Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1933 - 1954), Monday 27 September 1943, page 1


NEW ALLIED EXPLOSIVE

T ONDON, Sept. 26 (Special). I-1 — The Allies are now using an explosive called RDX, which is more powerful than T.N.T

'RDX' stands for Research Department, Formula X. It is not new. but difficulty was ex-perienced in making it on a use-ful scale. The War Office Re-search Department achieved this just before the outbreak of war. It was used for the first time In April, 1941, when a Welling ton bomber dropped a 40001b. block-buster on Emden. The re-sults confirmed the most opti-mistic expectations. The colour and smell of RDX suggests a sweet more than an explosive. Actually it looks like toffee. When the first process of fill-ing a shell with the explosive at Woolwich Arsenal was going forward, something went wrong. A group of men watching the process through mirrors from behind a blast wall saw what was happening and ran into the danger zone to stop it. They were too late, and there was a tremendous explosion. A roll-call had to be made for identification of five victims.