Amongst many other items recovered last week (legally with the owners permission) from an ex 3 Group airfield were six, broken .303″ cartridges.
They are all from the same area. Five are armour piercing (AP) and one is an incendiary round with nitrocellulose charge. They were recovered amongst bits of melted/burnt alloy and small aircraft parts.
I have recovered many items from ex Bomber Command airfields over the years, but have never come across such an unusual combination of ammunition close together – ie – probably from one aircraft.
It seems likely there are more items to be found. Crops and time were against me.
Can anyone shed any light on why I should find five AP and one incendiary round together? Coincidence? Or did Bomber Command routinely use predominantly AP with intermittant incendiary rounds in belted turret ammunition?
T.
By: Arabella-Cox - 15th November 2009 at 00:01
Yes a crash site indeed.
I’d still like to know what the normal ratio of ball/AP/incendiary/tracer was for belted ammunition in Bomber Command.
T.
By: Alan Clark - 13th November 2009 at 14:59
Sounds like you’ve found your self a crash site, but on an airfield you have no hope of working out which a/c it is.
By: Arabella-Cox - 13th November 2009 at 13:34
The round in question is headstamped with the makers code K (Kynoch).
By: suu23 - 10th November 2009 at 20:04
B was also the makers code for the Birmingham Metals & Munitions Co. Ltd., Birmingham, U.K. and the vIIz was also a code for light ball rounds.On ball rounds the primer anulis was purple ,on incendiary it was blue and tracerones were red.http://home.scarlet.be/p.colmant/303.htm
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/stephen.johnson/arms/saa2.jpg
By: Arabella-Cox - 9th November 2009 at 14:51
I believe tracers were prefixed G, this one is headstamped B VII Z (B = INCENDIARY. Z = NITROCELLULOSE CHARGE). So not tracer.
T.
By: steve_p - 9th November 2009 at 14:09
Isn’t the incendiary one tracer?
Sign In
November 9, 2009 at 2:06 pm