Which Came First: The Stick and the Egg

Media featuring WW2 have a flare for the dramatic. Americans wield iconic M1 Garands and invariably drive around in jeeps. Germans sleep at MG42s and will inevitably scrounge up a tank. In movies and video games there is a satisfying duality between the Axis and Allies; not only ideology separated the two, but a dichotomy of technology as well. Americans throw "pineapples," Germans throw "potato mashers" (what Damian Lewis is holding in this picture).

Undoubtedly this is because the Stielhandgranate (stick hand grenade) is a recognizable piece of military equipment from the Second World War unique to the Germans (that whole Eastern Front thing? I don't know what you're talking about). It's unfamiliar design and curious operation evoke a very foreign feeling towards Wehrmacht soldiers. Americans (and - when pictured - British and other Allies) invariably appear with grooved, fist-sized grenades like the Mk II "pineapple" grenade. Never mind the fact that the US had copied the basics of this design from the British Mills Bomb during the First World War.

Depicting Germans exclusively using Stielhandgranaten a convenient avenue of influencing the audience's perception that the Germans were vastly different in culture. The truth, however, is that the favored German grenade was very similar to the Allies' design, with a funnier (yet still food-based) name: the egg hand grenade.

German military production favored two types of grenades: the Stielhandgranate (stick hand grenade) and the Eihandgranate (egg hand grenade). Mass production of the Eihandgranate began in June of 1940 and soon far surpassed the production numbers of the iconic potato masher. Even including production numbers from 1939 and 1940 (before the "egg" grenade came into use), 9 million more egg-shaped grenades were produced during the war (84.2 million to 75.4 million stick grenades). In fact, the only modern movie or video game to actually display the Eihandgranate is The Pianist (where they are never used).

Aside from potential identification errors by the audience, there's a reason Eihandgranaten aren't usually depicted in movies and games. They don't appear in historical photographs as prominently as their stick-y counterparts. This has little to do with their actual prevalence on the battlefield; the grenades tended to be kept in a soldier's pockets until needed (unlike American Mk II grenades, which tended to be clipped on to assault webbing). This gives them much less visibility than Stielhandgranaten, which tended to be tucked into the belt.

Here's another chance to catch a glimpse of these elusive eggs.


In case you're wondering why all these eggs and sticks seem to have roots: explosive German grenades used a friction-based fuze. The soldier would yank on the bead, pulling a cord attached to a wire coated with abrasive, which scraped through the friction-sensitive compound in the detonator...similar to lighting a match (or pulling a stick of sandpaper through a tube of match heads). Like a Rube Goldberg machine, except it explodes. Generally the cord was secured inside the grenade's housing, except when they would need to be used on short notice (instances of exposed cords getting caught and prematurely detonating the grenade happened occasionally).

The Eihandgranate consisted of a fuze and detonator in one convenient package. So convenient in fact that by 1943 the German army had essentially changed its stick grenades to be Eihandgranaten with attached handles. Originally, the stick grenade's detonator was housed in the handle of the grenade. This meant the soldier had to unscrew the handle and insert a detonator into the head of the grenade and then screw the handle back on before the grenade could be used, prompting the famous text on the side of the charge: VOR GEBRAUCH SPRENGKAPSEL EINSETZEN, reminding the soldier to unscrew the handle and insert a detonator before taking the grenade into battle.

(If you think that implies soldiers are incredibly aloof, you probably don't want to know what's printed on the M18 Claymore mine)

Both types of grenades favored concussive force over fragmentation - and for this reason are often dubbed "offensive grenades" (as opposed to passive-aggressive grenades, maybe?). That is, German grenades relied on the raw force of the explosion to incapacitate enemies, allowing soldiers to more safely use the grenades at shorter distances (such as charging an enemy trench). Although the German army had developed fragmentation sheaths for use on stick and egg grenades, it was really the Allies' that preferred fragmentation (the Mills Bomb mentioned earlier had an effective range farther than any soldier could throw it, thus the idea of a "defensive grenade," one a soldier would only want to use in cover). They tended to use a smaller charge of explosive to blast apart a shell of metal, which would break apart into high-speed fragments.

So the next time Band of Brothers is on TV, just imagine that the German soldiers have some Eihandgranaten nestled in their pockets for warmth.



"Speak softly and carry a big egg" just doesn't have the same weight...unless your antagonist has ovaphobia.

The Importance of Auxiliary Verbs

The United States officially entered World War II on December 7th, 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Often considered a terrible strategic blunder, Hitler subsequently declared war on the US on December 11th. These actions dragged the United States in the Battle of the Atlantic against Germany's commerce raiding navy - primarily submarines. It also brought us the rhyming phrase "loose lips sink ships." However, the original poster adds a very important auxiliary verb to the mix: "might."


Battle in the West (Atlantic)

Between the fall of France in June of 1940 and the loss of numerous u-boat aces in early 1941 (most famously Günther Prien and his magic torpedoes (like magic fingers, but half a meter wide and explosive instead of tingly)), German submarines and commerce raiding ships proved frighteningly successful. In the four months after the Fall of France German submarines sank 282 Allied merchant ships totalling nearly 1.5 million tons of shipping. Their success was so great that after the war Churchill commented that, "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-Boat peril...It did not take the form of flaring battles and glittering achievements, it manifested itself through statistics, diagrams, and curves unknown to the nation, incomprehensible to the public."

Ever increasing British anti-submarine efforts resulted in wanning commerce raiding opportunities for German submarines in late 1941. However, Hitler's declaration of war allowed u-boats to hunt new targets off the coast of North America ("Canada? What's Canada?"). The first wave of long range Type IX submarines departed as part of Operation Paukenschlag (Operation Drumbeat). For the next 8 months, German submarines saw a resurgence of success (hence the Wikipedia article title "Second Happy Time," from German commander's referring to a period of success as "glückliche Zeit" (meaning "happy time" or "fortunate time").

Germany only had 12 available Type IX boats, so commanders of smaller (more famous) Type VII boats suffered more cramped quarters and meagre rations to risk the journey to hunt down fresh American vessels. They proved so successful that a newly created American Office of War Information began a campaign of information control by mid-1942.


Look at that Ess (c)ar gee-oh

Ironically, the US likely started the campaign to prevent Americans from learning about sinking ships instead of preventing Germans learning information letting them sink ships.

Similar to other propaganda from the period, a large company created the "Loose Lips Sink Ships" (LLSS) poster to aid the war effort. The poster came as part of a series of eight drawn in 1942 by the art director at Seagram Distillers' branch in New York (think Pepsi Co., but with more alcohol). Seagram printed the posters for placement in taverns. Apparently they felt bad for liquoring up all those intelligence officers ready to provide vital war information to German spies. Loose lips might sink ships, but lots o' sips loosen lips.

Obscurely signed as Ess-ar-gee, the poster's artist went without much recognition, despite creating one of the most recognizable phrases from World War Two. Ess-ar-gee enigmatically disguises the initials SRG, which refer to the Seymour R. Goff Jr. (some places slip a Henry in there...we could probably throw in a John or William to cover some other common turn-of-the-century names - or maybe he just didn't like hens).


What Might Sink Ships

The American navy and coast guard were initially unprepared for the waves of German submarines that came. The British immediately recommended switching to the Commonwealth's convoy system - the American navy eschewed the perceived burden of the system. The British recommended flying constant reconaissance and sending out available ships for escort duty (sick of that 'fishy' smell, the British had commandeered many fishing trawlers for anti-submarine duty in 1940 and 1941) - the American navy again abstained, unwilling to seize civillian vessels and lacking available destroyers. Ships leaving American ports suffered heavily between January and August 1942. The British recommended blackouts in coastal cities - and yet again the American navy refused the suggession.

At the height of the "Second Happy Time," German submarines were operating within sight of American harbors - identifying ships' silhouettes against illuminated cityscapes and sinking them as they ventured out to sea. The British tanker Coimbra was sunk within 30 miles of Long Island; residents who spotted the wreck's burning load of oil called the authorities. Due to light air patrols and a lack of available escort ships (many having been "lent" to the British in 1941 in Roosevelt's Destroyers for Bases program), occasionally German submarines sank ships during the day as well - such as the Dixie Arrow sunk 12 miles from the Diamond Shoal anchored light buoy off the coast of North Carolina.

Loose lips might sink ships, but a poorly prepared navy, obstinate leadership and an aversion to adopting proven strategic decisions do sink ships.


"Negative Buoyancy Sinks Ships" just didn't rhyme well enough.