomb episode resulting in at least one occurrence of someone watching the episode and suddenly realising that their WWII ornament was a butterfly bomb.
It was one of my favorite PBS programs when I watched it in the States in the early 1980s. I'm not sure why they claim it was the first filmed TV series in England because there had been many others prior to it such as "The Avengers".
During my own military career I had only limited EOD experience, but one thing I do remember well was taking a two-day short course at an Air Force munitions site where we were taught, among other things, how to remove the fuses of the MK82 500 pound general purpose bomb. All of the instructors wore desert camouflage pattern uniforms while we wore the standard green pattern. We were told up front that if you ever saw someone in desert camouflage running away, your only job was to try to catch up with him.
Just recently watched this series twice over, great acting and storyline's 👍
Where to watch please ?
Being 'of an age' :
Fantastic series
I watched every episode on PBS in Los Angeles, CA. when it first was shown in America. Fantastic program.
Danger UXB is a true TV great. Skill in explaining complex concepts of timers and tilt switches. Great acting, costumes.
Never forget the omg moment the lead actor got blown up on the pier. But I waited to comment because I suddenly doubted if I remembered it correctly. Then here it was again, just as sudden, just as brutal. I will say I pictured his drop into the water as being a longer fall but that just shows the impact the moment had on me as a kid. Brilliant tv and here we have some context and explanation of the devices and the times. I would have liked to see the scene that Verity Lambert had cut for time, hopefully it will turn up as an extra on the dvd because I'm off to buy it - this, and the equally enthralling Colditz
A little bit of trivia. There were more British bomb disposal experts killed after the war trying to defuse those pier bombs than were killed trying to defuse the German bombs during the war.
It was a brilliant and oft forgotten show. So important to have those people remembered. Loved every moment of it.
I bought the dvd set over a decade ago. It's simply the best. ❤❤❤
I loved every one of the episodes of "Danger UXB." Masterpiece Theater's Alistair Cooke and his episode introductions made them all the more enjoyable.
What a great series.
I thoroughly enjoyed the series when it was released in the United States on PBS’s Masterpiece Theater. It’s an extraordinary story about the most dangerous job anyone could have had during the Second World War. Just magnificent work by the script writers, actors, directors, and set designers.
Wow! Talk about a blast from the past! 😂 watched this as a kid when it first aired, it had an excellent cast,extremely well written and it was absolutely gripping every episode! It was real quality television ❤👌Thank you for putting this up 👍
One of my all-time favorite Masterpiece Theatre period dramas.
Thank you for sharing this. I loved this during my childhood. Great piece of work
UXB was an amazing series. Having been a weapons technician in the USAF, I had assembled and installed many bomb fuzes in Vietnam. For me, it was an intensely interesting drama and kept me on the "edge of my seat" for most episodes. Technically, I found it very convincing and believable. Those men had incredible courage to defuse unexploded bombs; some fuzes were designed to explode during any attempt to defuse them; some I installed were of that type. This series should be rerun or at least released on DVD. It would be a big hit again.
I remember the butterfly bomb story but all of the episodes were fantastic so thanks
Belgian here. I wish our national television had afforded the same honour to our ordnance disposal squads of Flanders Fields. They’re fourth generation already, and still at it!
Thanks for this, it's an excellent documentary. Didn't know 21 C films did this series, they did an excellent job. I remember watching it when it came out in 79, it used to be on UA-cam but no longer is unfortunately. Around that time there were some cracking programs on ITV, Sherlock Holmes, The Sweeney, golden TV.
Wow! Thank you so much for posting this.
It is a very good drama. Worth watching. Good show.
One of the best. I have the DVD set of the series. I trained as an EOD technician transferred out to the Engineers towards the end of the course due to an issue with no legal effects and ended up serving 2 years active duty and the rest of over 27 years in the Army reserves training recruits as cavalry scouts.
Brilliant series, reality, drama and grit of the time captured perfectly without the urge to 'over do it' that seems to be the norm these days.
Bit my finger nails to the roots watching this😮❤😮❤
Danger UXB was a great series
Superb series, I absolutely loved it here in the US. The DVD set is a cherished possession in my library. Confess I was completely smitten with Judy Geeson at the time.
(Everyone was, I'm sure.)
Great series. I watched it on PBS way back when and couldn't wait for the next episode to air. The ending was quite a shock to me.
I loved 'Danger UXB' when it was shown in the U.S. in 1979 on PBS. Very realistic series and the best work Anthony Andrews ever did.
When I was an EOD (Bomb Disposal) Officer my nickname was UXB "Unexploded Barlow" :)
One of the best TV series ever made. It's been long enough since I last re-watched it that now I want to see it again. 🙂
My grandmother was born in 1910, the eldest of eight. Four girls and four boys. One of her brothers was a merchant seaman, another was a prisoner of the Japanese, a third was in the RAF and the youngest was "in Bomb Disposal". One night he and an officer were working on a 1 ton aerial land mine when it "went orf".
His mother asked if she could have his wrist watch. The reply was "I'm sorry, but we haven't found it yet. In fact, ahem, we haven't found anything......
yet."
One of my instructors in the ATC squadron I was a cadet with, worked on this series doing communications for Thames TV. I can remember one instance where his land rover was covered in mud, this was the episode filmed round the old beckton gas works where the sappers found a second bomb and pushed it into the Thames where the effects team detonated a charge and covered everything with mud. Apparently the real RE UXB team were dealing with another ww2 bomb at the other end of the site. RIP Ted Ball
I saw it when I was in college, never saw it again, but I have never forgot it!
For me, I don't think I could watch the entire series, again, knowing. Truly a "significant emotional event." (Massey)
this was required viewing at my house when this first came out-My mom lived through the blitz. my granddad's front step was cracked by a UXB and he never had it fixed decades after the fact saying it was his lucky charm-the school across the street took a direct hit and i remember seeing where the bricks didn't quite match up where they were rebuilt
Verity Lambert was the original producer of dr. Who in 1963
I forgot this show even existed. I'll have to give it a watch, I vaguely remember it from the 80s.
This was a good series, deserves a remake
Oh god - I remember sweating through every episode! What added to it was my mum telling me about her experiences - for instance she worked at SOE in the New Forest during "butterfly summer" - they got quite a lot down there - she said that she would go for a ride and, when the breeze picked up, there'd be an occasional "bang" in the distance as a butterfly bomb dropped out of a tree! (she also said that the government put a complete "D notice" on the whole thing - if the Germans had actually realised how much those damn things paralysed whole areas, they'd have been dropping them by the truck load!).
I cannot think of a more unrecognized branch of the military as Bomb Disposal. Absolute heroes. How anyone could volunteer to take on this job is beyond me.
I used to come home from school at Lunchtime as kid to watch this and another drama called " The Cedar tree".. Nice to see it in Colour as we only had a black & White TV set back then. Brilliant telly .
I saw most of this when I was a kid. I don't remember much of the story line but loved the UXB scenes.
I fondly remember this show and even though I realised it couldn't go on because of the progression of the war in the series, I was very disappointed when it ended and that there wouldn't be more. With hindsight I wonder if there was any thought as to whether it could or should have been strung out longer for at least another series, but I can also see that there were only so many different stories you could do.
I briefly met Maurice Roeves at a convention he attended a year or so before he passed and in the brief moment I had with him, I remarked on Danger UXB, even though he was there for something else he did. That does make me curious as to when this was made. Sounds & looks like it was about 15 years ago.
Right at the end of the credits says 2006
I was serving on an active EOD team at the time, but never saw the series, I heard of it as people often said to me, "aah, UXBs" when they asked what I did in the army. But the 'UXBs' we dealt with were IEDs a slightly different issue.
Never missed an episode
First class without a doubt
We have the series on DVD, partly because we watched it all, together with my wife's parents about 11 years ago. I had worked in productions, so it's great to hear the actors and technical crew talk about how it was shot and directed. To do a full blown location shoot on film, with very tight deadlines really is a bit like a war with live bullets going off over your head. The director has to grip the crew by the neck and make it GO. if not you simply can't get the work done.
Amazing program and fantastic casting
Great series missed the last episode
I remember as a kid in the 60's and 70's there was a bomb case outside some offices behind a wall in Hatherton road where solicitors are now. Why it was there and where it went, who knows.
Absolutely superb series
I saw part of this being filmed. As a student at King's College London in the late seventies, I stayed in Halliday Hall on South Side.
Just next door to the school, St Gerards RC Secondary Boys School, opposite the Windmill Pub on Clapham
Common
In one of the scenes of the series where they're using the schoolyard as their bomb disposal depot you can see the window of the room below mine in the background of the shot.
loved that series
Great TV series.watched it recently on Talking pictures channel 82 UK.
I got to see a fair amount of this show on PBS in America, as a child. I remember it as drama and this show held its own with anything made in the U.S.
Seem to remember seeing a IRA type bomb disposable film. Missed this series first time around. I think just war'ed out back in the 70's with Colditz and Tenko. And Dad's army on tv.
It's on Dailymotion.
Some of the GC groups displayed in VC/GC section at the Museum in London were for Bomb Disposal. Nobody ever got 2 GCs but a couple were awarded a GC and a GM. There was a local old gent who had worked as a clearance diver clearing out all the unexploded munitions from Rabaul Harbour after WW2. Quite a character who'd also lived a very interesting and adventurous subsequent life until his fairly recent death. I guess if sharks, crocodiles and unexploded bombs and mines hadn't touched you, you could approach most of life's vicissitudes with equanimity. 😱
I watched this series when it first aired. It was good then. But over the year's I met someone who's father help in supplying the props and such for the series and was told that all the gadgets used were not props but actual items that were used to do the work. They were gleaned from the museum, for one and from ex uxb personal. I finally managed to get the complete DVD series several years ago and regularly sit and watch it. And just like all rewatching manage to catch things that I missed before. Now having seen this. I want to see the unedited version of the lecture of the bmb and how they were disabled. From the series. It must be out there somewhere???
I well remember when they were filming this in my little patch of south London, they painted out the white lines and had/asked all those with cars to move them to keep the scenes accurate.
1970s were a different time for drama now if this series was made that would be the opportunity to have a website with all the extra information on it
I loved that show Thank you
A truly great series. Poor bastard wants to build bridges, goes into Royal Engineers and ends up in EOD. Cool MG car too. All sorts of details about World War Two you will not see elsewhere and great acting.
Verity Lambert was the founding producer of Dr Who. Without her that program would have ended after one series.
The butterfly bomb scene that killed Salt was filmed in Chipping Norton by the theatre
The Butterfly bombs were actually scattered all over Grimsby and Cleethorpes on June11th 12th in 1943. I was living there at the time of the attack.
I loved this series
When on 5131 BD, we used to watch this in the crew room. It was more of a training series for us, as all the procedures and kit we still use today. I think we all bought it on DVD and bored our loved ones to death, with naration.
There was an Army transport museum at Beverley in East Yorkshire which had a butterfly bomb on display. When the museum closed they were not sure if it was live or not so the bomb disposal people took it away and blow it up. I had visited that museum several times and, like many others, actually saw the bomb. When I first read about this I did wonder why no one had checked before.
Was brilliant television I loved that show
I loved this show.
Danger UXB was one of my favorites of rippa bunch of stuff done by Century 21! Still missing a few of'm
Saw this in Iowa in the US on PBS back in the 80's haven't seen since. Is this on Region 1 DVD?
This is the show that started me noticing that American television wasn't very good, then I started to find out that some of the best American television, actually, were remakes of British television. Steptoe and Son became Sanford and son, Casualty became ER, etc..
Cracking series this. Great scripts, very good acting, telling a story few think about. Didn't like the ending though. That kind of spoiled it for me.
The episode "17 Seconds to Glory" Where there is a land mine in a house and the fuse is facing the wall and inaccessible is based on Ivan Southall's book "Softly Tread the Brave" about John Stuart Mould and Hugh Syme who were Australian RANS officers assigned to the RMS Division at HMS Vernon. A gripping read but sadly it is long out of print though second hand copies can be found.
Ivan Southall's 1960 book has been reprinted as Seventeen Seconds in 1973
@@tms-is4cg Seventeen Seconds was a re-write for younger readers. I have the original version.
It's still shown on talking pictures channel on sky channel 328 , I think . It's free to air
I love this show I tried to look for it had a hard time finding it was on American television PBS Masterpiece Theater if I'm not mistaken
When I enlisted in the US Air Force in the 1980s, my recruiter asked me if I wanted to train for explosive ordinance disposal. I asked if that included nuclear weapons. He said, "Yes," and I said, "No."
I remember seeing the one about butterfly bombs as a kid, I have one now (totally inert and safe)
I thought this series was great television drama, and the subject fascinated me. I bought the book about the subject. I think it was the same book as mentioned here. I can't put my hand on it at the moment, because I have books everywhere, probably at least 1500 by now!
Wish theyd put it on again especially the episode with alfie bass in it
Also, 1973, 4-part BBC series "The Dragon's Opponent", with Ronald Pickup and Virginia McKenna, based on the real-life 'bomb-disposing' career of the Earl of Suffolk.
Flashback time..🤔😳😖🤯
wish it expanded on the ending a bit more , but I get it .. Soldier on , very British ...
Danger UXB (1979), along with Piece of Cake (1988), A Perfect Hero (1991), and Oppenheimer (1980) were excellent mini-series about WWII. I watched all of them when they first aired in the US and bought each series when they were released on DVD.
I much prefer the seven episode production of Oppenheimer over the 2023 movie. There was more time to develop the characters other than Dr. Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss. Kitty Oppenheimer had a much more greater impact in the mini-series.
And they are still at it..
My Grandfather used to do this he was at the Somme in the first war but was to old for the second so they sent him to Bomb disposal because of what he had learnt in the first, he was on duty one day when he had a date with a young lady ( who turned out to be my Grandmother ) so his best mate stood in for him, he was killed by a bomb what went off, he never forgave himself he told me that in his 70s, later when he was ill they operated on him and found a bullet and the tip of a bayonet in him which had been in him all those years nobody knew he never mentioned it, he died a year later, wish he was around so I could talk to him now I am older.
Wasn't there an episode watched by a family that made the father realize there was a mini-bomb in the house that they dug up in the garden?