The Walkley Bomb - Sheffield 1937

The following report appeared in The Times dated 19th March 1937 under the title

SAVED BY THE BELT

A Mills Bomb by the way is the classic design of  a grooved cast iron 'pineapple' hand grenade with a central striker held by a close hand lever and secured with a pin. Although the segmented body helps to create fragments when the grenade explodes, the casing was grooved to make it easier to grip and not as an aid to fragmentation. The Mills Bomb was a defensive grenade: after throwing the user had to take cover immediately. A competent thrower could manage thirty metres with reasonable accuracy, but the grenade could throw lethal fragments further than this. It could be fitted with a flat base and fired with a blank cartridge from a rifle with a 'cup' attachment, giving it a range of around 150 metres.

King James Street ran down from the bottom of Freedom Road in Walkley (Sheffield) going towards the Barracks at Hillsborough.

"the bomb had been put out of the way under the kitchen copper by Miss Barlow" mmmm!

The local press also reported the case. The Sheffield Telegraph under the title "Bomb under Copper" stated the following

The thought of Miss Barlow "blackleading" a Mills Bomb with no pin in it does bring a smile to the face!

The Daily Independent dated 19th March 1937 also carried a full report of the incident

Sources

Wikipedia

The Times dated 19th March 1937

Sheffield Telegraph dated  19th March 1937

The Daily Independent dated 19th March 1937

Whilst I was researching this incident, I came across another one, some 14 years earlier. The Times dated 05th April 1923 gave the following report

The only explanation I can think of for this rash of bombing is that when soldiers returned from the Great War, they brought home "souvenirs" of the conflict, in these cases bombs. The easy availability of a range of explosive devices, and the opportunity to discharge them is all the perpetrator needed

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This page was last updated on 28/01/16 16:24