This bizarre punishment from 'Battle Picture Weekly' Comic has such a devious complexity that would have greatly sapped the war effort if it had become more widespread.
The artwork isn't that great but it's inventive!
It features a group of Commandos (The Rat Pack) who have been captured,
but their notorious leader 'Taggart' remains at large.
The artwork isn't that great but it's inventive!
It features a group of Commandos (The Rat Pack) who have been captured,
but their notorious leader 'Taggart' remains at large.
Some poor sods got lumbered with digging this enormous pit and erecting stakes in it.
The spoil heaps shown would only be a tiny fraction of what had to be shifted.
It's a feat comparable with the construction of elaborate 1-off gallows in spaghetti westerns
which seem to take for ever, while the condemned men watch from the jail.
This group seem to have been spared that torment.
The guard climbing out of the pit is a nice detail.
As the pit is filled around the Commandos,
the dastardly captor reveals the true horror of his intentions.
This strange machine was real, a tank with rotating flails to explode mines in it's path.
It's a truly terrifying prospect for the Commandos, seeing it approaching.
At this point, you might wonder why the captives needed to be buried at all
they could have simply been tied to stakes in the path of the tank - or just staked out.
(Although burial up to the neck does seem to be a military tradition of sorts).
More pertinent perhaps,will their last minute confessions stand any chance of being heard
above the noise of the tank engine and pounding flails?
In the end it doesn't matter because Taggart their leader is close at hand
and poised to rescue the lads with the help of a handy telephone wire.
The nasty 'Torturer' becomes the first victim of the flails.
It's probably best not to think about the physics of how Taggart managed to swing
across the gap, from such a great height and using a telephone pole that appeared to be
further away from him than it's height off the ground.
With such ingenuity, no wonder he is such a hunted man!
Digging these lads out is not without it's risks (to them)
Go to mitchmen's war No 14 (article and link pending)
Other Bizarre Punishments in this series
Bizarre Brutality No 1 and it's mitchmen sequel 'Devil's work'
Bizarre Brutality No2 and it's mitchmen sequel 'Loco Peril' ,
Bizarre Brutality No 3 (no sequel yet)
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Read all my War Comics articles from the Start
or click on the 'War Comics' label below