Lance Corporal W C Scurry of The 7th Battalion AIF is said to have thought-up this idea and was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal after being mentioned in dispatches - and was promoted to Sergeant.- He was later promoted to Captain but was badly wounded.
The device worked by setting-up two mess tins or kerosene tins - the bottom tin empty and attached to the rifle trigger by string and the upper tin filled with water having random holes punched in its base - allowing the water to trickle into the bottom tin. When the lower tins water weight rose enough it would pull the trigger firing the gun.
These devices worked so well to maintain delayed random fire from the trenches that 80,000 men managed to slip from the trenches and were evacuated from the beaches with few casualties.
An "old school" English born temporary Major-General Alexander Godley (appointed as Commandant of the New Zealand Armed Forces in 1910) received credit for the successful withdrawal and was made a Knight Commander of The Order of the Bath - despite his poor standing with the men and general lack of oversight in military tactics.
Godley apparently excelled at hunting and polo (and knew which knife to use when eating fish) but is not renowned for his later military successes during WW1 around Ypres, The Somme, or Passchendaele - with a history of failed offensives and heavy losses in a sea of mud that resulted in no small part from his failed preparations.
Marty K
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