Royal engineers "sappers" tunnel rifle

[browningautorifle]

"Toffee Apple" trench mortars

Like this...

[Surpmil]

All depends on the level of proof you "need". When you've got a reputable and slightly prominent front line officer recording the existence of these things at the time, and when you've got examples in museums that look authentic, and when you have no one with any incentive to fabricate evidence, then a spot of deduction might suggest there's something to it.

No statement or evidence of actual use has turned up, AFAIK, and it's quite possible that these were rarely, if ever, used. However, similar weapons and much worse have been used in other conflicts in the same century.

So I can't help thinking that when digging along, waiting to run into Jerry and have a life or death brawl in a cold, wet, barely lit tunnel about 3-4 feet in diameter, dozens of feet underground, a fellow might feel a bit safer having a firearm of any kind at his side, even if he never has to use it.

If pistols were not supplied by His Majesty, and miners were probably kept at it a bit too closely to go scrounging pistols on the battlefield in their off hours, what's a fellow to do? On the pittance they were paid, buying pistols from the Army & Navy Stores was hardly an option and on the front line 'black market' they probably weren't much cheaper, so what's the logical choice? Yes, pick up a lost or damaged rifle and chop it down.

Again, thinking logically, if these things were ever actually used, they would most likely have been stuck through a hole in the wall and fired. Would any of us have preferred to scrimmage with knives and entrenching tools so as to save our hearing? (And I'll bet the German tunnelers were supplied with pistols.)

If I were there and there was no other option, I'd close my eyes and pull the trigger as being deaf is usually better than being dead.

One can over-analyze these things.

[Peter Laidler]

Re TBoxes suggestion, thread 187. Wishing to keep this wandering and red herring laden thread on track (unusually for me I have to add.....) I would state with certainty that if a rifle was used as a flash initiator or percussion device - as in the toffee apple launcher and as a bomb thrower, then the laws of physics deem that it would HAVE to be threaded into or otherwise solidly attached to the whatever it was initiating! Otherwise you'd have a weapon firing with an open breech albeit through a small aperture. And an open breech on a bombthrower or a mortar would certainly cause an earache.

I am still a believer

[Thunderbox]

Re TBoxes suggestion, thread 187. Wishing to keep this wandering and red herring laden thread on track (unusually for me I have to add.....) I would state with certainty that if a rifle was used as a flash initiator or percussion device - as in the toffee apple launcher and as a bomb thrower, then the laws of physics deem that it would HAVE to be threaded into or otherwise solidly attached to the whatever it was initiating! Otherwise you'd have a weapon firing with an open breech albeit through a small aperture. And an open breech on a bombthrower or a mortar would certainly cause an earache.

I am still a believer

Sure, that might be the case with a pressure-generating weapon such as a mortar, but a flash box used to ignite fuses would just be something like a wooden box or a biscuit tin. This would just contain a layer of loose black powder or some other inflammable material, the bunched ends of the fuse leads, and the rifle/pistol loaded with blank and pushed through a hole in the side. The function is simply to provide a powder flash to ignite the charge, which in turn burns to ignite the fuses. Its a very low pressure system, and the igniter (the bobbed rifle or pistol, fired by long lanyard) would be sacrificial anyway.

Theres a drawing floating around the web or in a book somewhere. IIRC the box had two or more rifle/pistol igniters for redundancy, and the whole thing was used as an auxiliary back-up to the primary electric-fired fusing.

[Peter Laidler]

Yep, got that. Never seen such a gadget but quite reasonable albeit a bit of a waste

[Roger Payne]

TB the plum pudding initiators I've seen (& that only amounts to about four) over the years, were all built on obsolete or obsolescent actions. IIRC three were definitely SMLE Mk1 actions & one possibly a long rifle body. Not absolutely sure about the fourth after all this time - could also have been a Mk1 SMLE. Some pages earlier I posted a picture of one in relic condition (post #47) that my neighbour found near High Wood on the Somme last year whilst he was out hunting. One thing that has been common to all (& is not present on these other cut down rifles) is the shortened T shaped butt stock. It's like a shorter stubbier Mk2 Sten stock, with a hole in the lower end of the bar of the T for the firing lanyard to go through.

However, an emergency Bickford fuze ignitor is potentially a different matter. The big Messines mines of 1917 all had at least two (possibly three) means of detonation so as to ensure there were no flops on the day.



Rob. Cheers.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The illustrated "plum pudding / toffee apple" initiator raises another issue:

How is the stub of the butt retained?

The original "stock-bolt" is fairly long. Not only is it long, it has an odd profile in that between the thread and the head, the shank thins out and thus would not be "re-threadable", even were some enterprising lad to have a tap and die set in his kitbag, next to the hacksaw and spare blades.

A few short 7/16 bolts from "defence stores" might be the answer, but it gets us into more murky territory; counter-boring the hole to accommodate the shorter bolt. Do the extant samples have a hex or slotted head on the stumpy "stock bolt"? If hex, then they would have required a socket-driver to install, unless the "craftsman" simply hack-sawed a driver slot in the head to accommodate the standard armourer's "big" screwdriver.

Threading the muzzle to screw into one of those mortars would have required a suitable die and a stock to drive it. If these mortars and their initiators were the product of a nice, big "Base Workshop" in the rear echelons, just down the Rue from Mme. Sophie's boarding house for single girls................

[Roger Payne]

Bruce, there is a relic example shown in posting no 47, but unfortunately it's in France & I'm in England. I'm over there again at the end of the month so I'll have a look then. The shank of the stock bolt was also originally wood covered (as per a normal butt). The stock bolt is clearly shorter than standard as well. They had an official designation, firing a special 303 blank cartridge unique to them, & so I'd guess would have been professionally modified at workshops, if not the factory where the mortar itself was made.

[UNPROFOR1994]

Perhaps Peter is right - maybe he is a figment of his own imagination! Have you tried googling him? When I did his obituary came up - it makes for quite interesting reading.

I think this is the obituary you mean: http://www.saimm.co.za/Journal/v079n09p264.pdf

In the South African War he served as a trooper.

At the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Stokes was
in Alaska but managed to reach the trenches in Flanders
as a sapper before the end of the year. He had five years'
service, chiefly in the prosecution of mine warfare. He
was demobilized in 1919 on the conclusion of the North
Russian Campaign against the Bolsheviks, during which
he served on General Ironside's staff with the rank of
Colonel.

On the outbreak of World War 2, Stokes rejoined the
sappers and served as a captain in France before being
selected by Field-marshal Ironside for special duties
with the Narvik expedition. His subsequent service was
in the Middle East as a brigadier at GHQ, with special
responsibility for airfields in the Western Desert up to
the invasion of Italy, when he was recalled to the War
Office.

Stokes must be one of the last of the few men who
have fought in the three wars in which South Africa was
involved in the twentieth century.

I also found this: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/.../3945/data.pdf

CENTRAL CHANCERY OF THE ORDERS
OF KNIGHTHOOD.
St. James's Palace, S.W.I.
gth September, 1942.
The KING has been graciously pleased to give
orders for the following promotions in, and appointments
to, the Most Excellent Order of the British
Empire, in recognition of gallant and distinguished
services in the Middle East during the period
November, 1941, to April, 1942: —

Brigadier (temporary) Ralph Shelton Griffin Stokes,
D.S.O., O.B.E., M.C. (111612), Corps of Royal
Engineers (London, W.i.)

[Roger Payne]

Enclosed photo's of the plum pud initiator blank cartridge & a useful little book that features them. The remains of a box of cartridges were dug up by a French friend at a place called Eaucourt L'Abbeye on The Somme. They look to be reject 303 ball cartridge brass as the one is headstamped R^L 16 Vll. Official title 'Cartridge RML & ML 4 Inch & ML 3.7 Inch Trench Howitzers, Cordite (Mark 1) [L] 303 Inch Brass Case.' Approved 20/01/1916. Some of you will say that the 4 inch & 3.7 inch TH's (heavy TM's) weren't the plum pudding, but the use of this cartridge & adapted SMLE action as an initiating system was extended to the 9.45 Inch & 2 Inch (plum pudding) TM's shortly after.

ATB.