The BEANO T-13 hand grenade was an experimental grenade developed by the Office of Strategic Services (which later became the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

), with assistance from Eastman Kodak Corporation, in the latter years of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Concept

The concept for the BEANO hand grenade was that a spherical grenade the size and weight of a common

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

would be effective in the hands of American troops. The designers believed that by emulating a baseball, any young

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

man should be able to properly throw the grenade with both accuracy and distance.

Design

The final design for the T-13 hand grenade utilized a pressure trigger as well as an in-flight arming device. The grenade was designed to be thrown as a traditional baseball, and as such it was held with two fingers on a weighted and

knurled Knurling is a manufacturing process, typically conducted on a lathe, whereby a pattern of straight, angled or crossed lines is rolled into the material. Etymology The terms ''knurl'' and ''knurled'' are from an earlier ''knur'' ‘knot in wo ...

"butterfly cap" and the arming pin was removed. Once thrown, the cap detached from the body of the grenade and a length of

nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pe ...

string unwound until a secondary arming pin attached to the far end of the cord was pulled, arming the grenade to detonate upon impact with a hard surface. While the original design called for a total weight, it was later decided that this was too light and the weight was increased to .

Usage

The T-13 was approved for field use, and several thousand (produced by Eastman Kodak Corporation) were shipped to Europe. It was reportedly issued in limited quantities during the invasion of Normandy, but is believed to have injured more American soldiers than enemy troops due to premature detonation.

Collectability

Due to the timing of its development, and lack of deployment into service the T-13 remains one of the rarest and most sought after World War II grenades. At the war's end, the remaining stock was ordered destroyed and the records classified. While there are T-13s in existence, they are rare, and command top price in their class.

Literature

* A novel. {{Google books, cs7JRLq3gVUC, Ordinary Heroes. Hand grenades of the United States World War II infantry weapons of the United States Office of Strategic Services Kodak Weapon development Military equipment introduced in the 1940s