THANKS to Graham Burridge, former Bridport postmaster, for sharing this find with us.
Having retired from the post office business, Graham is now busy as a volunteer for the RSPCA shop in West Street.
This interesting object was brought in by a woman whose husband had a government job in Japan after the war.
Not easily identifiable as a hand grenade admittedly but that is what it is.
It’s ceramic and was known as a ‘last-ditch’ hand grenade and was developed by the Imperial Japanese navy in the closing stage of the Second World War.
By that time Japan had no spare metal for producing grenades in the quantities needed.
Kilns famous for traditional Japanese pottery were press-ganged into making these crude weapons used both by frontline troops and civil defence organisations.
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