Standing Well Back
Railway IEDs

Strategic IED campaign on railways 1899-1902

I continue to uncover remarkable details of the Boer IED campaign against the British in South Africa.  I have detailed some of these in previous posts and railway attacks here in particular.  What I hadn’t quite realised was the scale of the campaign, which is huge, and indeed provides a template not only for the Russian partisan campaign against Nazi railways of WW2, but also in a sense the insurgent campaign in Iraq in 2003/2004.  Also see my other posts on railway attacks by clicking on the link of subjects in the right hand column – quite a few over history, including Lawrence of Arabia, the German East African campaign of WW1 and others.

The details I’m going to show you highlight that this was very much a strategic campaign targeting the British Military’s ability to move around South Africa. It also goes to demonstrate a comprehensive range of operations by the British military to respond to these IED attacks, by repairing the railway system, maintaining it, and implementing a range of C-IED security measures, not least being the “blockhouse” concept where small detachments of soldiers established patrol bases at frequent intervals along the railway.

I think it’s important to mention that the Boers were particularly effective at targeting the railway in a number of ways:

  1. By taking out key bridges. The number of bridges destroyed and then either repaired or replaced by the British Army is staggering. The Boers had significant numbers of personnel familiar with using explosives, and no lack of explosives.
  2. By blowing numerous culverts were the railway line crossed them.
  3. By damaging rails.
  4. By attacking trains and rolling stock either moving on the line or in sidings. sometimes by explosives and sometimes by simple sabotage such as removing key components, or by fire.
  5. By attacking supporting infrastructure such as watering points and water supplies. Coal supplies were set alight in depots.

There were of course plenty of Boers from the mining community with the experience to set and lay simple charges, and the IED technology evolved over time. My guess is that with no great shortage of explosives, a knowledge of what explosive placement and quality to use evolved rapidly over time – certainly the images below suggest sufficient expertise (or sufficient quantities of explosive) to blow large structures.

A variety of devices initiation methods were used:

  1. Simple burning-fuze time detonation for bridges, and track where no enemy was present.
  2. Command wire attack in an ambush situation on a train coming down the line, so the Boer’s were in sight of, but a tactical bound away from the site of the explosion.
  3. Victim operated devices placed under rails which were initiated by the train (as discussed here)

I’ve obtained a copy of the report written by the British Army Royal Engineer responsible for running and repairing the railway, where he details a lot of the repair work undertaken – from these I can derive details of the successful IED attacks over quite a period. To be clear, this account doesn’t focus on the IED attacks themselves in particular but the running of the railway as a system, and with the repair process as a part of that but we can draw useful analysis of the IED campaign against the railways from it.  So here’s some summaries and exemplar detail. I should mention that the name of this Engineer officer is Édouard Percy Cranvill Girouard. (!) Or rather Lieutenant Colonel EPV Girouard KCMG, DSO, RE, to give him his full title.

  • Largely because of the distances involved, the British Army, relied extensively on the railway system for strategic movement and routine logistics. There were 4600 miles of track in the system in a series of interconnected networks.
  • The British Military took over the operation of the railways completely in 1899, retaining local staff were possible. There were, of course, challenges were railway works were Boer sympathisers. This was a managerial challenge. A huge “lesson-learned” for the Royal Engineers was the need to develop competency in complex railway systems management.
  • Repairs to the railways were often carried out under fire, or at least in the presence of the enemy
  • Water is a crucial component of running a steam railway and the Boers realised this and disrupted water supplies too. The British on occasions resorted to running “water trains” to supply water for other trains. At one point the entire water supply for the railways around Bloemfontein was cut by the Boers from April 1900.
  • The number of bridges damaged by explosions is significant. here’s a summary of bridges reconstructed following an attack – divided into two lists depending on whether they were built originally in imperial dimensions or metric:

So that’s a total of 278 railway bridges requiring reconstruction following attack by the Boers with explosives.  After these were repaired, military posts were set up to guard every span over 30ft – leaving only smaller bridges,  culverts and regular track as the target for Boer IEDs. As you can see, that’s quite a manpower bill in itself in terms of a counter-IED strategy. Later, blockhouses were set up providing a blockhouse protected against rifle fire and surrounded by barbed wire every 2000 yards along the railway lines, each manned by a small number of troops (about ten each) – quite an investment in resources, but crucial to keep logistics functioning.

Here’s just a few of the bridges damaged by Boer IEDs, and subsequently repaired:

The Modder River Bridge:

The Vaal River Bridge:

The Colenso Bridge over the Thukela river with two parallel Royal Engineer replacement bridges being built (often under enemy fire)

The Orange River bridge, with replacement bridge alongside

The Norvalspont Bridge: This bridge was repaired in 14 days, or at least a secondary Laine installed (see the rails at the base)..

The Bridge at Fourteen Streams

I could post many more pictures of IED damaged bridges, but I hope I’ve got my point over that this was a strategic IED campaign, and required a strategic repose from he British Army.  The files I have obtained detail the amazingly short periods of time it took the Sappers to temporarily rebuild many of these significant bridges.  Here’s an excerpt of just one page of dozens more, note the speed of the engineer operation:

 

As well as these major bridges, many smaller bridges were also blown along with probably hundreds of culverts. Lines and points were damaged either by pulling them up or damaging them too with explosives. To give an idea of intensity of IED attacks, this is an excerpt listing just one month of attacks on just one part of the network:

With the adoption of the pressure sensitive IEDs used by the Boers, train engines were armoured to protect the crew and then trucks were pushed ahead of the engine on every “first train of the day” as sacrificial elements to initiate any IEDs ahead of the train.

One particular counter-measure against IEDs that I have discovered fascinates me and returns to the theme of Remotely Operated Vehicles. An “inventor” in England suggested deploying a carriage powered by a heavy electric motor some distance ahead of the engine, to which it was connected by long electric leads. So a wire controlled ROV on rails, in effect. This was trialed in theatre (like sometimes such ideas still are!) but found to be impractical, for the following reasons:

  • It was sacrificial and was expensive in itself to be replaced.
  • It was difficult to control, keeping the wires sufficiently taut so the train didn’t run over them or have the leads pulled from the controller.
  • The wires caught in any trackside object (including trees, blockhouses, telegraph poles etc.
  • It couldn’t cope with curves without causing more problems.
  • The Boers had already started using electrically initiated command wire IEDs anyway, so could ignore the ROV.

Nonetheless this demonstrates, that even in 1901 that innovative ideas were being sought to deal with IED threats. And .. it’s another early ROV.

With regards to other innovations, this next one is a bit peculiar too. Over time the “blockhouses” placed 200 yards apart were added to so there was even less distance between them. The gaps between were under observation (in some cases at night with the use of searchlights) to prevent insurgents placing IEDs on the rails and patrolled frequently. Do this was a strategic effort to observe all of the communication routes used by there British.  Another innovative concept implemented, I kid you not, was the use of specialised bicycles.  These “war cycles” consisted, at first, of two bicycles, fastened on a common frame with wheels adapted so that the cycles ran on opposite rails.  two sliders would pedal between blockhouses providing route coverage. The adapted wheels enabled the cyclists to use both hands to fire weapons , and progress was relatively stealthy.  Later, a larger “8 man” war-cycle was built proving more firepower. a lot of these machines were made in Cape Town and used by the Royal Australian Cycle Corps.

Other innovative responses to attacks included this fabulous add-on armour to a train (admittedly not necessary against IEDs). British soldiers, almost inevitably, came up with the nickname:

The conflict also prompted innovative use of other battlefield technologies such as armoured vehicles, and use (by both sides) of wireless radio communications – perhaps a first in a conflict.

To summarise, I think we can see in this conflict:

  • A strategic and extensive IED campaign by the Boers as a part of an insurgency campaign. The patterns of similar strategies with later campaigns up to the modern day are clear, and in particular the Russian inspired partisan campaign against the Nazi rail system in WW2.
  • A coherent response of sorts from the British Army, in terms of resourcing appropriate management control of the crucial national rail network
  • A component of that response included resourcing repair teams and military engineering capabilities of sufficient size and flexibility to respond to the intensity of IED attacks
  • A manpower intensive (but ultimately successful) security operation to protect the exposed logistic capability
  • A search for innovative counter IED methodologies and ideas, some of them implemented successfully but time wasted on others. Sounds familiar.

 

 

19th Century

IEDs in the Boer War

I’m currently digging in to instances of the British Army using IEDs in various campaigns. There’s a couple of interesting stories from the Siege of Mafeking (1899-1900). The British were surrounded at Mafeking and held out for quite a period against the Boers.   They were short of supplies, but led by Baden-Powell used all sorts of ingenious methods, including improvised explosive devices (and hoax explosive devices) to keep the Boers at bay. Certainly the Boers were intimidated by the threat of these improvised landmines (often placed in likely artillery positions). The Boers too made extensive use of IEDs at this time.

Other munitions were developed at a workshop in the railway yard.  There were a large number of improvised grenades made , using dynamite, a tin can and a burning fuze.   Other IEDs used Boer artillery shells that had failed to function, and indeed on more than one occasion using recovered Boer IEDs that and been rendered safe. Here’s the description of one such, by Baden-Powell the Garrison-Commander, talking about a forward Boer position that they abandoned:

Their somewhat noisy retirement made me suspicious, and two scouts were sent on to see if all was clear. They found some wires, quite newly laid, and a mine of nitro-glycerine, so something equally soothing, awaiting our entrance into the work. The wires were therefore cut and wound in for future use against the layers. And while we sang ‘God save the Queen,’ the Boers were probably touching the button at the other end of the wire with considerable impatience at their failure of their fireworks.

Seasoned “standingwellback” readers will recall that I have written before  about Boer railway line IEDs here.

The defenders too used electrically initiated IEDs – one here was awarded a “Mention in Dispatches” thus:

Koffyfontein Defence Force-Corporal H J Jellard (promoted Sergeant); on October 11, for exposing himself to heavy fire at 60 yards’ range when getting on to a debris heap to connect a wire from a battery to a mine, and also for holding an advanced position with assistance of one native

One particularly effective method of delivering improvised grenades to the target was drawn by Baden-Powell himself – no mean artist:

Sgt Page (other reports name him as Sgt Moffatt) used a fishing rod and line with the grenade attached to the end of the casting line. Apparently he could deliver the improvised grenade a distance of 100 yards with some precision.  Baden-Powell suggest that the fishing rod technique replaced a mechanical spring device which was less effective (a technique seen in recent years in Syria). The Baden-Powell sketch was then used as a basis for this image below, which also shows on the right an ingenious “dummy” to draw fire.

In one of those odd parallels, you may recall that I wrote about an improvised artillery piece used during the Boxer rebellion (1899) here, that had been dug up in a garden. Well there was also an improvised artillery piece art Mafeking also used in 1899. It too was dug up in a garden It is described here by Baden-Powell himself:

The third gun was one which Mr. Rowlands dug up from his garden: an old muzzle-loading ship’s gun with a history.  We had it cleaned up, sighted, and mounted on a carriage, and it did right good work. Owing to its ancient Naval connection the gun was named ‘Lord Nelson.’   It was made in 1770 and weighted 8 cwt. 2 qrs. 10 lbs. These figures 8.2.10 were inscribed upon it and led some people to suppose it was made on February 8, 1810. It also had the initials ‘B. P.’ Upon it, which might have led such people further to suppose that it belonged to me in former times. It didn’t really; those initials stood for Bailey, Pegg & Co., the makers, of Brierley Foundry, Staffordshire. The absence of the Royal Cypher showed that it had not been a Royal Navy gun but belonged to a privateer. According to local tradition two Germans brought it to Linchwe, a neighbouring chief, some forty years ago, and he sold it to the Baralongs for twenty-two oxen, to aid them in their defence against Boer freebooters.  It fired a 10-lb. shot, and carried 2,000 yards, though not with great accuracy. We found its sister-gun in Rustenburg, where in 1881 it had been used by the Boers to shell the British defence works. And a third gun of the same family was found by General Burn-Murdoch near Vryheid; while a fourth stands, I believe, at Brierley Hill, having been presented to the town by the makers.

How extraordinary that in two sieges in separate parts of the world, at the same time, they both used ancient cannon dug up from a garden.

Other artillery pieces were entirely improvised, here described by Baden-Powell again:

Our great gun was our home-made one, ‘The Wolf’ (my nickname from Matabeleland). This was made from a steampipe round which were lapped iron rods which were welded and turned till a good strong barrel was made. The breech and trunnions were bronze castings. The whole was built up by the railway workmen under Mr. Coghlan, the energetic and ingenious foreman, and under the general supervision of Major Panzera. The blast furnace for making the castings alone was a triumph of ingenuity made out of a water-tank lined with firebricks — the blast being introduced through a vacuum brake tube.

The “Wolf” is now held by the Royal Artillery Museum, due to open later this year.

Baden-Powell also mentions this IED attack – reminiscent of more recent IED attacks I have also blogged about here and here

The Boers sent a trolley loaded with dynamite rolling down the railway into Mafeking, but it luckily exploded before reaching us — about a mile outside.

 

Rather oddly Baden-Powell doesn’t mention that the British themselves used the same tactic. On 13th October, a British locomotive pushed TWO carriages full of dynamite out of Mafeking on the railway until they saw Boer’s in the distance. Fuzes were lit and the carriages rolled towards the Boer position – but were detonated by rifle fire from there Boers.
 It’s clear that the demands of the remote and isolated town of Mafeking demanded innovation and improvisation from the occupants – and many of the same pressures were prevalent on the Boer side. I’m struck by the leadership shown in reading Baden-Powell’s notes on his command during the siege. Quite remarkable. It also further highlights the prevalence of improvised munitions in history, and shows the same patterns, driven by tactics and tactical design as we still see today.
Update:   Here’s a pic of the Wolf howitzer, made in the railway workshops in Mafeking, and some improvised munitions for it.  Sometimes Pounder shells fired at the British by the Boers, but which failed to function were recovered, somehow re-fuzed and fired back.
And here’s a sketch of the “Nelson” in action:
19th Century

Discovering London’s bomb disposal facility from 1894

I have written before about the early British  EOD facility on Duck Island, a short distance from Downing Street, at the bottom end of St James’s Park, London. There, barely 100m from 10 Downing St is a small Island at the end of the lake, with a link to the road over a bridge.  The facility was established by Colonel Majendie and his assistant Dr DuPre in about 1894.  Col Majendie, had been working for the Home Office as Chief Inspector of Explosives for over 20 years by then having been first appointed in 1871.  During that time he had dealt with a wide variety of IEDs and associated investigations, and developed some C-IED procedures.  But the world was changing.  Following a visit to Paris that I discussed here and here,  he pushed hard for some similar facilities to the four French EOD facilities dotted around Paris at stratgic locations. The context at the time was an upsurge in anarchist bombings around the world. The 1890s were later described as “the decade of the bomb”. Majendie had undertaken overseas liaisons before, includng with the US authorities during the Fenian campaigns of the 1880s (many of the IEDs were made in the US and shipped to the UK, with US based support).  Majendie reviewed the French EOD techniques and liked what he saw.

Majendie recommended three such facilities be established in London, one on Duck Island to be adjacent to the seat of government, one in “The Gravel Pit” in Hyde Park, adjacent to the district of Oxford St and Mayfair, and one in the moat at the Tower of London, covering the banking district of the city.  Duck Island was the first and I believe that the Hyde Park facility may have existed as well, but I can find no evidence or suggestion that the Tower of London site was ever set up.  The facilities were housed in wooden sheds, (like in Paris) I believe with some form of earth mound in the manner of the French facilities. I understand that amongst the equipment  in Duck Island was a hydraulic press and a mercury bath contraption for lowering an IED into a mercury bath, dissolving the solder which held together some spherical-shelled anarchist devices.  Other devices were dealt with at Woolwich Arsenal Laboratories in some circumstances in a proofing lab there, which also had a blast proof cell.

The EOD facility at Duck Island (that’s my description, not Majendie’s) was operational from November 1894 and was still apparently in use in at least 1914 when some suffragette devices were taken there. IEDs were moved to the facility in the hand cart I described here or later in a specialist vehicle provided by the Army. I don’t know when it fell into disuse.  However in the 1980s the derelict wooden shacks were still there, hidden amongst rhododendron bushes and out of site, out of mind.

At this stage, for reasons that are unclear the Army was tasked with removing the facility, and that task fell to the Royal Engineers. A recce of the site was undertaken, and the remnants of the facilty (fundamentally a rotting wooden shed and its contents) was taken to Chatham and subsequently and regrettably lost or scrapped.  However in the last few days I have been given sight of some photos taken by the Royal Engineers on the recce, now held by the RE Museum .  Regrettably the Royal Engineer’s Museum own the photos and have not given me permission to republish them without a not insignificant licence fee. This website simply doesn’t have the budget for the license fee requested, so all I can say is that the photos appear to show what I believe is a hydraulic press, probably installed by Majendie in 1894. The photos are not too clear but the press appears to be somewhat more complex than the French version that I showed an image at the earlier link.  There appear to be a number of levers which may have been able to be adjusted remotely by attaching lines.  My assessment is that both the French and the British presses were used to “crack open” devices semi-remotely.  By this I mean set up with a specific action prepared, then activated from a distance by means of a rope or line on a lever, activating the press.  A typical anarchist device was contained in two halves of a metal sphere, soldered together.  It may be that a variety of other IED containers, such as tins and boxes could have been opened remotely by this method.  The lightweight wooden huts were cheap and easily repairable and the earth mounds would have been designed to stop shrapnel.

Without more detail, which I’m investigating, I cannot tell more, and I hope to persuade the RE Museum archive to allow me to reproduce the photos without the current expense they ask for.

The use of a hydraulic press is interesting. Majendie would have been very familiar with such presses, his role as Inspector of Explosives meant he investigated industrial explosive accidents and he developed much of the legal regulations surrounding explosives manufacture. Presses were used extensively in the explosive industry to press explosives into shape in gunpowder mills. Presses were also used for some explosive testing. As a former Superintendent of the Woolwich explosive laboratory, Majendie would have been familiar with their use.

By their nature presses are pretty resilient pieces of equipment  – take a look at the hydraulic press channel on YouTube for a feel of what they are capable of.

Some key points :

  1. The facility then was a copy of the French facility, to some degree, and the French EOD/C-IED methodology appears to have been utilised (with variantions) by Majendie and Dr DuPre from 1894.
  2. The site was operational for at least 20 years.
  3. The British and French were not the only EOD operators active in the 1890s in C-IED. See details of New York’s Owen Eagen here http://www.standingwellback.com/home/2012/1/14/the-eod-operator-who-dealt-with-more-ieds-than-anyone-else.html
  4. The facility remained derelict until the 1980s or 1990s but was then demolished and scrapped. The organisation sent to deal with it probably had no clue as to its historical importance.
19th Century

Shopping for IED Components, Then and Now

Modern terrorism today, where it occurs in the West, frequently revolves around terrorists obtaining innocuous materials from which they make explosives and IEDs.  Over recent years Police in the UK and elsewhere have engaged with pharmacies, chemist shops, fertiliser suppliers and others seeking support from the proprietors to report suspicious acquisition of explosives or other items for IED components. On occasion in the last few years legislation has been discussed which might limit the availability of such things as acetone, peroxide and sulphuric acid.  These modern concerns are sensible and a useful “flag” set to trigger – on occasions, in the last few years, successful police operations have interdicted terrorist attacks by being alerted when a terrorist attempted to buy components or precursors for an IED.

Readers of this blog will know that I have a theme of seeking older patterns for what we regard as modern characteristics of terrorist use of IEDs, and there are useful antecedents here.  I have being studying the court transcripts of historical trials and there is a nice example here:

In the 1880s and 1890s, terrorist IEDs were quite common in major European cities like London and Paris. This meant that the public were aware of the threat, suspicious of certain activity, and police operations were significant, as was their engagement with suppliers of material that might be of use to those with evil intent.

In 1894, two Italian anarchists, Guiseppe Farnara and Francis Polti were prosecuted for possession of explosives with intent to endanger life and property. The two had been attempting to make IEDs with pipe work purchased from engineering companies , to be filled with explosives manufactured from supplies purchased from chemists.  The two Italians had tried to purchase iron piping from an engineering firm run by a Mr Cohen at 240 Blackfriars Road in London. One of the managers who worked for Mr Cohen, Thomas Smith, was suspicious of the Italians and the purpose for which they were acquiring the pipe. He persuaded the Italians to return to the shop at a future date when he would have the piping and end caps ready for them.  Mr Smith then reported his suspicions to the local police station, and a team of police officers subsequently “staked out” the premises waiting for the Italians to return. Smith was also able to elicit that the suspects were having other pipework supplied by another company, Millers, of 44 Lancaster Street Borough Road. The police were able to follow that line of investigation too. So, Cohen’s establishment was staked out and Smith was given clear instructions on how to engage in a dialogue with the terrorists.  The terrorists were put under a major surveillance operation , involving quite a number of police and followed around London. I’m intrigued as to what we would regard as a highly proficient surveillance operation, comparable to today’s surveillance operations – for example, a police sergeant described how a terrorist, carrying the IED components from Cohen’s, was followed on to an omnibus. a total of four police officers, part of the surveillance team, operating undercover, were also aboard that same bus. One sat in the seat immediately behind the suspect. After leaving the bus, the suspect apparently carried out anti-surveillance drills, looking for tails. At this point he was arrested. Subsequent investigation of the suspect’s living accommodation found explosive recipes and IED manufacturing instructions along with other chemicals including a bottle of Sulphuric Acid. The instructions were disguised as a recipe for “polenta”, and appear to be a chlorate explosive of some kind which would be initiated by the addition of acid.

The terrorists had approached Taylor’s drug company of 66 High Holborn and bought two pounds of Sulphuric Acid in a bottle.

In the trial the government explosive chemist, Dr DuPre gave expert evidence to the manufacture of the explosives. Col Majendie, the Chief Inspector of Explosives and the nearest equivalent to the head of the bomb squad also gave evidence. Interestingly the court transcript is deliberately vague, I think, when describing the initiation system, and the “polenta”  explosive.

My view is that the device would have been designed to be thrown, and initiated when the device hits a target, so in effect was a very large impact grenade, such as the device used to assassinate the Tsar a few years earlier. But something more sophisticated is possible. Readers might wish to refer to some early blog posts about similar devices.

http://www.standingwellback.com/home/2011/11/7/the-tsar-and-the-suicide-bomber.html

http://www.standingwellback.com/home/2013/12/5/the-ied-technology-of-propaganda-of-the-deed-1884.html

http://www.standingwellback.com/home/2012/10/5/the-curious-death-of-louis-lingg.html

I’m also intrigued by the use of the word “polenta” to describe a yellow chlorate based mix or compound, which seems to have similarities to these Irish chlorate based explosives that were encountered in the 1920s.

From this one case we can see that a population who were aware of IED threats in 1894 were able to report suspicious acquisition of components and that the police were able to act on those tips and plan subsequent detailed surveillance operations.

19th Century

1894 Bomb Disposal Techniques

I have blogged before at an IED disposal system and associated organisation set up in Paris, France in the late part of the 19th century.  In my earlier blogs I have discussed the “containment vehicle” used to transport suspect IEDs to one of four disposal sites set up around Paris, and the use of hydraulic presses to dismantle IEDs once taken thefre.

I have recovered a little more detail about both, in some reports written by Colonel Majendie, the British explosives expert, who visited Paris in early 1894 and considered the techniques being used , adapting some for use in London.

Firstly the vehicle and containment system, originally material posted here.   Here now is Majendie’s description:

 

The bomb is deposited on a quantity of wood shavings or similar elastic material in the body of the phaeton….At one time the idea was entertained of constructing a bomb proof cart for this purpose – or at any rate a cart by which by mans of iron shields would prevent the lateral dispersion of fragments should the bomb unfortunately explode in transit. But the idea was abandoned in view of the fact that infernal machines in some cases contained very large charges of explosives (e.g the machine which exploded at the Rue de Clichy contained between 50 and 60 lbs), and of the considerations, 1st. that the cart which would resist the explosion of such a charge would be proportionally inconvenient to bring into action, besides attracting much attention… and that in the event of a bomb containing a charge in excess of what the cart was calculated to resist exploding therein, the iron and stout structure of the cart itself would probably seriously aggravate the effect.  

Majendie goes on to discuss that the presses available at each of the four disposal sites (which are pictured i the earlier post referenced above) which often succeeded in dismantling the IEDs without them exploding, but on occasion when an explosion did occur, its effect was usually “greatly diminished” by cracking of the outer shell.  Interestingly Majendie also reported three other techniques used during EOD operations:

a. Sometimes small dynamite charges were used to open the container of a bomb.

b. The French also used a mechanical device with three movable arms, or “holders” into which IEDs of different sizes can be fixed and lowered into a bath of mercury. Some devices were sealed with the use of solder and by immersing that part in mercury, for about 24 hours, caused the tin in the solder to dissolve breaking any soldered seal.

c. if the team attending the site of an incident felt it too dangerous to move they would “blow in place”. Majendie disagreed with this approach and recommended a degree of risk to avoid inadvertently seconding and supplementing the anarchist’s intentions.

As a result of the visit, Majendie developed the small, light handcart for transporting devices, that I showed in an earlier post here. The first of London’s disposal facilities was set up in 1894 on Duck Island , with others planned at Hyde Park, the Tower of London and in some circumstances a facility at Woolwich.   Later, in 1895, a truck was provided for transporting devices to the disposal facility by the War Office.  Two years later in 1896, the French authorities were using the first X-ray imaging systems to examine suspect IEDs.

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