Bombers' Training, and Application of Same in Trench Warfare

This is not a book read for pleasure. It is a survival document, produced in the blood-soaked year of 1916, when the Western Front had become a murder of mud and millstones and men learned to kill at arm's length. Lieutenant J.R. Ferris wrote this manual for officers and NCOs tasked with turning raw soldiers into trench bombers, men who would wedge themselves into craters and firebase bombs across no-man's-land at ranges sometimes measured in feet. The manual offers a comprehensive syllabus: lectures on the chemistry and physics of explosives, detailed descriptions of British grenades (the No. 1, the No. 3, the cricket bat flapper), and step-by-step training protocols. But beyond the technical specifications lies something more visceral, the sheer physical intimacy of trench warfare, where a bomber might have twenty-five yards of contested ground between himself and an enemy sap head. Ferris emphasizes discipline, teamwork, and the grim calculus of offense versus defense in close quarters. Diagrams illustrate throws, positions, and the organizational hierarchy of a bombing party. Reading it today feels like holding a piece of the war itself: practical, urgent, and utterly without sentimentality. It is essential reading for anyone studying WWI tactics, military history, or the brutal mechanics of close-range combat.