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Upstarts
We fired several different kinds of shell. At least 98% were high explosive (HE),
consisting of an explosive charge of TNT or equivalent inside a steel shell about 1/2 inch
thick which ruptures into several hundred jagged fragments that spray out, mostly to the
sides, for about thirty feet. These fragments were sometimes miscalled shrapnel, but
shrapnel was a quite different kind of ammunition not used since World War I. Shell
fragments can cause severe wounds or death to anyone nearby.
Not always, though. I once attended a demonstration of mass fire on the Ft. Sill
range, in which they fired a five-battalion T.O.T. on a little patch of woods. The
commentator was saying, "Look at that awesome concentration of fire power! Not a
living thing could survive that hellish violence!" when a small herd of deer came trotting
out of the "hellish violence."
On one of the few occasions when our CP was shelled during combat, only one
man, Corporal Henry Zirngibl of the Medical Detachment, was wounded. He was using
the straddle-trench latrine at the time, and did not care to dive into the obvious place of
safety. He only got a tiny shell fragment in one eye, but it was enough to destroy the eye,
and he had to be evacuated. Everyone was sorry except Lt Rodman, the battery censor,
who had to read all the letters written by men in the Headquarters Battery and the
Medical Detachment with scissors in hand to cut out any reference to our location or
other information which might be of value to the enemy. Zirngibl had been the member
of a small but fervent religious sect, and he wrote letters of 15 to 20 pages to all his
fellow-members. To add insult to injury, he also enclosed equally long letters he had
received from other devotees, and they had to be censored too.
If a shell bursts on impact, at ground level, much of the fragmentation effect is
driven directly into the ground, and if an enemy soldier is below the surface, as in a
foxhole, or if he is lying down with a swell of ground or other barrier between him and
the burst, he is relatively safe. This is one of several reasons for "hitting the dirt."
Consequently, the ingenious people who design artillery shells were constantly searching
for ways to make the shell burst above ground, but not so far above that the fragments
will lose their punch coming down. Thirty feet or less was the optimum. If your target
was in a wooded area, the shells would often burst when they hit the foliage, well above
ground level. But one couldn't trust the enemy to be in a wooded area, so other methods
had to be used.
The fuze, located at the nose of the shell, is what makes it explode. There were
several types of fuze, each with its own use. The one most often used was the Quick-
Delay fuze. A cannoneer with a screwdriver could adjust it to explode either Quick, that
is instantaneously on landing, or Delay, a small fraction of a second later. The Delay
setting was intended to be used against fortifications, so that the shell would penetrate
before bursting, and so do more damage to the structure.
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