A WAR INVENTOR

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 33, 9 February 1927, Page 9

A WAR INVENTOR

DEATH OF SIR WILFRED

STOKES

(United Press Association. —Copyright.) LONDON, 7th February. The death is announced of Sir Wilfred Stokes, inventor of *lhe famous Stokes trench mortar. ..

The Stokes mortar, one of the best known of war inventions, was invented by the late Sir Wilfred Stokes in 1915, but was considerably improved in the course of the Great War as the result of experience with the weapon itself and with trench-mortars generally. It was first used in the battle of Loos on 25th September, 1915, when a few 4in tubes on bipod mountings, with strawboardbodied shells, improvised at short notice, were employed' for firing smoke shell. By the time, it came to fight the battle of the Somme, on Ist July, 1916, both 3in and 4in mortars (the latter specialised for gas and smoke projectiles) had been issued in large numbers. Thereafter, to the last phase of the war, in which its lightness enabled it to do useful service as an "accompanying" piece, it satisfied all expectations. Each British infantry brigade of three or four battalions included a battery of 3in Stokes. Their principal characteristic was automatic ignition. The first idea of this method of firing bombs;., is stated to have come from the German ammunition firm of Krupps, but tlfe first real application of the theory of dropping a bomb down the bore of a mortar so rs to firo the charge and eject the bomb upon impact with the base was put forward by the late Sir Wilfred Stokes. This particular brand of trench mortar was set apart m the British service for the firing of high-explosive bombs, smokeproducing bombs not being added until later, the -tin mortar being reserved for gas, smoke, and incendiary projectiles. The weight of the 3in bomb was 1011b and of the 4in 2olb, the design of both mortars being substantially the same, except for the fact that each was specially designed to carry its own weight of bomb. Later the design was amended to enable a 6in mortar to be made, the new patent being then knowr. as the Stokes-Newton trench mortar, which fired a heavy cast-iron vaned bomb, propelled by gun-cot{on.