Label from packing box? 1000 cartridges incendiary .303 inch B. Mark VIz

[butterfly]

I received this one today and know little about it other than it was removed sometime recently from a crate which was subsequently broken up.

The title speaks for itself, but unfortunately its not my area so perhaps someone could fill me in - so to speak!

What is intriguing is what is written/typed on the reverse...... again could someone enlighten me on this? is this normal?

I presume being linked in browning links these were aircraft rounds.

regards Kev

 

[hangarman]

Its a good example of re-cycling! Tony E has a few in his collection that were re-used when the label became redundant or superseded.
I am glad to see it was not recently removed from an H type ammunition box...
Cheers
Gary

 

[butterfly]

Its a good example of re-cycling! Tony E has a few in his collection that were re-used when the label became redundant or superseded.
I am glad to see it was not recently removed from an H type ammunition box...
Cheers
Gary

thankyou Gary.
Maybe this one didnt come off the boxes he smashed up then? - Hopefully they were not anything special.......dont you just hate it when you hear of things like this?

regards Kev

 

[hangarman]

thankyou Gary.
Maybe this one didnt come off the boxes he smashed up then? - Hopefully they were not anything special.......dont you just hate it when you hear of things like this?

regards Kev

Hi Kev, the label has drawing pin holes in the corners so I guess it was affixed to a box holding the paperwork for case casualty forms, I don't think it ever saw an H31 ammunition box. ( I hope !)
It has just dawned on me that the label refers to cartridge case casualties and not civilian casualties (Doh!) so the box and label must have come from an Ammunition factory, hence the re-use of the redundant label.
Yes, the label is for Aircraft ammunition.

Cheers

Gary

 

[TonyE]

I have a number of these "outer" labels that were used at RSAF Enfield as jotting paper. Most were used to pin circulation lists to documents.

A lot can be determined from the label detail. The green printing indicates that the ammunition is Safety Class 6 (Not liable to explode in bulk). If it were brown printing as is used for B Mark IV (phosphorus filled) this would indicate a more dangerous Safety Class 12.

The green four pointed star is the unique symbolic identifier for .303 inch incendiary. These were used to indicate to non English speaking local labour which crates were required to be loaded for example.

That is a fairly early label, probably about early 1942 as it has a Land Service "H" number. By about late 1942 the RAF had their own Air Inspection Department and the labels had "AID" numbers. An example B Mark VII label is attached with an AID label number.

Regards
TonyE

 

[butterfly]

Thanks Tony

Thankyou for your input, very interesting.

Probably a dumb question, but I noticed on the label I have that the rounds are already in browning links; so would these have been loaded straight into the aircraft from the crates, I was always of the opinion that the ammo was mixed in a belt.......tracer every few rounds for example.
Perhaps you or someone else could enlighten me on this point?

regards Kev

 

[TonyE]

I think the practice of specifying belt sequences was mainly a Bomber gunner thing. Some did not like too much tracer as even night tracer ruined night vision.

As I understand it, in Fighter Command each gun was often loaded with all the same ammunition, so there might be two guns of incendiary, two of AP etc. Of course some pilots would still have specified mixed belts (Note that the BVIIz label I posted was for ammunition in cartons). Also there were usually twenty rounds of tracer near the end of the belt to indicate to the pilot he was getting low on ammo.

Attached are some other labels for pre-belted loads.

Regards
TonyE

 

[butterfly]

Thankyou once again Tony.
much appreciated
regards Kev