The pencil bomb attacks were used in multiple acts of state-sponsored terrorism by

Imperial Germany The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The pencil bombs were a type of

time bomb A time bomb (or a timebomb, time-bomb) is a bomb whose detonation is triggered by a timer. The use (or attempted use) of time bombs has been for various purposes including insurance fraud, terrorism, assassination, sabotage and warfare. They ar ...

with a

timer A timer is a specialized type of clock used for measuring specific time intervals. Timers can be categorized into two main types. The word "timer" is usually reserved for devices that counts down from a specified time interval, while devices th ...

that could be set to

detonate Detonation () is a type of combustion involving a supersonic exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front propagating directly in front of it. Detonations propagate supersonically through shock waves with s ...

at any given time. It was designed by German chemist Dr. and used by German

field agent In espionage, a field agent is an agent who works in the field as opposed to one who operates at the office or headquarters. A field agent can work alone or in a group but usually has a case officer who is in charge. Field agents can be undercover, ...

Captain

Franz von Rintelen Captain Franz Dagobert Johannes von Rintelen (19 August 1878 – 30 May 1949) was a member of the German nobility and a veteran field agent in the intelligence wing of the German Imperial Navy, who operated covertly in the still neutral United ...

of the intelligence wing of the

German Imperial Navy The Imperial German Navy or the Imperial Navy () was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for coast defence. Kaiser ...

during

Design

When the bomb

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

was first shown to Rintelen by Scheele it was a hollow cylinder of lead the size of a large cigar. Into the middle of the tube a circular disc of

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

had been pressed and soldered, dividing it into two chambers. One of these chambers was filled with

picric acid Picric acid is an organic compound with the formula (O2N)3C6H2OH. Its IUPAC name is 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP). The name "picric" comes from el, πικρός (''pikros''), meaning "bitter", due to its bitter taste. It is one of the most acidic ...

, the other with

sulphuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...

or some other nonflammable liquid. A strong plug made of wax with a simple lead cap made both ends airtight. The copper disc could be as thick or as thin as desired. If it were thick, the two acids on either side took a long time to eat their way through. If it were thin, the mingling of the two acids would occur within a few days. By regulating the thickness of the disc it was possible to determine the time when the acids should come together. This formed a safe and efficient time-fuse. When the two acids mingled at the appointed time, a silent but intense flame, from twenty to thirty centimetres long, shot out from both ends of the tube, and while it was still burning the lead casing melted away, leaving very little evidence of the source of the fire.

Use

Von Rintelen and his ring of German agents would slip the bombs onto ships carrying munitions bound for war. The incendiary device ignited cargos when ships were far at sea. It was estimated later that he alone had destroyed $10 million (USD $ million in ) worth of cargo on 36 ships.

Manufacture

The first batch of bombs was manufactured on the SS ''Friedrich Der Grosse'', a

Norddeutscher Lloyd Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL; North German Lloyd) was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on 20 February 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of th ...

liner A low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) is a type of galactic nucleus that is defined by its spectral line emission. The spectra typically include line emission from weakly ionized or neutral atoms, such as O, O+, N+, and S+. ...

that at the outset of World War I was interned by the United States in New York harbour. German sailors from the ship helped in manufacture. The SS Phoebus was chosen as a test case and as was reported in the ''Shipping News'', "Accidents. S.S. Phoebus from New York—destination Archangel—caught fire at sea. Brought into port of Liverpool by H.M.S. Ajax."

Bibliography

Notes References * * * - Total pages: 271 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pencil Bomb Bombs Espionage scandals and incidents Improvised explosive devices Terrorist incidents in the 1910s World War I crimes by Imperial Germany World War I spies for Germany

Design

Use

Manufacture

See also

Bibliography