British No 36 "Mills Bomb" Grenade

[Bravo 20]

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would share some photos of a nice, original No. 36 Mills Bomb that came my way. These are not so easy to obtain anymore, especially here in the states. If you look close you can see the remnants of the three red painted "X's" on the side which denote high explosives. The WW1 variation had a red and pink ring around the upper body. This little beauty is complete with plunger and fuse assembly, but no baratol.

The finish on the body is a bit worn, but you can still see it. Overall, this is one of the nicer ones I have come across and I was lucky enough to get it in a trade. I was tempted to use it as a paper weight at the office, but it might cause undue alarm from my co-workers.

Cheers,
Tim

[militarymania]

nice score...

[Rommel1942]

Nice one Tim. Have you read 'Three Day Road'? Talk alot about these Mills Bombs in there.

Regards,
Finn

[Gary J]

Nice to see the detonator/fuse onboard ...
(I presume this has been made safe ??)

Have a look here for further grenade details ....

http://www.millsgrenades.co.uk/

JHW = John Harper, Willenhall Staffordshire.

Regards

Gary J.

[HARRY THE MOLE]

I recall that back in 1969/70, our regiment went on the ranges at Mourmelon-Le-Grande to do some grenade-throwing. The grenades came in a long wooden box with (I think) eight grenades on each side of the box, with a round tin in the middle full of fuses and a baseplate tool.

We were each given a Mills-bomb (1939 dated) to prime ourselves. First, you had to scrape the protective wax off them before removing the baseplate and inserting the fuse. We then took it in turns to go down to the firing-point. The drill was to pull the pin, throw (or bowl) the bomb and count to three before ducking down in the slit-trench. One lad threw his bomb and it failed to go off. Captain Carruana had to go out (after the required wait of one ninute) to retrieve the bomb, and when he removed the baseplate he saw there was no fuse in it. That squaddie had a very sore arse by the time Carruana had finshed booting him!

For those of us waiting further back for our turn, it proved to be rather hair-raising. The baseplates of the exploding bombs were whizzing all over the place!