Take an empty tin, add some ammonal explosive, a detonator and a length of fuse plus assorted nails, metal shell fragments and bits of cut-up barbed wire and you have one of the signature weapons of the Gallipoli campaign.
This was the jam tin bomb, although the tins used could just as easily have contained bully beef, condensed milk or fruit.
Australian War Memorial historian Ashley Ekins said the jam tin bomb emerged through sheer desperation.
"The Turks had bombs. We had nothing," he said.
Large numbers were turned out at an open air factory on the Gallipoli beach. Historic photos show the bomb makers surrounded by piles of tins, turning out about 200 a day.
That was never enough, especially at the peak of fighting.
"For god sake send bombs" was the last message from one beleaguered position.
When soldiers charged ashore on April 25, 1915, they were armed with their trusty SMLE rifles and bayonets, while officers carried pistols. They had none of the weapons that would later prove essential for trench warfare, especially hand grenades.
So they were amazed when the Turks started lobbing "cricket ball bombs" into their trenches - black cast iron balls with a sputtering fuse.
By the standards of later grenades, neither bomb was especially lethal but they were lethal enough.
Ekins said the Turkish bombs were the better of the two but their long fuse meant Australian soldiers often had time to throw them back.
Indeed there were reports that some Turkish bombs made a three-way journey, although it isn't clear just how anyone could know that in the midst of a bomb fight.
"They (the Turks) lit them with a striker on their tunic, whereas the Australians had to have what they called a slow match. They would roll up a bit of sandbag, tie it tight with wire or twine and then set fire to it and it would smoulder," Ekins said.
One famous photo from Gallipoli shows 3rd Light Horse Trooper Ashley Ekins in the trench at Quinn's Post lighting a jam tin bomb held by his mate Trooper Eric Dowling from a length of smouldering rope before Dowling hurling it at Turkish trenches less than 20 metres away.
He is historian Ekins's great uncle. The photo itself was taken by Trooper Ross Smith, later a household name when he and brother Keith made their epic 1919 flight from Britain to Australia.
The jam tin bomb featured in one of the campaign's dirty tricks.
Soldiers would char the end of a short piece of instantaneous fuse and insert it into a bomb, which was then thrown into the Turkish trenches. Thinking the fuse had just gone out, Turkish soldiers would light it to throw the bomb back - and blow themselves up.
Towards the end of the campaign, the first new Mills grenades arrived on Gallipoli. This pineapple-shaped bomb would reman in Commonwealth service through two world wars. The UK ended production only in 1972.
Ekins said one of the Australian 2nd Division battalions reported that these new devices had arrived but there were no instructions and no one knew how to use them.
"The boxes of these bombs were put in the back of a dugout and never used. They might even still be there," he said.
Share
