Department of Explosives Supply

Miss McKie s investigations have been mainly concerned with a study of the methods of preparation of materials offensive and defensive for the Department of Explosives Supply. Her work had been particularly successful as in the two cases investigated, new and far superior methods of preparation have been discovered and examined.25... 

Picric acid was another explosive used in the war and from 1917 to 1919, Ruth King28 was assigned as a Wartime Research Worker at Chiswick Laboratory, Department of Explosive Supply, Ministry of Munitions, to research the optimum conditions for its synthesis. 

Preliminary Studies For H. M. Factory, Gretna and Study For An Installation of Phosgene Manufacture, Ministry of Munitions, Department of Explosive Supply, London. 

In Britain, papers concerning the major private firms that worked for the Ministry of Munitions survive within the public domain, but are scattered and difficult to correlate. To date, no one has attempted an integrative history of the Department of Explosives Supply, to match Lutz Haber s magisterial work on the Ministry s Trench Warfare Research and Supply Departments, and their affiliated agencies in the War Office. The Ministry s internal history, written immediately at the end of the war - and still unpublished - reflects more the administrative triumphs its officials achieved than the technical battles that its factories waged. We know well the outlines of Britain s great munitions feat. But as Europe now approaches the 80th anniversary of the Armistice, it is surely time for a full, comparative history of that feat to be written. 

National Archives (Kew) MUN 4/7056, Report of the British Mission Appointed to Visit Enemy Chemical Factories in the Occupied Zone Engaged in the Production of Munitions of War (Ministry of Munitions of War, Department of Explosives Supply, February, 1919), Vol. 6, 21-22 SUPP 28G16 (Dormagen Filling Plant, C. 4513, 28 March 1922). 

Macnab (1858-1941), the most celebrated authority on explosives in Britain before the war, joined Lord Moulton s Committee on Explosives in 1914 and from 1915 to 1918 served as Technical Adviser to the Department of Explosives Supply, Ministry of Munitions. See Journal and Proceedings of the Institute of Chemistry (1941), Part V, 285-186 Who Was Who, Vol. IV (1941-1950), (London A C Black, 1964), 743. 

The US Department of Energy currently maintains an estimated five year supply of TATB for its Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program which is designed to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the US nuclear stockpile. The Department of Defense is also studying the possible use of TATB as an insensitive booster material because even with its safety characteristics, a given amount of this explosive has more power than an equivalent volume of TNT. 

The routine tests which are carried out on military explosives art described in U. S. War Department Technical Manual TM9-2900, Military Explosives. The testing of explosives for sensitivity, explosive power, etc., is described in the Bulletins and Technical Papers of the U. S. Bureau of Mines. The student of explosives is advised to secure from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C., a list of the publications of the Bureau of Mines, and then to supply himself with as many as may be of interest, for they are sold at very moderate prices. The following are especially recommended. Several of these are now no longer procurable from the Superintendent of Documents, but they may be found in many libraries. 

It was her war work which initiated the choice of career for Patricia Hannah Green.109 Green was bom on 29 July 1919 in Pontypridd, Wales, and was educated at Howell s School, Llandaff (see Chap. 6). Interested in biological chemistry, she entered Girton in 1937 to study biochemistry, graduating in 1940, the same year she married Michael Clarke. She left Cambridge for war work at the Armament Research Department of the Ministry of Supply, initially at Woolwich Arsenal, and then at Swansea, researching the chemistry of explosives. 

Transportation of explosives shall meet the provisions of the Department of Transportation. The electrical system of trucks should be checked weekly. Auxiliary lights are prohibited. Explosive equipment and supplies should be conveyed singly. They should not be transported on locomotives and the materials should be carried in separate containers. The powder car or conveyance should have a reflectorized sign with the word "Explosives."... 

The local fire department arrivedjust after the explosion at 11 22 A.M. With the limited water supply on two of the fire trucks and the utilization of another fire truck to pump water directly from a nearby cooling water tower basin, the firemen were able to slow the fire spread. By 11 30 A.M., the Maintenance Department was able to transfer the set of batteries from the impaired diesel fire pump to the other diesel fire pump. On completion of this task, this diesel fire pump was started. The automatic deluge sprinkler protection was severely damaged by the fire/explosions and had to be valved into the off position. Three fixed monitors were turned onto lull flow and directed at the fire. Also, the firemen and fire brigade used two hose streams olF nearby fire hydrants for fire fighting purposes. At 11 58 A.M., the fire was under control. Final fire extinguishment was accomplished by 12 10 p.m. 

The reagent is available at modest cost from the Explosives Department, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., Gibbstown, J. J., under the trade name EXR-101, which is a mixture of the nitrosamide with 30% white mineral oil as stabilizer, and which may be stored indefinitely at room temperature (bulletin available). Supplied by Aldrich in lots of 100 g. and 500 g. 

Both the CND and WIB attempted to coordinate the economy by economic planning, but they lacked authority to enforce decisions. After President Wilson strengthened the WIB in March 1918, coordination occurred more smoothly, although the WIB still coddled as much as coerced business into cooperation. The WIB created cooperative committees to work with individual industries. In most cases, concentrated industries with few firms—such as the explosives industry— proved much easier for the WIB than the management of more competitive industries. The military branches continued to make their own purchases, but both the Navy and the War Departments increasingly cooperated with the WIB in setting priorities. Within the WIB, there was a chemicals division with about twenty sections. One section dealt specifically with explosives, and related sections with supplies of raw materials (such as toluene and nitric acid), synthetic dyes, and... 

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