20200415_141022
1902 pattern time and percussion fuse. A 1917 manufacture of the U S factory Scovill, of Waterbury, Conn. The fuses were sold to the British military during the Great War. I often ponder its history - where the copper and zinc was mined to make the brass; the lives of the factory workers who produced it, crated it with others for export. Which ship carried it acoss the Atlantic? Its processing on arrival, presumably in the UK. Then more munitions work mating it up with a shell, further crating and transport to the Western Front, possibly stored at an ammunition dump. Brought to the battery which eventually fired it. Then what? An air burst, an impact detonation? A dud? Did it kill or maim? I remember my grandad telling me about some of his comrades collecting shell fuses from the battlefield. Though he avoided that, weighing you down on top of an already heavy kit load. Posted for Exciting images of life at home group.
(NB. safety comment - this fuse has been fired and is inert. An unfired nosecap has a space between it and the next, lower section. The gap is forced closed on impact to initiate detonation).
20200415_141022
1902 pattern time and percussion fuse. A 1917 manufacture of the U S factory Scovill, of Waterbury, Conn. The fuses were sold to the British military during the Great War. I often ponder its history - where the copper and zinc was mined to make the brass; the lives of the factory workers who produced it, crated it with others for export. Which ship carried it acoss the Atlantic? Its processing on arrival, presumably in the UK. Then more munitions work mating it up with a shell, further crating and transport to the Western Front, possibly stored at an ammunition dump. Brought to the battery which eventually fired it. Then what? An air burst, an impact detonation? A dud? Did it kill or maim? I remember my grandad telling me about some of his comrades collecting shell fuses from the battlefield. Though he avoided that, weighing you down on top of an already heavy kit load. Posted for Exciting images of life at home group.
(NB. safety comment - this fuse has been fired and is inert. An unfired nosecap has a space between it and the next, lower section. The gap is forced closed on impact to initiate detonation).