In the pre-war period the Department of Artillery of Poland's Ministry of National Defence ordered the construction of a device that could be helpful in locating duds on artillery training grounds. The instrument was designed by the AVA Wytwórnia Radiotechniczna, but its implementation was prevented by the German invasion of Poland. Following the fall of Poland and the transfer of Polish HQ to France, work restarted on the device, this time intended as a mine detector. Little is known of this stage of construction as the work was stopped by the Battle of France and the need to evacuate the Polish personnel to Great Britain. There in late 1941 Lieutenant Józef Kosacki devised a final version, based partially on the earlier designs. His invention was not patented; he gave it as a gift to the British Army. He was given a letter of thanks from the King for this act. His design was accepted and 500 mine detectors were immediately sent to El Alamein where they doubled the speed of the British Eighth Army. During the war more than 100,000 of this type were produced, together with several hundred thousands of further developments of the mine detector. The detector was used later during the Allied invasion of Sicily, the Allied invasion of Italy and the Invasion of Normandy. This type of detector was used by the British Army until 1995. An attempt was made to mount a version of the mine detector on a vehicle so that sappers would be less vulnerable. To this end "Lulu" and subsequently "Bantu" were developed. The detector mechanism was in non-metallic rollers on arms held away from the vehicle. When the roller passed over a mine, or a similar piece of metal, the roller it was under was indicated in the vehicle. Prototypes were built but never tried in combat.
Design
Ethnic joke
There is a long history of an ethnic joke whose punch line is that Polish people stamp their feet on the ground to detect mines, which is ironic since the real mine detector was designed by a Pole. Media mogul and billionaire Ted Turner once told such a joke. Mr. Turner made his version of the joke during a speech to the NationalFamily Planning and Reproductive Association in Washington in 1999. Turner apologized to the Polish Foreign Ministry saying he regretted his comments.
