Ferdinand Fairfax (1944–2008)

(February 1944) The pregnant Norma Baker and Gordon Mulley prepare to marry. A bomb just misses 347 Section's barracks and Mulley is nearly asphyxiated when he falls into its camouflet. Brian's difficult recovery strains his relationship with Susan near to breaking point as he worries about being invalided out of the service. He refuses to see anyone or attend the wedding until Sergeant James visits him and succeeds in breaking through his depression. Brian is restored to active service but when he is promoted to captain and transferred to what seems a meaningless position in Somerset, he feels useless. Ivor offers him an unofficial chance to defuze a recently discovered and relatively routine bomb dropped years before. Dismantling the fuze, however, Brian finds a note inside that says 'With Love from Adolf.' The series ends with Captain Ash and Sergeant James blowing up the defuzed Hermann with a block of plastic explosive. (fonte: Wikipedia)… (meer)

(September 1943) Brian is posted back to 347 Section, which relocates to Brighton to remove land mines laid in 1940 in anticipation of the German invasion that never came. Susan and Brian become engaged before he leaves. The former Private John Brinckley, Non-Combatant Corps, has joined the Royal Engineers and been commissioned as a bomb disposal officer. He is assigned to Brian for further training and seasoning. 347 Section is assigned a seaside pleasure pier where anti-personnel mines have been hidden under the decking. Ivor Rogers, still in command of 97 Company, instructs Brian to delegate the work (clearly grooming him for command); but when Lieutenant Brinckley is killed by an unmarked mine, Brian must resume clearing the explosives. While attempting to defuze a device installed on the slipway of the lifeboat station, he is badly injured when it goes off and blows him into the water. (fonte: Wikipedia)… (meer)

(January 1943) A year after Brian and Susan have broken up, they have an awkward reunion when her father, Dr Gillespie, asks for Brian to be posted to his lab to determine how to defuze the new German Y fuze. The design uses multiple battery-operated mercury tilt switches to detect any movement of the fuze and close the circuit. The fuze also detonates automatically if a battery is short-circuited; its sole purpose is to kill bomb disposal officers. Gillespie's solution is to freeze the insides of the bomb to -20 °C to render the batteries inert, using liquid oxygen poured into a makeshift plasticine dam on the bomb's casing, a dangerous and time-consuming process.[n 5] While in Cambridge, Brian has an affair with Elspeth, a woman who has lost the Royal Air Force bomber pilot she loved. The first trial of the Type Y freezing process is for a UXB assigned to 347 Section for disposal, following which Brian learns that Stephen Mount has committed suicide. (fonte: Wikipedia)… (meer)