Standing Well Back

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Russian command wire device – Crimean war, 1855

I have blogged a few times earlier this year about Russian”stay behind” devices and here.   In these earlier posts I also discussed some evidence that victim operated explosive devices were left behind when the Russians retreated from various places in the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856.

I have just found a contemporary translation of a French report from the Crimean War detailing massive command-wire electrically initiated devices from that conflict, intended to target advancing French and British forces.  So it appears that the Russians were making significant use of both victim operated explosive devices as well as electrical command wire devices in this conflict. I don’t think that has been widely recognised by historians.  Bearing in mind electrically initiated explosive devices were still something of a novelty in the 1850s, this really shows that the Russians had grasped the potential of the use in warfare of such devices and had planned and probably succeeded to detonate several simultaneously. Although the length of the wires are not specified, I think they were fired from a considerable distance, from a central command post. I find the obvious parallels with this concept in 1855 and the F-10 “stay behind” devices used in WW2  by Russia, 90 or so years apart, detailed in my earlier post very interesting, as well as early adoption of this initiation technology. The fact that the command wire ran such a distance , and partly under the sea, and that there were a number of them shows significant technical, tactical and operational capability with this early use of the technology.

The use of the devices was in the Battle for Malakoff in September 1855, which was in the main a French effort, but British forces played a key role in the Battle for the Redoubt. It was a bloody battle, with 20-30,000 deaths and 19 generals killed.

Here is an excerpt from the translation.  Well done that sapper for cutting the command wire to the Malakoff redoubt with his axe!

I have the tale of another quite remarkable electrically initiated device from the 19th Century, from some new research I’ve been doing, up my sleeve, this time an American device that nearly sank a battleship. Watch this space.

Follow up:

I continue to find further hints and comments about the use of command wire IEDs by the Russians during the siege of Sebastopol.  For example this comment in a letter from General Charles Gordon discussing the aftermath in Sebastopol:

“We have traced voltaic wires to nearly every powder magazine in the place”

Also this photograph taken shortly after the battle. Although the image is not that clear the title is surprising. Here we have a Royal Engineer Search Team (REST) looking for an IED command wire, in 1855.

Carronade Battery, flanking the Ditch of the Redan. Sappers looking for Electric Wires communicating with the Powder Magazine

 

20th Century

Palestine 1935 -Arab and British IEDs

I’ve been digging away at a few historical instances of IEDs using artillery shells or other ordnance, either recovered from battlefields or from storage depots. – These were seen very frequently, of course, in the Iraq conflict of the previous decade and still occur today – but I’ve been looking back for earlier instances.

I have lost a reference that I’m sure I had found discussing Belgian resistance groups in WW2 “steaming out” explosive from munitions recovered from WW1 battlefields so I have no detail on that. But I do have some reports from IRA devices in the 1920’s that used stolen artillery shells.  Recently I have picked up threads of some interesting history from Waziristan (now NW Pakistan) in 1937 where the British were involved in a nasty little campaign against the Pashtun in the area (on and off over a few decades actually) – but there are reports of both locals AND the British military using discarded or recovered munitions in “booby traps”.  The British Army were no angels when it came to what we today call IEDs.  I have yet to uncover more details but I then stumbled across a great report from 1935-1936, but from “Palestine”: where British forces were dealing with an IED campaign from the Arabs at the time.

The report I have has some terrific diagrams – in the interests of not teaching the wrong people, I’m not going to say where I found this report and I’m going to blur a bit some of the diagrams and be a little vague about some technicalities. so if the diagrams or explanations don’t quite make full sense, that’s the reason.  The devices are largely what we would today call “victim operated” – i.e. with some sort of switch that an unsuspecting victim would trigger.  If I’m honest I think the author is describing the devices “second hand” – some aspects of his report are doubtful, but interesting nonetheless.

The first device was found and defused by an infantry patrol of the South Wales Borderers on a railway line between Jerusalem and Artuf. They noticed the switch laid on the rail, dealt with the device themselves, threw the components in a wheelbarrow and delivered the device to a Royal Engineer in Lydda station.

Although this device above used HE extracted from “old shells”, a number of other devices used the shells themselves, with a very idiosyncratic methodology of drilling a hole in the side of the shell, and then inserting a plain detonator into it.  The shell was then buried under a rail and a striker pin attached to the rail such that the defection of the rail when a train passes pushed the pin into the detonator. If I’m frank, I find the author’s report here a little unconvincing, as I cant see a safe way of setting the device below. Elsewhere the author of the report, an Engineer officer, doesn’t appear to be aware of the existence of delay detonators – but I may be doing him a disservice – did delay detonators exist in the 1930s?

The report mentions an interesting device rendered safe – a “daisy chain of artillery shells” along the Nablus-Tulkarm Road, with shells spaced out every few feet, a total of ten 6″ shells  buried a foot deep alongside the road – something that EOD operators in Iraq in say 2004/5 would have found very familiar. However the device had been placed by an amateur and did not have a viable initiation system.

Here’s an interesting victim operated device that was successfully made safe. I’ve hidden the key part of the mechanism but those that need to know can work it out, I’m sure. The device was placed on a track used by Jewish settlers.  The device was dealt with by pulling the string causing it to initiate.

I confess this next device described in the report I find a little unconvincing – while it might theoretically work its seems too tricky to manufacture with any ease. The idea of making a circuit with a key in the lock would be difficult to do reliably. Tell me if you disagree

 

The final device, which I won’t show because I suspect it’s a very effective device used a mousetrap and string to trigger an IED protecting a stone “sangar” sniper position near Nur-esh Shems. Interestingly the device was allegedly laid by an Arab revolutionary called “Fauzi Khawaji” from Iraq, who had been formally trained as an officer at the French St Cyr academy.

The report also mentions that the British Royal Engineers, (specifically 2nd Field Coy RE and 12 Field Coy RE) used IEDs themselves to protect the Jerusalem water supply – they booby trapped a number of manhole covers and other British used sanagars. The first victim was a water company official who hadn’t been told…. the official wasn’t seriously injured…  but as a result the RE increased the size of the explosive charges from 2lb to 5 lb!  the initiation system for these Royal Engineer IEDs was a “bare wire loop switch”….which I won’t explain further here.  I find this very strange given the theoretical availability of “proper” switches in the RE inventory.  These “British” devices were used elsewhere too and when they caused casualties the British blamed the victims for having a  device that exploded prematurely.

Given the reports I am piecing together about British use of IEDs in Waziristan, also in 1937, it seems that this tactic was not a one off. Make of that what you will.

The Arabs supply of munitions to use in IEDs were thought to have come from WW1 ammunition Depots in Gaza or Rafah (either Turkish or British)  that were mismanaged after WW1. The task of dealing with these munitions supply dumps after WW1 was given to a contractor (!) who allegedly cut corners, leaving a significant quantity “under sand” which could be easily recovered.

 

 

20th Century

HMS Barham – Magazine explosion

Explosions, especially big ones, are horrendously nasty. The the link below is to footage of HMS Barham’s ammunition magazine exploding following a U-Boat torpedo attack will stay with you, I’m afraid.  The battleship was attacked by U-331.  She was hit by three torpedoes simultaneously.  4 minutes later her magazine exploded, due to a fire from the outer magazine spreading to the main magazine. Amazingly about a third of her crew survived, but well over 800 of the crew perished.  The event occurred off the coast of Egypt in November 1941.

(Just being careful about licenses go to You Tube and enter HMS Barham.)

There are some interesting details on the HMS Barham association website here.
War is awful, don’t forget.

 

 

20th Century

The IED that sank a US Aircraft Carrier

Ships in ports are potentially vulnerable to terrorist attack. Their size and value make them attractive to insurgents, and while ships are at sea they are probably relatively invulnerable. But tied up in a busy port with small boats in large numbers and with the difficulty of establishing secure perimeters around them, they become a real target. Most people remember the USS Cole attack in October 2000, but few remember the successful IED attack on  a US aircraft carrier in May 1964.

There are a number of reasons why this attack is no widely known:

  • The story was “sat” on by the US Defense Department at the time, who only announced that the ship had been damaged.
  • The Aircraft Carrier the “Card” was a WW2 aircraft carrier and wasn’t performing as an aircraft carrier at the time. It was shuttling military equipment as a ferry/transport ship from Japan to Vietnam. It had been redesignated from the USS Card to the USNS Card accordingly.

USNS Card, a WW2 aircraft carrier

  • Although technically it sank , it settled in shallow water in the port and was repaired, and refloated relatively quickly.

Because the story was squashed not much attention has been paid to the attackers and the IED they used. The attack was made by insurgents from the 65th Special Operations Group. The USNS Card had been shuttling heavy equipment into Saigon Harbour for three years – aircraft, armoured vehicles and the like. it and a sister ship, the USNS Core had attracted the attention of local insurgents.

There had been an earlier attempted attack on the Core, in late 1963, which had failed but the IEDs had actually been recovered by the same terrorist that had laid them, without detection. It was assessed that the battery power source had failed. I find it interesting that the attack in 2000 on the USS Cole had been preceded by a a failed attack (that similarly was not detected) on the USS The Sullivans earlier in the year.

For the attack on the Crd the battery power was replaced, and two devices were made, each weighing about 40kg.  Some of the explosive was probably a US military C4 demolition charge stolen or trafficked by the Viet Cong from the South Vietnamese Navy, and the remainder was some other type of explosive, possibly TNT. The devices were transported by a  small boat and then carried through a sewer to the vicinity of the docked USNS Card. A port security boat had stopped the small boat but had been bribed to let the men pass. From the sewer the two insurgents swam to the Card. Their devices must have had some sort of flotation.  One they attached to the ship near the bilges, and the other by the engine compartment.

One report suggests that the power supply, a battery was stuck on a pole sticking out of the water. A timer was then set – I cant identify from reports the specific nature of the timer, but I’m going to guess an adapted watch. I can’t be sure if there was a single initiator system or two seperate ones.

After the explosion the aircraft settled on the bottom of the 48ft deep port, its superstructure remaining above the water. In less than a month it was refloated and taken to Subic Bay in the Philippines for repairs. although the US Defence Department played down the attack, the North Vietnamese made a thing of it and even issued a stamp commemorating the attack. There are strangely conflicting reports about deaths caused by the attack.

You can find an interesting interview with one of the perpertators here.

 

20th Century

Lt Finch, Proto-ATO

In my last post I mentioned the command-wire IED used in Salonika to bring down a German Fighter ace, and that “Lt Finch” of the Army Ordnance Corps designed the device.  Well, it turns out that Lt Finch was a remarkable character – and since this blog sometimes veers into stories of interesting characters, such as “Bimbashi Garland” (another former member of the Army Ordnance Corps) I think his story is worthy of a brief recount here. I won’t tell the whole piece about his device because it’s going to be shortly included in a book by a former colleague on the exploits of the Ammunition Trade in the British Army – so you’ll have to wait for that for technical details of the device and read it in his book. I’ll let you know when it is published.

  • George Finch was born in Australia in 1888. He was brought up in Paris by an eccentric mother.
  • He was an outstanding piano player and nearly became a concert pianist. He was a clearly a born adventurer and scaled both Beachy Head and Notre Dame cathedral (at night) illegally.
  • He decided to study physics and chemistry in Zurich so sat down and learned German in 4 months to enable this.  He passed out with the highest marks, winning a prize. One of his lecturers was Einstein.
  • While in Zurich he climbed mountains, with his brother Max, making a number of “first ascents” on some serious mountains, inventing modern alpinism, which eschewed the traditional use of local guides. He invented several mountaineering pieces of equipment, still in use today, including lightweight anoraks and down filled jackets.
  • He was very critical of “traditional” British mountaineering, and the use of guides. He believed that modern alpinists should not use guides and be capable of leading serious pitches and choosing routes. In may ways he was a forerunner of post-WW2 British alpining techniques – just two men on a mountain, pitting their own skills together against the elements. But the British Alpine Club took decades to forgive him, and his somewhat abrasive character.
  • In 1912 he was appointed as a research chemist at Woolwich Arsenal Laboratory (the same Lab that Garland graduated from 8 years earlier). He also started work at Imperial College London, where he later became a distinguished Professor.

Finch in the laboratory

  • In 1914 he joined the Army as a Gunner Officer and ended up in Salonika where he worked for the Ordnance Department, managing ammunition stocks as an Ammunition Technical Officer. He was intimately involved in a major project to recondition many thousands of crucial artillery rounds that were exuding explosives.
  • He received great credit for his careful professionalism in designing the balloon explosive device discussed in my last post and about which more details will be published in a future book by JB.
  • In 1921 his role in a Mallory-led reconnaissance expedition to Everest was blocked by committee men in the Alpine Club. At the time he was the foremost alpine mountaineer in the country. He grew his hair long, wouldn’t wear a hat unless he had to, and hadn’t been to public school, so he didn’t fit the “establishment” Alpine Club.
  • But in 1922 he was part of Mallory’s first proper Everest expedition. He invented the oxygen system used in this climb and subsequently by Hilary and Tensing in 1953. He got as high as 450m from the summit in 1922  (higher than anyone ever before) but turned back when his partner became ill. He could have been first to summit were it not for this drama
  • In WW2 he ran a team improving British fire brigades responding to German Luftwaffe  incendiary bomb attacks by looking at the physics of how fire spreads. He conducted detailed post bomb analysis of incendiary attacks as a precursor to developing new firefighting techniques.   Later from an office in Whitehall he developed the “J-Bomb”, a much improved incendiary munition – 800,000 of which were dropped by Bomber Command from 1943.

    • The J-Bomb produced a 2 foot wide by 15 foot long white flame which burned for one minute or more.
  • The J-Bomb designed by Finch eventually used a liquid fuel/metal powder mix which is sort of interesting in terms of modern munition design.  He also helped the Americans develop a similar system, tuned for Japanese buildings and was much praised by the Americans for his pragmatic scientific contributions. By strange coincidence his Office in the Old War Office Building in Whitehall was later occupied 50 years later by an Ammunition Technical Officer.
  • He became a well respected Professor at Imperial College. In the 1950s he became the scientific adviser to India, and redesigned his oxygen system for Hillary’s ascent of Everest in 1953. He was a fellow of the Royal Society and awarded the Hughes Medal (other winners included Nils Bohr and Fermi). I believe he was a member of the Nobel Prize for Physics Committee.

So an interesting chap, to say the least. He had three wives. During the WW1 (as a young Captain) he had returned from Salonika and found out his first wife pregnant. It was ten months since he was last home…. and she told him she was having an affair with a Lt Col. He caught a ferry to France, found the Colonel, “thrashed him” and cracked on with a new girl.

So, our erstwhile Gunner/Ordnance Corps Ammunition officer was someone quite remarkable. You can read more about his mountaineering life in the book ” The Maverick Mountaineer” .

Sua Tela Tonanti.

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