BRITAIN'S NEW EXPLOSIVE: EXPERTS KILLED IN TERRIFIC BLAST - Army News (Darwin, NT : 1941 - 1946) - 2 Oct 1943 (original) (raw)

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Sat 2 Oct 1943 - Army News (Darwin, NT : 1941 - 1946)
Page 3 - BRITAIN'S NEW EXPLOSIVE: EXPERTS KILLED IN TERRIFIC BLAST

BRITAIN'S NEW EXPLOSIVE: EXPERTS KILLED

IT is officially revealed in London that the Allies are using a

powerful explosive called RDX, meaning "Research

Department Formula X." The explosive is not new, and was

known in the early part of the century, but the difficulty has been

to make it on a useful scale.

Chemists and scientists of

many nations have tried to

solve the problem of manu-

facturing the explosive, but

none succeeded until the War

Office research department

achieved it just before the

RDX, which is more powerful

than TNT, is also being made in

It has been revealed that the

first process of filling a shell with

the explosive at Woolwich Arsenal

was going forward when something

A group of five men watching the

mixing through mirrors behind a

blast wall saw what was happen-

ing and ran into the danger zone

They were too late, and there

was a tremendous explosion, and

the five men were killed instantly.

It is further revealed that it was

a 15-in. shell containing 50-lb. of

RDX which prematurely exploded.

The blast was so terrific that a roll

call had to be made before the

victims could be identified.

One of the victims was Cmdr.

P. A. M. Long, of Seven Oaks, who

had retired after 30 years' service

He had been at Woolwich Arsenal

for 12 years, and had gone to the

arsenal to observe the final process

of filling the 15-in, shell after 16

years' continuous research.

Two other scientist victims were

Messrs. F. C. Lewis and J. Brignall,

28, a laboratory assistant. The

later was described at one of Wool-

wich's most brilliant young pre-war

The first time RDX was used was

in April, 1941, when a Wellington

bomber dropped a 4000-lb. block-

buster on Emden, the results of

which confirmed the most optimistic

expectations. To prevent the secret

falling into German hands the ut-

most care is taken to ensure that