Air bomb?

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On 28/07/2023 at 17:01, MikeMeech said:

Salmond mentions it in a lecture he gave to the RAF Staff Collage post war 'Work of the RAF in the Final Offensive in Palestine' (AIR 1/496/15/321/1), stating that the smoke screen was used three times, although the advance was so rapid to make it "not further required". It only mentions dropping the grenades on "the retreating columns on the Tul Karam".  There are odd quotes on use of the smoke screen in the OH 'War in the Air' Volume 6, and in 'From Biplane to Spitfire' by Anne Baker, which includes a quote from T E Lawrence about the RAF dropping "nine tons of small bombs and grenades" (which will be from one of his books, I will have to dig up my copies to check which one the quote is actually from) on the retreating Turkish Seventh Army columns.

Thanks for that, it would appear a handful of operational drops did happen in the final months of the war and then the curtain fell on further development with the end of hostilities. Of passing interest is that 25 years later in WWII the idea re-emerged with various proposals (often of Australian origin) for air dropped clusters of hand grenades.

On 28/07/2023 at 17:01, MikeMeech said:

I have been searching through thousands of documents to find the relative few that relate to my main interest, this should result in potential articles at some point.

Searching of thousands of primary source documents can be all consuming, but does reveal unexpected gems. Your finding mention where you did of the RE8 grenade dispenser is a case in point.