Memorial News
Medals Of "Drip Rifle" Inventor Presented To Memorial
17/9/99 - The medals of the Australian soldier who invented the drip rifle have been presented to the Australian War Memorial. In 1915 Lance Corporal (later Captain) William Scurry was serving with the 7th Battalion at Gallipoli when he developed a system to allow rifles to be fired automatically to cover the ANZAC's withdrawal from the Peninsula.
Drip Rifle. Gallipoli Peninsula, 17 December 1915.
(AWM G01291)
The invention involved two tins and a piece of string. Water dripped through a small hole in the bottom of one tin into the second. When enough water leaked through, the weight of the second tin pulled on a piece of string that fired the rifle. By setting up dozens of rifles and varying the size of the drip hole, the Turks were fooled into thinking the ANZACs were still in their trenches firing, when in fact they were long gone. For his efforts, Scurry was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
In 1916 Captain Scurry was sent to France and was awarded a Military Cross for bravery while commanding a light trench mortar battery. He was badly wounded in France, suffering damage to his sight from an exploding German mortar bomb. At war's end he was forced to give up his career as an architectural modeller, and took up strawberry farming.
Judith Storey, Anne McDonald and Pat Keene presenting Captain Scurry's medals to the Memorial
Despite his sight being seriously affected, Captain Scurry re-enlisted during the Second World War and was appointed commandant of the Tatura prisoner of war camp near Shepparton in Victoria. William Scurry died in 1963.
His medals have been presented to the Memorial by three of his daughters – Judith Storey, Anne McDonald and Pat Keane. They will be displayed in the Gallipoli Gallery, next to a reconstruction of William's Scurry's famous invention.
%7Cutmccn%3D(direct)%7Cutmcmd%3D(none)%3B){kind=small}