Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1915 — TRAINING MEN IN THE ART OF BOMB THROWING [ARTICLE]

TRAINING MEN IN THE ART OF BOMB THROWING

Anarchist’s Weapon in Warfare Has Become as Respectable as the Rifle. FINE POINTS OF THE GAME The Absent-Minded Fellow Makes Trouble —Bombs Well Behaved If You Treat Them Right—First Chuck Is Really What’s Important. «.

By FREDERICK PALMER.

(International News Service.) British Headquarters, France. —It was at a bombing school on a French farm where chosen soldiers brought back from the trenches were being trained in the use of the anarchist’s weapon which has now become as respectable as the rifle. Specialism develops as the war goes on. There are no M. B. degres for Master Bombers yet; but that may come, any day. Present was the chief Instructor, a young Scotch subaltern with blue eyes, a pleasant smile and a cock of the north spirit. He might have been twenty years old, though he did not look It. On his breast was the purple and white ribbon of the new order of the military cross which one gets for doing something in this war which would have woh a Victoria cross In one of the little wars.

Also present was the assistant instructor, a sergeant of regulars —and very much of a regular—who had three ribbons which he had won in previous campaigns. He too had blue eyes, bland blue. eyes. These two understood each other.

“If you don’t drop it, why it’s all right,’’ said “the sergeant. “Of course, if you do—” He did not drop it.

“And when you throw it, you must lookout and not hit the man behind and knock the bomb out of your hand. That has happened before now to an absent-minded fellow who was about to toss one at the Boches —and It does not do to be absent-minded when you throw bombs.” “They say that you sometimes pick up the German bombs and chuck them back before they explode,” it was suggested. “Yes, sir, I’ve read things like that in some of the accounts of the reporters who write from Somewhere in France. You don’t happen to know where that is, sir? All I can say is that if you are going to do it you must be quick about it. I shouldn’t advise delaying your decision, sir, or perhaps when you reach down to pick it up neither your hand nor the bomb would be there. They’d have gone off together, sir.” Must Treat Them Bight.

“Have you ever been hurt in your handling of bombs?” one asked. Surprise in the bland, blue eyes. “Oh, no, sir! Bombs are well behaved if you tj-eat them right. It’s all in being thoughtful and considerate of them!” Meanwhile he was Jerking at some kina of a patent fuse set in a shell of high explosive. “This is a poor kind, sir. It’s been discarded, but I thought that you might like to see it. Never dfd like* It! Always making trouble!” More distance between the audience and the performer. “Now I’ve got it, sir—get down, sir!” The audience carried out instructions to the letter, as army regulations require. We got behind the protection of one of .the practice trench traverses. He threw the discard beyond another wall of earth. There was a sharp report, a burst of smoke

and some fragments of earth were tossed into the air.

In a small affair of two hundred yards of trench the other ,day it was estimated that the British and Germans together threw about five thousand bombs in this fashion. It was enough to sadden any minister of munitions. However, the British kept the trench.

“Do your men like to become bombers?’’ one asked the subaltern.

“I should say so. It puts them up in front. It gives them a chance to throw something—and they don't get much cricket in France, you see. We had a pupil here last week who broke the throwing record for distance. He was pleased as Punch with himself. A first-class bombing detachment has a lot of pride of corps.”

To bomb has bedome s s common a verb with the army as to bayonet. “We bombed them out!” means a section of trench taken. As you know a trench is dug and built with sandbags in zigzag traverses. In following the course of a trench it Is as if you followed the sides of the squares of a checker board up and down and across on the same tier of squares. The square itself is a bank of earth with the cut on either side and, in front of it. When a bombing party bombs their way into the possession of a section of German trench there are Germans under cover of the traverses on either side of them. The German is waiting around the corner to shoot-the first British head that shows itself.

“It’s important that you and not the Boches chuck the bombs over first,” explained the subaltern. “Also that you get them into their traverse or they may be as troublesome to you as to the enemy.”

With the bombs bursting in their faces the Germans who are not put out of action are blinded and stunned? In the moment when they are thus off guard the aggressors leap around the corner. “And then?”

"Stick ’em, sir!” said the Matter-of-fact sergeant. “Yes, the cold steel is best. And do it first. As Mr. McPherson said, it’s very important to do it first.” It has been found that something short is handy for this kind of work. In such cramped quarters —a ditch pix feet deep and from two to three feet broad —the rifle is an awkward length to gprmit of prompt and skillful use of the bayonet.

“Yes, sir. you can mix it up better with something handy, sir—to think British soldiers would come to fighting like assassins, sir,” said the sergeant. “You must be spry on such occasions. It’s no time for wool gathering.” Not a smile from him or the sub-

altern all the time. They were the kind you would like to have alone in a 'tight corner whether you had to fight with knives or fists or seventeeninch howitzers.

The sergeant took us into the storehouse where he kept his .supply of bombs.

“What if a German shell should strike your storehouse?” it was suggested. “Then, sir, I expect that most of the bombs would be exploded. Bombs are very peculiar in their habits. What do you think, sir?” It was no trouble to show stock, as the clerks at the stores say. He brought forth all the different kinds of bombs which British ingenuity has invented —but, no, not all invented. These would mount into the thousands. Every British inventor who knows anything about explosives has tried his hand at a new kind of bomb. One means all the kinds which the British war office has considered worth the practice test.

The spectator was allowed to handle each one as much as he pleased. There had been occasions, that boyish Scotch subaltern told me without a twinkle in his eye, when the men who were examining the products of British ingenuity —well, the subaltern had sandy hair, too, which heightened the effect of his blue eye. Bombs of All Kinds.

There were yellow and green and blue and black and striped bombs, egg-shaped, barrel-shaped, conical and concave bombs; bombs that were ex> ploded by pulling a string or pressing a button —all these to be thrown by hand, without mentioning grenades and bigger varieties which were thrown by mechanical means wldch would have made a Chinese warrior of Confucius’ time or a Roman legionary feel at home. “This was the first born,” the subaltern explain—“the first thing we could lay our hands on when the ciose quarters trench warfare began.”

It was as out of date, now, as grandfather’s smoothbars —the tinyot which both sides used early in the .winter, A wick was attacked to the high explosive wrapped in cloth and stuck in an ordinary jam can.

“Quite homemade, as you see, sir,” remarked the sergeant. ' “Used to fix them up ourselves in the trenches in odd hours —saved burying your refuse Jam tins according to medical corps direction —you threw them at the Boches. Have to use a match to light it —very old-fashioned, sir. I wonder if that old fuse has got damp. No, it’s going all right,” and he threw the Jam pot which made a good explosion. Later when he began hammering the end of another he looked up in mild surprise at the dignified back stepping of the spectators. “Is that fuse out?” someone asked. “Yes, sir; of course, sir,” he replied. “It’s safer. But here is the best; we’re discarding the others," he went on as he picked up another bomb. It was a pleasure to throw this crowning achievement of the experiments. It fitted your hand nicely; it threw easily; it diSf the business; it was foolproof against a man in love or a war poet. "We saw as soon as this style came out,”- said the sergeant, “that it was bound to be popular. Everybody asks for it —except the Boches. sir.”