Stokes trench mortar team, Salonika, 1916 (c)

Photograph by Captain Philip Asprey, 2nd Battalion, The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), World War One, Salonika (1914-1918), 1916 (c).

The Stokes Mortar consisted of a smoothbore metal tube fixed to an anti-recoil base plate. When a mortar bomb was dropped into the tube, an impact sensitive primer in the base of the bomb would make contact with a firing pin at the bottom of the tube, and detonate, firing the bomb towards the target. The 4-inch version of the Stokes Mortar was primarily used to fire smoke, gas and thermite rounds.

From an album of 86 photographs taken by Capt Philip Rolls Asprey, MC.