Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-08-22
No Wonder
Germany Quit
BY MAJOR FRANK G. MAHIN
OF the Army Recruiting Station
By BRIGGS

"Bangalore Torpedo" for the love
of Mike what is that? was the
question I fired at an engineer one
afternoon in June up in the Vosges.
This engineer then informed me
that he had been directed to come
up to my sector and blow some holes
in the Boche barb wire with the
new torpedoes they were expert
menting with. l told him. l was
willing as the more He'll we raised
with our Teutonic friends the soon
er the job would be finished and
we could go home. But said /,
what is this blamed Bengal torpedo
or whatever you call it?' He said
he had one outside if l would take
a look at it.. ! found he had num-
ber of lengths of ordinary stove
pipe stuck together to form a tube
sixteen feet long. From each end
issued what appeared to be length
of heavy silver wire. 1t seems that
this tube contained twenty five
pounds of Cheddite, and knowing
something about Cheddite. l hastily
backed off when l heard those glad
tidings. The silver wire was really
a piece of melenite fuse which was
passed completely through the cent
er of the Cheddite and to make
absolutely certain that combustion
should be instantaneous and COM
plete there was a whole block of
gelatinous dynamite about an inch
square every four inches on
that fuse. Now since melenite
burns at the rate of seven thous-
and feet per second, nearly a mile
and half, it doesn't take very long
for 1T to burn through the sixteen
foot length of torpedo. The burn
ing fuse eXplodes the Jumps of
gelatinous dynamite which in turn
set or those twenty-five pounds of
Cheddlte. Anyone who has ever
seen Cheddite explode can
thoroughly appreciate what happens.
But it has several very peculiar
properties and those are that it
creates a frightful heat and that
the force of the explosion is en-
urly up and out instead of down as
with dynamite. What they do is
stick the Bangelore Torpedo under
the Boche barb wire, attach an
electric wire to the end of the fuse
and get off about a hundred yards
and push a button. Instantly there
is quite some little explosion and
when 1t is over you find that that
there isn't sign of barb wire, for
a strip twenty-five feet long by
eight wide: the wire has Just evan
grated. In case the barb wire is too
wide for one torpedo they hitch two
together which will clear about
torty-four feet. The engineer ask
ed me where I wanted to use this
pretty little weapon and I told him
He said he had another coming nm
and we would make a good Job by
hitching them together. Along
about the witching hour of mid
night he started out across No Mans
Land with two of his own men each
carrying twenty-five pound tube
OF Cheddite, and accompanied by
a detachment of nine of NV hest
scouts. When the party got about
fifty feet from the Boche wire thav
We're fired on by a machine gun.
| was down then in our trenches
peleVe me to see what was going to
happen, and when that machine
gun cut loose it sounded as though
a stampede of cattle had taken
place in No Mans Land. In a few
minutes the engineer and his two
men came back with their tor
pedoes, but the nine scouts had
disappeared Finally towa "a.
morning we rounded them up one
by one. I asked them why they
had beat 1t from one machine gun
when that was an old game to them
and the invariable answer was that
fifty pounds of Cheddite might 90
off If a bullet hit it and that none
or them were going to wait and see
II 1t would. Can you blame them?
I can't.