Modern day EOD units had their beginnings in World War II, when the German Luftwaffe greatly increased the number of bombs dropped on British soil. As the number of civilian casualties grew due to delayed explosion of bombs, which had often penetrated several feet into the ground after being dropped from planes, men were trained to defuse the unexploded devices and groups were dedicated to try to keep up with that task. As fuse designs changed, many of these early UXD (unexploded device) soldiers died until more successful means to defeat a new design were developed.