Soldiers of the British 43rd Wessex Division search German prisoners on the road near the Dutch town of Hengelo, eastern Netherlands; 1944 . 


Frisking POWs

A British M4 Sherman Crab tank with mine flail.
The mine flail consists of a number of heavy chains ending in fist-sized steel balls (flails) that are attached to a horizontal, rapidly rotating rotor mounted on two arms in front of the vehicle. The rotor's rotation makes the flails spin wildly and violently pound the ground. The force of a flail strike above a buried mine mimics the weight of a person or vehicle and causes the mine to detonate, but in a safe manner that does little damage to the flails or the vehicle.


Sherman Crab Tank

Always time for a smoke whilst waiting to be evacuated from France. The soldier getting a light could be  a veteran of WW1 seeing the ribbons above  his breastpocket.Or else he may have seen some interwar campaigns.
taken from fb/France and Flanders Campaign 1940