Standing Well Back
1890-1900

Improvised Artillery

The image above shows a small artillery piece. The artillery piece is actually improvised and how it got put together, how the ammunition was provided for it and how it was used is a story worth telling.

In 1899 the Boxer Rebellion erupted in China. This was a violent anti-foreign, nationalist uprising. In June 1900 large numbers of Boxer fighters converged in Peking. Many foreigners sought refuge in an area known as the Legation quarter, where a number of foreign legations had their headquarters and residences. The Chinese government response was at best ineffectual and at worst complicit, eventually declaring war on the foreign powers.   The Legation quarter, remarkably was then under siege for 55 days, occupied by the foreign legations working together in defence and by a number of Christian Chinese. There were about 473 foreign civilians, 409 soldiers from eight countries, ( Japan, Germany, Russia, Great Britain, France, Italy, USA and Austria-Hungary) and  about 3,000 Chinese Christians present in the blockaded area. The foreign powers, represented by an Eight nation alliance shared responsibility for the defence of a makeshift perimeter and waited for relief columns.

From a “Standingwellback” perspective the siege had some interesting aspects – electrically initiated (improvised?) mines were placed in the major navigable river to prevent European ships from accessing Peking by a water network. I’m hunting out details of these.  The Boxers also tunnelled extensively under the legations and a number of extremely large IEDs were initiated, killing hundreds.

For the defence of the legation area, the defending legations had a number of small arms and a very small number of heavier weapons.  These heavier weapons included the following:

  1. The U.S. Marines brought an 1895 model Colt machine gun. Its firing system used a lever action device not unlike that of the Winchester and similar rifles but mechanized to fire 450 rounds per minute. The Marines’ Colt machine gun was mounted on wheels as if it was a miniature cannon. If these guns were not raised or mounted in some way, their gas-powered firing mechanisms gouged holes in the ground, spraying the gunners with dirt. This trait gave the gun its nickname of the Potato Digger.
  2. Another machine gun, a Maxim, came with the Austrian troops.
  3. The British legation had a Nordenfelt four-barreled, rapid-firing, 1-pounder gun. The Swedish-designed piece was originally made for naval use and was capable of piercing the boilers of attacking torpedo boats. The Nordenfelt was prone to jam after every four shots,
  4. The Italians brought another 1-pounder gun.
  5. The Russian contingent had a large quantity of 9 pounder shells, but had omitted to bring a 9 pounder gun.

Considerable ingenuity was required to maximise the defensive firepower.  When the Italian one-pounder piece ran low on shells, Gunner’s Mate Joseph Mitchell of the USS Newark manufactured new ammunition. Pails full of spent enemy bullets were gathered up and handed to Mitchell. Using discarded shell casings and improvised propellant, he melted the bullets to make new projectiles.

At one point an ancient muzzle-loading bronze cannon barrel was recovered (some reports say it was dug up, others that it was found in a junk shop). Now, Gunners can be an inventive bunch, (some of my best friends, etc) and Mitchell, the US gunner, worked out that they could fire improvised grapeshot from this old bronze cannon. Things were that desperate.  Then someone realised that the bore was the same diameter as the “useless” Russian 9-pounder ammunition.   The barrel was roped to a stout roof-beam and wheels from an Italian gun carriage.  The 9 pounder rounds were taken apart, the propellant stuffed down the muzzle with the projectile rammed on top, it became a remarkable effective weapon and perhaps crucial the defence.


Loading the International Gun

Chinese solders and Boxer forces built barricades and advanced them foot by foot, encircling the legations ever tighter.  Weapons fire from the Chinese was often constant – artillery, small arms, firecrackers and bricks lobbed over walls. The defenders returned fire with what they could. So here we had a barrel found by the British, on an Italian carriage, fired by American gunners, with Russian shells. So while some called the improvised artillery “Old Betsy “ or “the Dowager Empress” it became best known as the International Gun. It played a crucial role in maintaining the defences.   It remains today in the US Marine Corps Museum, I believe.  I’ll have to zip down to Quantico on my next US trip to see it.

1910-1920

Warflour, Paxo and Irish Cheddar

I’ve been doing more research on the IEDs used by the Irish “volunteers” between 1919 and 1922 and found some interesting aspects.   One should remember the time-line of Irish Republicanism that these events of 1919-1922 sit on – Irish revolutionaries were using explosive devices much earlier, certainly as early as 1803, IEDs were used extensively by the Fenians in the latter half of the 19th century, again in 1939 and of course from 1970 onwards.   The window of 1919-122 is just one point on the time line, but is worthy of study for all that.

Firstly, explosives, and I apologise for being somewhat circumspect in the detail here – no need to give modern day revolutionaries with other causes the full recipes. EOD folk can approach me directly of course and I’ll point you in the right direction if I know you. At the beginning of the campaign the explosives used was gelignite stolen from quarries, along with “No 6” detonators.  This supply began to become more difficult to obtain and so the Irish volunteers identified chemists and pharmacists and those with military experience from WW1 to develop home made explosives (HME).  There were three types, each given a nickname. I won’t describe their manufacturing process:

“Warflour”: Warflour was a nitrated resin, using the ingredients of resin, flour, acid and potassium chlorate.

“Irish Cheddar”:  This was the nickname for a form of cheddite, an explosive used quite extensively in the early 20th century, its ingredients being potassium chlorate, nitrobenzene and castor oil. Some sources suggest that “Cheddar” included home made DNT.  As an aside, this HME was used extensively by the Polish underground in WW2 in their IEDs, which I’ll write about in a future blog post.

“Paxo”. This was a mix of potassium chlorate and paraffin wax.  It was the favoured HME in the 1939 campaign but was developed during this period.

The IRA also developed its own detonators at the time, and I won’t describe them here other than to say that interestingly they were non-metallic and quite an effective design.

In terms of IEDs, and further to my earlier post, the IRA of the time made several thousand grenades, mostly under the Dublin Bicycle shop at 198 Parnell St and latterly at other facilities. It appears that the design of these were copied from the German “Egg” grenade of WW1. These were essentially quite a simple design,small and preferred because they were easier to conceal than a larger grenade.  They used the standard sort of fuze with a spring-loaded fly-off lever.  Occasionally larger improvised grenades were used – this is a diagram of one of them, made by an IRA engineer involved in their manufacture.

IEDs used for roadside ambushes were usually cylindrical pipes, either drain pipes or preferably the cylinders from a  cart axle, filled with gelignite or HME and electrically initiated.  The IRA of the time were ambushing British troops on the roads and certainly learned the trick of laying multiple roadside IEDs at the same spacing as convoy vehicles.  I can find little record of timed IEDs of the time, but the later 1939 “S-Plan” campaign in Great Britain concentrated on the use of timed IEDs.  The cylinders were closed by two end plates – initially with a bolt running down the central axis, and later by a bolt that fitted to the outside of the cylinder.   Command wire initiated devices of this type were occasionally adapted to be come booby traps by the use of a grenade striker system.   The diagram below, drawn by an IRA man shows one such IED.

Further research into the improvised IRA mortar described in my earlier post has thrown up more interesting facts. The background to the IRA requirement was that their roadside campaign was increasingly forcing the police and military to confine themselves to barracks (today we might call them “FOBs”), and the IRA leadership felt they needed a means to attack these barracks directly.  A number of IRA members had fought in the British Army in WW1 and had experienced trench mortars, either as a user or recipient.   The IRA funded a secret delegation to visit Germany and buy arms on the black market , including a German trench mortar but this mission was unsuccessful.  As a fall-back they asked their engineers to develop a home made mortar based on the British “Stokes” trench mortar.  I’m not sure how closely they followed the design, but the IRA version appears to have been of same calibre as the Mk 1 Stokes mortar (3 inch) and projected  an 11lb mortar bomb, again the same as a Mk 1 Stokes mortar.  It appears that the IRA was able to obtain British Army manual for the Stokes mortar.  the tube was made by Matt Furlong’s brother, Joe, at a railway workshop, and Matt (who later died testing a version of the mortar) made the bombs for it at 198 Parnell St.

Additional research leads me to believe that the additional safety feature in the mortar fuze that Matt Furlong removed before his accident was remarkably similar to a fuze safety feature I saw in 1990 or 1991 – on another IRA mortar.  That’s seventy years apart, and essentially the same safety feature being used on an improvised mortar.

1880-1890

IED Response Operations 1880 – 1910

For some time now I have been digging slowly and methodically for details of late 19th century techniques for dealing with IEDs, mainly focused on the activities of the London based Colonel Vivian Majendie. As the Chief Inspector of Explosives he had a broad ranging role, including legislation regarding the industrial production and storage of explosives.  But Majendie was also responsible for the response to anarchist and Fenian revolutionary IEDs which were remarkably prevalent at the time.  Remember that the 1890s, for instance, were referred to as “the decade of the bomb” because of the prevalence of explosive devices.

I have mentioned in previous blogs that Majendie constructed a “secret” facility for rendering safe IEDs. His work there was assisted by Dr August Dupre – a German emigre and highly experienced chemist. This facility was surprisingly just a couple of hundred yards from Downing Street on Duck Island at the bottom end of the lake in St James’s Park, opposite Horseguards.

There is a story that the bomb defusing facility still existed in mothballs in the 1970s. To preserve it, the wooden building and its contents were recovered by the Royal Engineers to Chatham in Kent. The story goes that some RE quartermaster in the 1980s felt it was messing up his stores so it was destroyed and scrapped. Sigh. In such a way is Ozymandias sometimes forgotten.

So for a couple of decades I’ve been interested in what equipment existed there – but Majendie’s OPSEC was pretty good.  I think I know where some official files may be that detail it but time has precluded a visit to those archives yet.

But yesterday I turned up a new lead.  Firstly I found a document that detailed some of Majendie’s thoughts on EOD operations. He discussed moving suspect devices in wicker hand carts to one of three locations strategically placed around London. One on Duck Island – close to the heart of government in Whitehall and sufficiently remote in its immediate environment.  One in the “ditch” surrounding the Tower of London, for IEDs found in the financial centre of London, and one in a cutting or quarry in Hyde Park for devices in the commercial district.  It appears that Majendie won approval for the construction of at least two of these (Hyde Park and Duck Island) and that the Duck Island facility was completed first.  But not much of a clue as to what it contained, other than some sort of mechanical contrivance for dealing with the infernal machines. So a bit more digging ensued. Now, I know from other research that Majendie conducted close relations with both the United States and with France. Anarchist IEDs were almost endemic in France at the time. Majendie makes some remark in the 1880s that he has “adapted the French techniques” and refers to their approach as often blowing the devices up in place – whereas Majendie prefers to move them to his secret facilities to deal with them there.

But then I find an associated reference that suggests that Majendie used equipment of the same kind for defusing bombs that the French used at the Municipal Laboratory in Paris.  A clue, then, and a new avenue.

So, I’ve had some success.

This is a summary of what I have found.  The French authorities established a Municipal Laboratory for dealing with IEDs in some open ground near Porte de Vincennes in Paris and others at 3 other locations elsewhere in the City.  The facility consisted of some earth banks and a series of wooden huts. I think the facility was set up in the 1880s and certainly was still in existence in 1910. This is an image from 1910.

Within this facility was a range of equipment including x-ray equipment (after it was invented) and a very robust piece of machinery called a “Morane Press”.  I think this is that key piece of equipment and I have a hunch (nothing more) that Majendie’s facility on Duck Island was somewhat similar in terms of construction, and Majendie too may have used a Morane press. This is a picture of the “Morane press” taken at he the Paris facility, again somewhat later but the press was still in use in 1910.

I then found a beautiful report from 1906 describing the operational routine of the Paris police at the time. The report describes that the occurrence of suspect IEDs in Paris in 1906 was “not at all an infrequent occurrence”.  Some elements of the report:

  • A “bomb squad’ was based at the laboratory and connected by a telephone to central police headquarters.  The headquarters tasked the unit to respond to a suspect IED. The response is described as being similar to a “fire call”.
  • The lead EOD tech has a fast response vehicle, described as a 16 horsepower “racing bodied” automobile. it is followed by an “automobile bomb van”.
  • Six chemists are assigned to the unit, and one always deploys as the lead operator. They work one week shifts, and five weeks off to “recover from nerves”
  • The lead chemist brings the “bomb van” close to the device, and the operator after inspecting it, lifts it carefully , maintaining its positional attitude and places it in a containment box. Perhaps their procedures had evolved from the 1880s “blow in place” policy.

The photograph below may show the response vehicle and a containment vessel.  I can’t be sure because I think the photo was mislabelled as “Paris police headquarters, 1920s” but I found the photo amongst other photos of the explosive laboratory and to my untrained eye the vehicle looks like a 1906 car not a 1920s car. I think the black object on the floor might be a containment vessel. The operators are certainly steely-eyed.

  • The report describes how many IEDs of the time were sensitive to movement which changed its orientation – the initiation mechanism was two liquids which, if the device was tilted, mixed and caused a detonation.
  • The bomb van is described a “heavy (voiture lourde) double phaeton 12 hp automobile, refitted from the regular tourist trade, with a pneumatic spring device for gentle running and 120mm tires”
  • The “bomb box” or containment vessel is placed over the rear springs, opening by a letdown from behind. It is fitted with shredded wood fibre and into this is placed the IED.
  • The IED is then moved accordingly to the facility in Porte de Vincennes or one of three other such facilities strategically placed around the City ( note the similarity to Majendie’s plan) . The concept is to move the device very quickly in case it is time-initiated.
  • Once at the facility the device is immediately x-rayed after being placed behind an armoured screen. As noted in earlier posts, the French deployed x-ray equipment for security operations within months of the invention in 1896.
  • At this stage, depending on the x-ray, the device may be manually rendered safe. The report mentions a specific IED were the hands of the timing clock could be seen to be stationary from analysis of the radiograph, allowing a manual procedure to make the device safe.
  • The report then describes the “hydraulic press”. It is tucked in behind earthen mounds. Here’s a picture of what I think is the pump that powered the Morane press.

  • And here are the earthen mounds surrounding the facility

  • The press is used to dismantle IEDs, and if a detonation is caused, the effects are contained. The press is robust enough to survive. Quite often there are detonations several times a week. The effectiveness of the press is described as 75% – three times out of four a device does not explode but the components are recovered for forensic examination.  That’s not a bad strike rate at all, given the sensitive explosives used and the initiation types.
  • The report also stresses how many of the IEDs are not publicly reported in order to keep the public calm

In summary then I think that the Paris facilities are a remarkable reminder that IEDs are not new, and surges in IED use have been seen before. The facility seems to have been in use for about thirty years, and despite the different techniques of today’s bomb squads, their technology was surprisingly effective.  We can’t be certain that Majendie was using the same strategy and same technology in London in the 1890s but I think there is a high degree of likelihood he was. Like today, there was a willingness to share EOD technology, and technical intelligence, between different national agencies. The Paris police clearly had a sophisticated and well resourced EOD unit operating across their city, with a thought-through strategy focused on:

  • reducing damage to property
  • returning the situation to normality as soon as possible
  • technical intelligence and forensically-focused render-safe procedures.
1890-1900

Early equipment for X-raying IEDs

The use of emerging technology to counter IEDs appears to be a theme of the moment.  But like many of the themes in countering IEDs, this is another that is not new. In 1895 Rontgen developed our understanding of what are now called X-rays and made public his findings on 28 December 1895. This technology was seized upon with alacrity for a number of purposes, including medical applications and non-destructive testing. There was much discussion about the use of “Rontgen images” in court as forensic evidence. But one of the other applications, implemented in early 1896 in Paris, barely more than weeks after the publication of Rontgen’s studies, was the use of both portable and permanent systems to x-ray suspect packages and other contraband. At that time there was a significant threat of IEDs used by anarchists, revolutionaries and criminals.

I have posted before some of the x-ray images of IEDs at the time, here. But now I have found some images of the systems themselves.

The Paris Bureau de Post seems to have had a permanent system emplaced in an office in Paris for examining suspicious items of post by about June 1896, image below:

And the Bureau de Doaunes appeared to have two portable systems operating, one at Gard du Nord (below) at about the same time.  Thus, within just a few months the technology was being commercially exploited in C-IED roles.


I think nowadays you wouldn’t get quite so many people crowded around the operation. By comparison modern systems such as AS&Es excellent MiniZ technology still uses the X-ray concept (but in the much safer backscatter application)  – but it’s doing exactly the same job as the systems above, it’s just a lot smaller and more portable. Take a look at the guy on the right in the image above and the guy on the right in the video below – spookily similar!

 

It’s amazing how so little changes, looking at these four devices chronologically.

19th Century

The EOD operator who dealt with more IEDs than anyone else

I’ve been researching the IED history of New York, and it’s pretty fascinating.  I think there have been more IEDs in New York’s history than any other city in the world – it’s certainly up there with Baghdad and Belfast. I’ve already posted some details earlier about the Irish revolutionaries based in New York, in the 1880s and in fact there were two IED training schools in Brooklyn alone in those days, sending IEDs and trained bomb makers to England.  In the early 1900’s Italian extortion gangs used IEDs extensively in the city, and later there were anarchist devices and a very extensive IED campaign by German saboteurs between 1915 and 1917.  There’s lots of great stories, which I’ll put up posts about in coming weeks. For now here’s an image of Inspector Owen Eagen, of the New York Fire Department Bureau of Combustibles, who was in effect New York’s Bomb Tech between 1895 and 1920.  He dealt with over 7000 (yes seven thousand) IEDs between 1895 and 1920.  He lost a couple of fingers along the way.  I think you can tell by the jaunty angle of his hat and the twinkle in his eye that he was a guy who enjoyed the good things in life and maybe the occasional lunchtime tipple.  He has on the desk at his side, I think, a German incendiary IED.  He died in 1920 from “acute indigestion” whatever that means.  As an aside there was an NYPD police bomb squad from 1914, but they focused more on the investigations rather than the render safe.

Eagen was a remarkable man.

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