mitchmen's war No 13 - Bizarre Brutality 4, Buried to the neck

This bizarre punishment from 'Battle Picture Weekly' Comic has such a devious complexity
 that it 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 (known as 'The Rat Pack').
They 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 to build, while the condemned men watch from the jail.

This group seem to have been spared that torment.

The pit is refilled, a chilling moment for the Commando's
(despite the Commandant's assurances about not burying them alive)
The guard clumsily climbing out of the pit is a nice detail.

 As the soil piles up 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 missing 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,
despite the tank crew proving to have some humanity.

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!
 

The resistance workers seem to show scant gratitude.
To be fair though, digging these lads out is a chore not without it's risks (to them)

Go to mitchmen's war No 14

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  Darkie's crucifixion (no sequel yet)

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