THE “TRACER" BULLET

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 150, 21 March 1921, Page 9

THE “TRACER" BULLET

INVENTION OF A NEW ZEALANDER

INVENTION YIELDED £25,000

Some twelve years ago the writer was invited to represent The Dominion at a trial exhibition or test of a new explosive which was brought to Wellington from Invercargill by Mr. John Pomeroy, of that town, for the edification of the Defence authorities. The trial took place at the old Folhill Gully range. The "Pomeroy" explosive, which was made up into cartridges, and fired at given objects, was a most impressive agent of destruction. Whilst the bullet from an ordinary cartridge would merely penetrate a kerosene tin 200 or 300 yards away, leaving tiny holes on either side, the "Pomeroy’’ cartridge would shatter the tin. That is to say, that the charge was made up in such- a way that tho bullet shattered on striking the object aimed at instead of simply and cleanly penetrating it. Thus in the ease of the kerosene fin, the object was simply riddled with holes.

No matter what an explosive will do under test conditions, Army officers are non-committal, and on this occasion, though tho "Pomeroy” bullet did all that was claimed for it, the officers present looked wise and said nothing. But Mr. Pomeroy had his mission in life in perfecting the same bullet—one that would do things that others would not, for out of his experiments came the tracer bullets, which enabled British airmen to fight the -German Zeppelins and which ultimately stopped the Zeppelin raids on England. Mr. Pomeroy, who has arrived back in Melbourne, explained to an interviewer that the famous tracer bullet was invented with the idea of igniting the gas in the Zeppelin. It was used for the first time in warfare on September 3, 1916, when, after the Germans had made 37 airship raids on Great Britain, Captain W. L. Robinson, V.C., destroyed, over Cuffloy, the first airship brought down on English soil. The fight with tho Zeppelin took place at a height of 12,000 ft., and Captain Robinson was faced with the direct fire of seven machine-guns. He was in the air about an hour and a half, and had fired three good bursts into the Zeppelin, when it caught fire and came down in flames which illuminated the country for thirty miles. Though the Germans know of the bullet at an early stage, they never discovered the secret of its construction.

“I began to think of the bullet 18 years ago, inspired by a picture which I saw in New Zealand of the first Zeppe■in that fell in Germany,” said Mr. T’omproy. “I then thought that an air-’ ship of this typo would be a most important factor in a big war, unless it could be fought by setting alight the hydrogen in the balloon. I invented a bullet, which was tried in 1998 by Lieutenant 'now Commander) DHnwiddie, of 11.M.5. Encounter, then in New Zealand waters. I was in London when tho war broke out, and'on August 27, 1914, I submitted the invention to the War Office as an anti-Zeppelin bullet. It was promptly rejected. Bitterly disappointed, I packed up and returned to Australia. After my return to Australia, Zeppelin raids became more frequent in Great Britain, and I decided to return and make another effort to induce the Government to use tho bullet. I travelled by way of America, and on a Sunday morning at. Fort. Ben Harrison" gave a demonstration of the working of the bullet, which resulted in Lieutenant Copeck, of the United States Army, recommending its adoption by tho United States Chief of Ordnance. I wax anxious that the bullet should bo adopted by the authorities in Great Britain, and on the following morning my wife and I travelled to New York and caught a ship for England. 4 knew I Idtd a good thing. Colonel (now General) Ashmore tried it at Fort Grange, Gosport, in June, 1915. It destroyed all the aeroplane wings against which it was directed, and Colonel Ashmore at once reported the result to the War Office. I subsequently attended at the War Office, and after several further trials I heard no more for more than four months. On November 15, 1915, I wrote to the Inventions Board, and was informed after a month that the Munitions Invention Department was considering my application. On January 6, 1916 —more than sixteen months after I had first submitted the invention—l wrote to Mr. Lloyd George, and-it was the Prime Minister who actually obtained the acceptance of the invention. "By this time, however, my funds were almost depleted. I had had no financial help from the Government, and had been spending money all the while on trials. A financier in Piccadilly agreed to finance the undertaking on the condition that lie received half of any payment that might be made to me for the invention. Towards the end of the summer of 1916 I received an order from the Government, and my wife made the first 5000 bullets in a room at the top of Adastral House, on the Embankment, which was lent for the purpose. I was awarded .£20,000 for the invention, half of which went to the financier, and my wife received .£5OOO for her services. Since that time 10,000,000 of the bullets liave been made. My wife, who is a native of Melbourne, was one of the few women engaged in the making of the bullets who was immune from the effects of the fumes. She was decorated by the King at Buckingham Palace with the M.B.E. for ‘having executed a task requiring exceptional courage -and selfsacrifice.’ ’’ . It is Mr. Pomeroy’s intention to reside in Melbourne. He intends to devote his attention to the smoke nuisance.