THE STOKES GUN.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 May 1917, Page 5

THE STOKES GUN.

I A SINISTER WEAPON. Accounts of recent flßliting pa the M> tish front have referred to tho doadlj work of our Stokes gun. "A statat*! weapon" one special correspondent hat called it. "It sends up into the air, Ufa , a group of lead pencils, a flight of honriw I which sail down on to their objective with' deadly accuracy and a terrihtt e|k plosive effect," was hi» description of th< action. The Times correspondent hM written of the "coruscations of a hail 0> Stokes bombs . . most aWe-ln»plrln) ! both in appearance and effect.*' At the front the gun has been r*

garded for many months with facrefcilnf enthusiasm. Officers and men have sal? that it iB by far the most effective short . range weapon we possess. ' A wounded soldierwrote hoaei "Tel; ~ Dad to let Mr, Stokes know that I aay ; the way his giin blew the Hum to bkvWl ~ The Germans can't stick it at any prl« All you could, hoar was: 'Bring up thi Stokes guns and get them ill action.' T> ■ boys thought I was mad, for every tiw ". a Stokes shell bunt I kept.Opting : 'Another one from Ockham."'

PREMIER'S FORESIGHT, Mr; Wilfred Stokes, the inventor Of thi gun, lives at Qckhain, licar RtpUyjcSur rey. He has said that had it *«p'.bee» for. Mr. Lloyd George's foresight bjs ia vefition might have gene «h.the*rap' heap. Mr, Stokes is chairman-and manag ina director of Messrs. gjinsomes ant Rapier, Ltd., engineers, and Ironworks, Ipswich, with which. firm- hj« ha! been associated eince 1880. . He i* also chairman of the East Anglian Munitions Committee and a member of til* Munitions Invention, Department. Asked how he eddie to invent Qw gu»i Mr. .Stokes, a man, of Kg buM *lth *> kind yet strong face, ?»«, "A fr&a* vt mine came-back from France and sold m« he was convinced that this wax .was a, battle of wits and which could produce the'ino's! effieSv* death, dealing machines -would win, ; VI >am a peaceful, never : ,jvisa<!d to so -mush as lift an eyebrow, buifßla ideai jusii came to We 'after «y frlenil had- 1 eaid. A good deal «f experimenting, chiefly on my own' ground ai Oclfham, - ended in the projection of tie present gun, the chief characteristics of which are simplicity, quiokttW in firing.'* '"'./. . . .- -