cblgh quoted Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (Penguin twentieth-century classics)
Homage to Catalonia [1] is George Orwell [2]'s account of his experiences fighting in the …
We had no tin hats, no bayonets, hardly any revolvers or pistols, and not more than one bomb between five or ten men. The bomb in use at this time was a frightful object known as the 'F.A.I. bomb', it having been produced by the Anarchists in the early days of the war. It was on the principle of a Mills bomb, but the lever was held down not by a pin but a piece of tape. You broke the tape and then got rid of the bomb with the utmost possible speed. It was said of these bombs that they were 'impartial'; they killed the man they were thrown at and the man who threw them.
— Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (Penguin twentieth-century classics)
Reading this, you can kind of get a sense of how much of the zeitgeist was occupied by bombs at the time. Oh yes, certainly, the Mills bomb—naturally, George.
Also: terrifying.