Company B was in continuous contact with the enemy for the next 34 days, fighting in the hedgerow country of Normandy, until finally on July 11, 1944 Lieutenant Harris would sustain the wound that put him out of the war for good. On nine occasions Fletcher Harris narrowly escaped near certain death situations—and he describes his survival as a miracle in each case. In one instance, while moving along a hedgerow on a patrol, the Germans activated a command detonated mine just as he came up next to it; but, it failed to go off. On several other occasions he had come under machine gun fire or intense small arms fire at close range, but, in each case, sometimes inexplicably, he escaped untouched.
http://www.purpleheartaustin.org/harris.htm
To make a command detonated mine does not require cell phones. One just can screw off the fuze from an artillery shell, pack in some plastic explosive and run wires to a battery.
