“Scrapping ” the War Shells.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 September 1920, Page 4

“Scrapping ” the War Shells.

(By “Mons,” in Daily Mail.)

About half a million tons of ammunition have been sold for breaking clown. A number of factories used during the war for filling shells arc now breaking them down, and others are being converted for this purpose. To the uninitiated the removing of fuses, the bursting charges and explosives contained in the shells may seem a very dangerous undertaking. In France, and in a few factories at homey where the breaking-down process has been going on for months, very few accidents have taken place, and in these few instances it was owing to carelessness or disregard of instructions. The same skill and care 'as were used in production are now exercised in destruction. The ammunition broken down for “scrap” includes practically every kind, iff 'death-dealing instrument that has been in use at some time or other since. 3.914. Hand-grenades of fifty different makes, aerial bombs weighing from 61b up to monsters of 5001 b., shells from 51b up to 15in., weighing slightly ovejr half a ton; trench-mortar bombs of all sorts, including the famous “Flying ]>jg S ” —everything finds its way into the breaking-down dumps. Many thousands of rounds of shell that have never left the filling factory arc now being broken down in the same are now being broken down in the saline ■ ctory and by the same people who 'were engaged in filling them. Anything that has a commercial value is being recovered. The loss, of course, is enormous. To take the 18-pounder shell alone (the shell really weighs 221 b.) Roughly a hundred are calculated to produce a. ton of steel. Bv the time the cost of transport, 1 arbour, insurance, and machinery is paid for a big inroad has been made into the profit of the breakers down. The cost of a. hundred shells would be over £SOO, the value of recoveries being not much over £5 after deducting expen-

Cordito has at present no commercial value and is burnt, but practically everything else is turned to use. The copper from the driving band—that of a loin, shell weighs 161 b.—and the brass from fuses and cartridge cases are the most valuable. Next come the recovered steel, the lead from the bullets of shrapnel shell, and resign. Recoveries in small quantities also include zinc, antimony, and aluminium. The dreaded high explosive, is treated with scant respect. The amatol or amanol is steamed out, and after imder.going a process of boiling and washing is returned to the markets as ammonium nitrate and finds a ready safe. It is estimated that it will take at least two years before all the surplus ammunition is broken down.