Description:This First World War hand grenade is one of the original ‘Mills Bombs’ manufactured at the Mills Munitions Factory in Bridge Street West, Newtown, Birmingham, which supplied the bomb to the British and Allied armies throughout the war. It was a time-delay anti-personnel device intended to kill or maim nearby enemy troops, partly by its explosion but mainly by the shower of hot iron shrapnel produced by the fragmentation of the outer casing, whose characteristic 'pineapple' serrated segments were designed for this purpose.
In the University of Birmingham archives there is a rare surviving record of grenade training during the First World War.<small><sup>1</sup></small> In addition to manuscript notes on explosives and ballistics there are hand-drawn diagrams of both English and German grenades, while the Mills Grenade Hand No 5 MK I/L is represented in a printed diagram. There are also sketches of the attachment for firing a Mills grenade from a rifle (the Mills MK 23 was modified to be fitted with a rod so that it could be fired from a cradle resting on the barrel). Preparatory inspection of each bomb before use was essential. Besides checking that the safety pin was not broken or corroded, this involved removing the base plug to examine the bomb’s interior to ensure that all parts – striker, firing cap, fuse and detonator – were in good order. Lambert then describes how the bomb operates: ‘on leaving the hand spring forces down striker, which explodes pin fire cap which lights fuse, fuse burns for 5 secs [sic], which explodes detonator, which in turn detonates main charge’.
The principal action that grenadiers were trained for was not the battlefield but trench clearance. The squad was the basic unit: ‘2 bayonet men & 2 bomb throwers carry Rifle & bayonet (fixed) bandolier and bucket of bombs each; 2 reserves carry same; 2 rifle grenadiers carry same but No. 23 Rifle Grenades; Leader carries same and in addition a periscope.’ The green canvas ‘buckets’ were filled with up to twenty-four bombs at a time, so a Squad could set out armed with as many as 150 grenades. Training in trench clearance was customised to deal with a range of enemy dugout formations, requiring practice in several drills, in which the grenadiers would work as a team systematically throwing grenades into each recess they passed.
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> Lance Corporal R. Lambert, manuscript notebook of a course at Northern Command Grenade School at Otley, 1917 [MS808]</small></font>