Further proof that there have been times in history when awareness of IED threats was much heightened. In 1913 the Suffragette campaign was ongoing, and clearly there was increased security to spot and deal with suspect packages. This “Punch” cartoon of June 1913 has a gentle dig at the bomb security industry. Note the steam powered Westminster council EOD vehicle with containment system in the background, with a useful red flag flying….
In a couple of posts over the last few months I’ve discussed “stay behind” devices.
In this post I discussed Russian stay-behind devices in the Crimean War in the 1850s . The Russians, in ceding Sebastopol to the French and British, were able to predict where attacking troops would be – whether that be to seize high profile buildings or munition dumps, and lay “booby-traps” which caused significant problems.
In this post I discussed Russian stay-behind explosive devices in WW2, used to attack the invading Nazi army. In particular the Russians in many instances were able to predict the sort of buildings that the Wehrmacht would be attracted to use as headquarter buildings – typically large imposing buildings with large rooms suitable for converting into the various facilities needed by a military headquarters. Using both long delay mechanical timers and radio-controlled F-10 devices they had considerable success in Kharkov, Kiev and Odessa, targeting incoming headquarter units , in many cases several days or weeks after losing the territory. In many cases, including a device personally emplaced by Ilya Starinov, deliberately “poorly concealed devices” were laid “on top” of the deeply buried device. EOD troops inspected the proposed building, and cleared the obvious device in the cellar (not realising another much larger device was hidden under it). Three weeks later the massive device was detonated, successfully taking out an entire headquarter staff.
With all that in mind, I have found another use of a very similar tactics, but used by the Germans against the Allies, in WW1. Booby trapped explosive devices were used extensively by the Germans in WW1. In this example, the tactic used by the Russians, against the Germans seems to be identical.
On about the 18 March 1917 Bapaume, a small but strategic town was captured from the Germans. After taking the town, an EOD unit found a mine of some sort in the cellar under the Town Hall, a prominent building – whose cellars were deep enough to provide shell shelter – so an attractive structure for forces “moving in”. It is believed that the Germans may have expected or hoped that a Divisional Headquarters may have decided to use the place. I think that in an earlier part of the war the Town Hall had been indeed previously used by a British or French headquarters. As it happens that did not occur but about 30 Australians had “moved in” along with a tea stall from the “Australian Comforts Fund”. On the night of 26 March, so about 8 days later, a timer, set before the Germans retreated, caused a massive device to explode, killing most of the occupants. I have found reports that the charge could have been as large as 10,000lbs, (but I think that unlikely, more likely maybe a couple of hundred lbs) and had two independent “time pencils”, of the type where the delay is provided by acid eating through a steel thread holding a striker under spring tension. Interestingly there is a suggestion that the German Pioneers who laid the devices defecated on the ground above it, to dissuade careful inspection. I also understand that the German withdrawal from Bapaume was part of a carefully planned operation to fall back to the Siegfried Line, which will have given time for the preparatory effort.
UPDATE: I have learned from Ian Jones that the details of the incident aren’t quite as I described. A large, easily found device was discovered and made safe in the cellar. a somewhat smaller device carefully hidden in the tower of the Town Hall was the device that exploded, collapsing the cellar trapping people in there.
Shortly later a German was captured nearby and interrogation of him suggested there were other devices in the area. Before this warning could be circulated, at 12.37 p.m. On March 26th, the luxurious dugout system on the edge of Bapaume, in which a headquarters had been set up was entirely destroyed by a similar mine. Several other similar devices appear to have been used in the area.
Here’s a diagram of a German delay switch. I think the Germans also had mechanical clockwork delay switches.
German WW1 Boob-traps are very well explained in Ian Jones’s excellent book “Malice Aforethought” Anyway, I think its interesting that a tactic perfected by the Germans in WW1 was used by Russians against the Germans in WW2. There are lessons here too about “predictability” of the target’s behaviour in terms of choice of location for an explosive device, and also in terms of disguising stay-behind devices. Of course, booby traps were used by the British, French and Australians too.
As part of my research into the use of IEDs for sabotage in WW2, I wrote an earlier piece about Colonel Ilya Starinov, the key person in developing Russia’s sabotage activity in WW2. More recently I’ve been looking at Britain’s role in encouraging sabotage efforts using IEDs in the same war. Of course there are differences but the parallels between Ilya Starinov, and his counterpart in Britain, Colin Gubbins are actually pretty interesting.
Steely-eyed Gubbins.
Gubbins is well known for his role in leading the SOE during WW2, but his influence I think is broader than that. He was also responsible for implementing the ideas of Churchills “Auxiliary Units”, a plan to mount partisan operation in England if the Germans had invaded in the early part of the war. His 1939 pamphlets on how to conduct partisan warfare were distributed across Europe during the war. I was interested how this apparently traditional Artillery officer became such source for partisan warfare ideas, and it’s an interesting story, and some of the things I have found are startling, to me anyway.
As a young man he was already a German speaker and perhaps comfortable with the concept of living in a foreign country, having lived for a short time in Heidelberg before the war started. His WW1 career was fairly standard for a Gunner officer fighting at Ypres, the Somme and Arras. He was wounded and gassed. It was only in 1919, after the end of the Great War did Gubbin’s experiences slightly leave the norm.
As a small diversion in this blog post, I’d also like to highlight a couple of other aspects of the Partisan Leader’s pamphlet that I think are worthy of attention, and that’s to do with the utter ruthlessness prescribed by Gubbins, which in modern eyes are startling. Here’s a couple of examples, but remember this is a pamphlet produced by a Lt Col in the War office in 1939:
Then later in 1939 Gubbins was posted to be Chief of Staff to one of this blog’s favourite characters, General Carton De Wiart, as part of a mission to Poland just before the Germans invaded and war started, advising on Polish partisan tactics. He was with de Wiart as they crossed the Romanian border escaping from the German advance. After that he went on to form commando units which deployed to Norway, and after was tasked to set up the Auxiliary Units in preparation for a German invasion of England, and clearly applied much of his irregular warfare thinking into that.
I find it fascinating to look at a time line of Gubbins’ career with that of Starinov, from about 1918 to 1945. Both experienced in Russia, but on different sides. Starinov starting more lowly but with stronger technical skills, but importantly both learning from their experience and deriving very similar irregular warfare policy developments. Putting aside political differences, both came up with similar solution sets of irregular warfare based around explosive sabotage. Both put huge effort into developing “stay behind” guerrilla operations against invading forces – for Starinov it was the plan to operate partisan groups in Ukraine if it was invaded, developed as a detailed plan by Starinov in the mid 1920s – 1930s, for Gubbins it was the Auxiliary units developed in 1940 to counter German invasion. Gubbins formed the first British Commando units, Starinov formed the first Russian Speztnaz units. Both men ended WW2 running very extensive partisan operations against the Germans. One can’t but help see certain symmetries. One can’t but help see their influence in all sorts of conflict types since WW2. 2003 in Iraq is just one example that could have been based on either man’s plan. I wonder if they were aware of each other?
Gubbins in retirement
(Note: Copies of Gubbins’ partisan pamphlets and other Auxiliary Unit material including a fantastic explosive demolitions document, disguised as a British Farmers Diary, 1939, are available. Ping me and I might tell you where from). Here’s a couple of pics – some of you will work out the link to “Highworth”.
This is quite startling. I have written before about Boer use of upturned-trigger-initiated IEDs used to attack British Railways in the Boer War, and more recently about how the same design of IED was used in the German East African Campaign
These devices were used again, exactly this same design, by the British against the Ottoman rail system in Arabia in 1917. One of the issues in my mind was how “Bimbashi Garland”, the Arab Bureau’s explosives expert, got to hear about Boer IEDs from an earlier war. In British eyes, this Boer design, then adopted by the Germans in 1915, became, by 1917, the “Garland mine” . Thanks to the research of “JB” we have an answer as to how that happened and what an interesting answer it is. Bear with me as I explain
Here are parts of a letter sent from a relatively senior British Army officer with previous campaign experience in the Boer War. He sent a letter to the British Army in Egypt suggesting, specifically, that the Boer explosive device he had seen many years previously in South Africa be used to attack the Hejaz Railway in Arabia. Not only that, but he includes a detailed description of the device, which with minor variations is clearly the same device.
For comparison here’s a diagram of the device from one of my earlier posts
The correspondence is then passed from British HQ in Cairo to General Reginald Wingate whose headquarters was in Khartoum, with some comments from the Fortifications and Works Department. Of particular note here is that they refer to the German use of such devices in East Africa, and comment that these devices have been effective. Here’s the comment from a Sgt in the Fortifications and Works department.
So that’s interesting… but it gets better. The original letter was dated October 1916. Herbert Garland, the former Ammunition Examiner NCO, now with a commission and on the staff of the Arab Bureau, shortly afterwards began working “behind enemy lines” with the Arabs, and taking the advice/instruction of the letter writer , made his first attack on an Ottoman train in February 1917 – so the dates match up. Subsequently he trained the Arabs and other British officers on similar missions, including Lawrence of Arabia, to do the same. So we have a nice link between the Boer War, the German East African Campaign in WW1 and now the Arab revolt of 1917, all using the same design of IEDs, now called the “Garland Mine”.
What is perhaps even more interesting for historians is the identity of the original letter-writer, that at first I confess I didn’t notice. It is written by Colonel Sir Mark Sykes… Sykes is perhaps the key personality in terms of strategic influence on British activity in the Middle East, way beyond Lawrence. Sykes, with the French diplomat Picot, was responsible for the “Sykes -Picot” agreement which divided the Middle East, and specifically the Ottoman Empire, between the British and French, and this strategic diplomatic activity was going on at the same time as the letter was written – so this is so much more than a retired Army officer pontificating about how what he learned fighting against the Boers could have application in “modern war”. This is the lead British strategic diplomat in the Middle East politely and diplomatically directing that an IED campaign using this specific explosive device be used to disintegrate the key aspect of the Ottoman empire’s strategic hold on Arabia. In the usual history books the strategic direction of the Arab Revolt is sometimes credited to the “Arab Bureau” but there were bigger cogs turning and directions being given to them. The Bureau’s efforts were at the operational level in this regard. Here we can see history was being made in the Middle East and with these specific IEDs and with strategic thought. And not for the last time.
(Apologies for the racism displayed in the Sykes letter, but it is important to see, and perhaps adds to our understanding of his thought processes and how they may have impacted his strategic efforts)
Tanks of course didn’t exist before WW1. But when tanks arrived in the scene, then an anti-tank mine was needed quickly. Here’s an early German one, showing an artillery shell mounted in a wooden box that would be buried in the ground. A cross-member is laid across the top of the fuze and would exert a crushing force downwards on the fuze initiating the device.
Of course this wasn’t the first time that artillery shells were utilised in IEDs – Here’s one from the US Civil war. But I suspect the principle is the same, utilising the pressure of a tank track to impinge on the armed fuze of the artillery shell, buried in a box.