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| The Home Guard was issued with 'official' grenades in World War Two but also had to make do with homemade variants. The service grenade for the Home Guard then was the 36 HE grenade – better known as the Mills grenade. The Mills grenade was primarily designed for throwing but it could be fired from a rifle, which had been fitted with a discharger. The Mills grenade had a seven seconds delay between the release of the handle and it exploding, though this was later reduced to just five seconds. The Mills grenade could be thrown a distance of about 30 metres and the so-called danger area around the explosion expanded for about 20 metres. If it was fired from a rifle, the grenade could travel about 175 metres. Depending on the lay of the land, shrapnel could injure individuals up to a distance of about 75 metres and it was particularly dangerous on stony and rocky terrain.
The Mills grenade was made out of cast iron and live grenades were painted black or brown with a red ring painted round the top about the fitting screw. The explosive in it was either amatol or baratol.
Homemade grenades were divided into three groups. The first were blast offensive grenades. These were grenades that simply blew up and created a blast that incapacitated anyone who was near them when they exploded. They were made out of a stick of gelignite with a detonator and fuse. The safety fuse was cut to a length of two to three inches, which gave the thrower between 5 and 7 seconds to take cover. A detonator was put into a stick of gelignite to make it live.
The second variant was the jam-tin grenade. These were grenades designed to create debilitating shrapnel and could be thrown about 30 metres. Gelignite was placed at the bottom of a tin and nails, bolts etc were packed around it. Once filled, the tin had its lid put back on except that it had a hole in it through which the detonator went. Adhesive tape then kept the lid on.
The third type of grenade was the pipe grenade. A piece of one-inch galvanised pipe was used – the type of piping used for water and gas pipes. The pipe was cut into four-inch strips and gelignite was put into the pipe and secured with adhesive tape. A detonator was then applied and also secured by tape. Though this type of grenade produced much less shrapnel, what shrapnel it did produce went at a far greater velocity than the two variants above.
All three grenades had one major drawback. The fuse had to be lit by a match and in windy or rainy conditions this could prove difficult. To get round this the Home Guard used to soak the head of the fuse in the mixture that made a match head. The fuse was then allowed to dry and, when required, simply striking it on some stony surface could light it.
The Home Guard also produced their own Molotov cocktails.
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