EOD Badge and Skull created by Christopher Pearce and James Jones

About Felix

   You may be wondering why that incorrigible cat, Felix, is wondering around on the bottom of our pages. Well, Felix the Cat is widely adopted by bomb squads all over the world as their symbol because of his "nine lives"--a characteristic most bomb squad technicians covet, while at the same time hope to never need.

According to Gary Hudson, Felix was originally adopted by the British Royal Army 321 EOD Coy RAOC in 1969 when they were first deployed to Northern Ireland.  Their radio callsign was "Felix." (thanks Gary)

Further, Sgt Steve Gelston (11 EOD Regt RLC, England) adds that the adoption of Felix was a mistake! Steve writes: "Back in 1969 the British army didn't use callsigns on the radio, we used "Appointment Titles."  These were nicknames given to units to identify them on the net in much the same way as callsigns, an example of which is "Bluebell" for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), although they won't thank me for telling you that. Any way, not long after 321 EOD moved in to the province they were told that they had to think of an Appointment Title to identify themselves. The OC of the company was sitting in his office having just heard the sad news that one of his operators had died that morning whilst trying to render safe a device and thought "Phoenix" would be a good name; to symbolise the unit rising from the ashes to conquer Irish terrorism. However the young signaller that he told this to mis-heard him and thought he had said "Felix", and so the legend was born." (thanks Steve)

Now, his unmistakable visage can be found on bomb squad patches and paraphernalia worldwide. Felix was created by Otto Messmer for Pat Sullivan. You can find out more trivia about Felix at http://www.flash.net/~plaza/felix/.

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Last modified: May 09, 1999