Giles Eyre and Mills grenades

[paul guthrie]

Something quite strange in Somme Harvest. While very near the front line he describes " We got through the job of examining and detonating boxes upon boxes of Mill grenades." There were officers present so this was authorized activity. Why?

[Mike_H]

Paul

I think that in this context "detonating" means unscrewing the base plug of the grenade and inserting the detonator. Mills bombs, Grenades Nos. 5, 23, & 36, were transported in boxes of 12 with the dets. in a separate tin in the middle of the box. It was an essential but tedious chore to insert hundreds of detonators, unscrewing and screwing back in the base plug of each grenade and checking lever and safety pin of each before an attack or just to keep up stocks for the ready ammo supply in the front line.

Yours

Mike

[paul guthrie]

Good work and thanks. Of course I took it completely diffferently, I would use the word arming instead of detonating but you are certainly correct.