Standing Well Back
1910-1920

Mystery Sabotage Device, 1918

This post is a bit of a puzzle, that I may need some help with. I’ve blogged before about the German sabotage campaign on the east Coast of America in 1915 here:

http://www.standingwellback.com/home/2013/9/17/kurt-jahnke-the-legendary-german-saboteur.html

http://www.standingwellback.com/home/2012/1/22/massive-explosion-in-new-jersey.html

http://www.standingwellback.com/home/2013/2/12/booby-trap-ieds-on-the-battlefield-1918.html

And indeed I’ve built up a bit of a presentation on German sabotage in 1915-1917 which I may get round to posting here.  In brief summary, German agents either operating out of the German Embassy or operating undercover developed a systematic and effective sabotage campaign to disrupt munitions and other cargoes being shipped to the European Allies of France, Russia and Great Britain, before the US entered the war.   There is documentation that certainly 35 ships were firebombed, and an additional 39 suffered suspicious fires.   Many sabotage events were downplayed or not reported so the number could be significantly higher.  A number of munitions factories in the US attacked. Five US Navy warships suffered fire damage, and the USS Oklahoma and USS New York, two new battleships under construction were almost completely destroyed.

Most of the cargo ships sabotaged in 1915 were attacked with small incendiary devices, the size of a cigar. These contained sulphuric acid in one small compartments separated from picric acid or potassium chlorate, by a copper disc.. The copper disc was dissolved over time (usually several days) and then the sulphuric acid was in contact with the other compound causing a violent ignition.  Typically a number of these “cigars” were secreted in the cargoes in a ships hold by stevedores of German or Irish extraction in US East Coast ports. Some devices were made aboard German ships, interned in US ports when the British blockaded them.  One in particular, the “SS Friedrich der Grosse” of the NordDeutschland Lloyd line was docked in New York and German agents ferried the devices from the ship to the dock workers to hide on board munitions and cargo ships.  Other cigars or “pills” as they saboteurs described them, were made in the laboratory of the designer, Dr Scheele at 1133 Clinton Street, Hoboken, New Jersey.

The “cigars” were to a design develped by a German sympathiser, Dr Scheele, and are reported to have been about 4 inches long. Once initiated they ejected white hot flames from both ends.

Now, there appears to have been more than one design.  In a diagram produced by another saboteur, Frederick Hermann, the construction of the incendiary appears a little more complex, than simply two compartments in a lead pipe separated by a copper disc.  It is hard to interpret the diagram below but I note that the compound to which the acid mixes is described as chlorate and sugar, which will make a difference to its explosive effect, depending on relative qunatities of the mixture. The diagram appears (I think) to show an upper reservoir of sulphuric acid, a “neck” halfway down labled “c” (for copper, presumably a copper plug and not a disc), and below that the chlorate with sugar. Wax probably closed both ends.

It should be noted that to work effectively the cigar needs to be positioned vertically, to allow the acid to dissolve the copper and then fall into the chlorate-sugar mix.  Only a proportion of the devices functioned and some were recovered by French and British governments in ports in Europe.  In 1915 this activity was being led by two officers from the German embassy , Karl Boy-Ed, and Kapitan Franz von Papen. Later in 1915 a secret agent of the German Navy Franz von Rinteln was sent to encouage the sabotage campaign.    In a range of investigations led by the head of the NYPD bomb squad, Thomas Tunney, who was seconded to Military Intelligence, the German sabotage cells were largely disrupted. By 1917 the US had entered the war,  Rinteln was captured and imprisoned in England and the others had been arrested, expelled or in the case of Dr Scheele, escaped to Havana.

Given that history  it was intriguing to find a report on the Australian War Memorial blog about an incendiary device recovered from a  ship in 1918, possibly in Liverpool, from a ship arriving from the US. By 1918 most of the German sabotage cells had been rounded up, also the design of the incendiary device is somewhat different.

These images are included on the AWM blog and I’m grateful for their kind permission to reproduce them here.

 

Working from the photographs alone, it appears that the knurled steel “head” appears to have two openings in it, closed by bolts.  I would have perhaps expected only one, to simply fill with acid.   The main body appears to be copper and the strange shaped base appears to be aluminium (?), corroded by a galvanic reaction.  The base is an odd design.  This device, bigger than the earlier cigars would have been more difficult to smuggle aboard and its dimensions would have made it more difficult to conceal in a cargo. The description accompanying the images suggest that rather than acid eating through a reservoir wall in this case the acid ate through a wire which retained a spring action to an initiator…. that’s a quite different initiation mechanism.  This device would have taken more skill to construct and the threaded and knurled head, the apparent 3 sections of copper pipe and a neat fitting of the copper pipe to the aluminium  base indicates a higher level of engineering….  Something about the base design rings a bell, but I can’t put my finger on it.  The design of the base must have a reason and there must be a reason for it to have been different from the copper…but I cant work that out. Any suggestion gratefully received.

The blog from the AWM also has set me off on a new thread. The device appears to have been forwarded to the Australian section of the British “Munitions Inventions Department” in Esher, for examination. The Munitions Inventions Department had been set up earlier in the war to coordinate the wide range of scientific and military engineering developments required by the Allies to win the war.  It was really the forerunner of later government defence research departments.  Teams of ingenious, pragmatic and capable engineers had been co-opted into developing a wide range of innovative weaponry. By all accounts the Australians were masters of such craft and contributed significantly to a wide range of innovative munitions.  I’ve started some research on that and will no doubt blog about some of the wilder and more interesting inventions in the future.

 

 

And here’s one after it is burnt out showing a broad base on which the rope is mounted and a central core:

 

The design of the magnesium incendiaries evolved quite quickly – here’s what they looked like by the end of WW1 and pretty much through to WW2, with only minor changes:

 

Russia

Russian Partisan EOD search, 1942

I’ve found an interesting book, “The Partisan’s Companion“, a guerilla warfare manual produced by Russia in 1942. There’s a small section on EOD search for German mines and booby traps which is interesting.

Remember the fascists use mines widely and employ them with cunning and trickery. Quite often they leave various lures in plain sight and connect them to mines. You should be careful and wary of them.

Do not enter a house which has been left by the Germans until you have inspected the ground around it, The stair steps of the porch, doors, windows, floor boards and various household objects – all of them could be connected to mines.  Any attempt to move them or even a simple touch could produce and explosion.   Use long rope and a grapnel to open the door of such a house.

After entering the house – thoroughly inspect it. First, do a visual inspection, looking for the revealing signs of mines: fresh spots in the wall’s plaster, evidence of disturbing the bricks in the walls or stove, fresh scratches on the floor. Also check the electrical wires – see if there are any devices connected to them. If you find suspicious areas- check them more thoroughly.

Try to avoid all kinds of twine, rope and wire in the forest, on the roads and in the houses. They could be linked to mines. Be careful around places which show some disturbance to their uniformity.For example: small lumps of dirt on grass warn you about digging at that site. Be careful not to pick up a rifle or other weapon left behind by the Germans, especially if it is in a highly visible spot. Remember that the Germans sometimes even put mines on the corpses of their soldiers and officers.

The manual then goes on to describe an interesting technique for finding buried clockwork timed mechanisms attached to mines, using a “water stethoscope”.  A water bottle is filled almost to within a few centimeters from the top, and a glass tube inserted through the stopper. Put a rubber hose onto the outside of the tube. Then plant the bottle in the ground, with the surface of the water in the bottle level with the ground. Place the end of the hose to your ear and if there is a buried clockwork device nearby you will hear it.

That sounds like an interesting technique – I’ll have to give it a try.

 

 

1940-1950

The Nazis and Copernicus

One of the nice things about this blog is that I don’t have to stick rigorously to its stated subject.  In the previous post I examined some of the explosive devices used by the Polish Resistance in Warsaw.  During that research I came across this story which is simply worth retelling.

The Polish resistance was not without its sense of humour, and the occupying German forces… well lets just say they were German and not renowned for the perspective humour offers.   In the heart of Warsaw stood a large statue of the astronomer Copernicus. Copernicus lived when the Kingdom of Poland was part of Prussia so both the Poles and the Germans had claims to him.  At the base of the monument was a plaque with the inscription ” To Copernicus, from his countrymen”.  The German authorities, on occupying Warsaw, removed the plaque and replaced it with another that read “To the Great German Astronomer”.  The statue was in a square right outside a German police station.

One day a group of workmen, seemingly from the city council, arrived and began to work on the base of the statue, unnoticed. They removed the German plaque. It was actually a group led by Polish resistance fighter Maciej Aleksy Dawidowski.   It was 10 days before the authorities noticed their plaque had gone missing. The German commander, Governor Fischer was outraged.  This is his picture – he looks pretty much like the proto-typical Nazi war criminal that he was doesn’t he?

Fischer issued a proclamation below:

A translation is something like this:

“On 11th or 12th February 1942 criminal elements removed the tablet from the Copernicus Monument for political reasons. As a reprisal, I order the removal of the Kilinski monument. At the same time I give full warning that should similar acts be perpetrated I shall order the suspension of all food rations for the Polish population of Warsaw for the term of one week”

Now, Jan Kilinski was another popular historical figure in Warsaw, a shoemaker who led the fight against the Russians in a siege of Warsaw in 1794.  His statue was indeed removed by the Nazis and stored in the vaults of the National Museum.   By the following morning someone had painted in very large letters on the side of the Museum

“People of Warsaw, I am in here! Signed Jan Kilinski”

A week later, all of Fischer’s proclamations were over pasted with another announcement, printed in the same style. This proclamation read:

“Recently criminal elements removed the Kilinski monument for political reasons. As a reprisal, I order the prolongation of winter on the Eastern Front front for the term of two months.  

Signed Nicholas Copernicus”

Now as it happened the winter of 1942 was indeed long and hard for the Germans on the Eastern Front.   Fischer was tried for war crimes and hung in 1947. Dawidowski died very bravely in 1943 in an attempt to rescue fellow partisans from jail.

 

 

1940-1950

Warsaw IEDs

I’ve been researching the improvised explosives used by the Polish resistance in WW2.  One can’t but help notice some parallels between the Warsaw uprising and the ongoing tragedies in Syria – the devastation of Warsaw looks pretty similar to that being seen in Aleppo and other Syrian cities.  The Nazi destruction of the ghetto is scarily similar to the Assad regime’s destruction of areas of Syrian cities.  Compare the effect of the use of the siege mortar “Thor” (Karl-Gerat) against the Warsaw ghetto with the user of barrel bombs in Aleppo.

Here’s two interesting images – the black and white one shows a Warsaw resistance fighter examining a “blind” Karl-Gerat munition. The colour image below it shows a Syrian resistance fighter with a “blind” barrel bomb. I’m not suggesting the munitions are identical, but in terms of explosive effect they will have been pretty similar, and it’s spooky how similar the images are, some 70 years apart.


1944


2014

Consider the similarity of effects:


Warsaw


Aleppo

There are other similarities too – the Polish resistance had a very significant production of ingenious improvised weapons – and some of their techniques appear similar too to those seen in Poland. Look at this image of a spring-loaded Molotov cocktail projector – I’ve seen similar from Syria

The boundaries between improvised weapons and production weapons can get a bit vague here – for example its is thought that tens of thousands of Sidolowka and Filipinka grandes were produced by the resistance.

These improvised grenades had a variety of fills, but most commonly “cheddite”, a chlorate/nitrobenzene mix I have discussed in earlier posts (used by many including Irish revolutionaries circa 1920.) Not much difference in design , of course with the Irish grenades seen here…with the same explosive fill.  All aspects of the grenade including the fuse and the detonators were produced by the Polish resistance. Largely they obtained the potassium chlorate component of the explosive by theft from the Germans.


An improvised Filipinka grenade. The Cyrillic marking is an attempt by the Polish resistance to obfuscate indigenous manufacture

 


Improvised Sidolowka grenade.

The Polish resistance also made significant use of command wires devices and other IEDs to attack trains and other targets.    Here’s a picture of the explosive unit of the Warsaw resistance on route to attacks the Warsaw telephone exchange on 18th/20th August 1944 with a command wire initiated device.

Hundreds of German military trains were attacked with IEDs too. During one six month period the British SOE assessed that the Polish resistance had wrecked 1,268 railway engines and damaged 3,318 carriages. This report describes the operationally sophisticated use of multiple IEDs along a railway line:

An ordinary railway mine, which exploded when the first train passed over it would cause an interruption in traffic for only about four hours. At one time we were anxious to interrupt traffic on the main Warsaw-Malkinia sector of the Eastern front for a minimum period of 10 days. Our experts solved the problem, and the resulting interruption lasted as long as two weeks.  It was done by specially devised mines which could be automatically blown up. A chain of these mines was laid across the tracks. The first, which was placed in the middle of the chain, went off as the first train was passing over it. Two more placed on the tracks on either side of the first when the rescue train arrived from one side or the other. The remaining mines on both sides of the wrecked trains exploded successively when the repair trains arrived from both directions. Result: Ten miles of track effectively mined. After their first train has been blown up four repair and relief trains sent in to deal with it had been effectively destroyed.

Other sophisticated IEDs were also created by the Poles. I have found one report that 18 Luftwaffe aircraft were destroyed by the use of an explosive device in an elongated cylinder which was hidden in the rear of German aircraft and initiated on a reduction of atmospheric pressure once the aircraft reached a certain height.

1930-1940

Explosion at C-IED Lab, Paris, 1938

In a previous blog I detailed the French C-IED facility that existed at the Municipal Laboratory in Port de Vincennes, Paris.  This facility started around 1880, and my earlier post detailed its operations in 1911.

A sister facility existed in the French suburb of Villejuif in 1938.  At that time there was a terrorist campaign of bombings by an anti-communist fascist group called the “Cagoulards”, some of them “false flag” attempts to blame communist groups.  The French authorities mounted a series of security operations.  In 1938 large quantities of improvised grenades were recovered in one such operation.  As was the normal drill these were recovered to a laboratory for examination, some 3000 in all (some sources say 5000). The large quantity resulted in the need to move them to a larger storage facility in Versailles  The French military were tasked to assist the police in the loading of these grenades onto appropriate transport (two military trucks) at the Pyrotechnical Laboratory in Villejuif.  For reasons not understood, (but probably caused by someone dropping one of the delicate improvised grenades into a box of others) there was a large explosion and 14 people were killed including the M. Schmitz the head of the explosives investigations unit at the laboratory.  Three of the five explosive laboratory buildings were destroyed.

Here’s a video of the aftermath.

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