Bounding Mine

"Popping Paula"

The Popping Paula was an anti-personal mine used by the Confederate Army during the last days of 1942 against the US army which had encircled Pittsburg. Dr. Leonard O'Doull and Granville McDougald both treat a young solider who had his groin injured by a blast from a Popping Paula, prompting both men to wonder why these types of mines never made it to the Geneva Convention.

The mine is of a class of mines known as bounding mines. These mines are triggered by a trip-wire that launches them into the air at about waist height and explode, propelling shell splinters, scrap metal and ball-bearings horizontally at lethal speeds.