Dud and Alive
The 1st Northamptonshire Regiment D Coy 13 14 15 platoons, were at Bodmin Camp 1958, we arrived there from our main camp which was Watchet Camp in Somerset, when we were at Bodmin Camp we did a lot of different things in the way of training, firing rifles and bren guns, throwing hand grenades,and firing Energa Grenades from the end of 303 rifles, when we fired the Energa Grenades we fired them from the standing position, we stood in a row shoulder to shoulder about one meter apart, every other soldier had a live Energa Grenade the others dud practice ones, I had a live one, the soldier on my right had a dud practice one, and he wanted to fire a live one, no one would change their live one for his dud one,he kept on for a bit so I said here take my live one which he did, now we are ready to fire the Energa Grenades, the first one fired his and so on until it was the soldier on my right turn to fire his, which should have been mine, he fired and it blow up about 200 meters away, we all give a roar, now it was my turn, I wrapped the rifle strap around my left arm the Grenade on the end of the rifle, put a cartridge in the chamber of the rifle which looks like a blank round which has been painted black at one end ( as shown in photo ) order comes for me to fire, so I fire, instead of a bang from the chamber of the rifle there came a puff then the Grenade took off, and landed about 3 to 4 meters in front of us, I have often wondered if I had kept my LIVE Energa Grenade would it have BLOWN UP may be killing some of us, as the cartridge was a DUD which I put in the 303 rifle chamber ( as shown in photo ).and I have kept his and my cartridge cases to this day, ( soldier who was on my right ) the things we keep.
Dose anybody know, if the Energa Grenade I fired had been my live one I had to start with, instead of the dud practice one I fired, would it have blown up going the short distance it did, ????.
When we were at Bodmin we were also on TROLLEY TRAILS,we marched from Bodmin to Oakhampton, pushing and pulling the Trolleys, has anyone photos of that time it would be great to see them.
Please click on the images to enlarge
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