British shaped charge with magnets

[Bellifortis]

hallo,
attached is a scan of one page from a 1943 , secret, german police publication "Enemy sabotage devices". This type of shaped charge i have not seen in any british publicationView attachment Hohlladung mit Haftmagneten-England.pdf. Any ideas ?
regards,
Bellifortis.

 

[Bonnex]

hallo,
attached is a scan of one page from a 1943 , secret, german police publication "Enemy sabotage devices". This type of shaped charge i have not seen in any british publicationView attachment 143426. Any ideas ?
regards,
Bellifortis.

It is known as a Josephine Charge after the name of the operation it was designed to support.

 

[Bonnex]

Here are some photographs of the charge believed to have been taken at Station XVII.

 

[Bellifortis]

Thank you N. for this interesting info. But, then I have additional questions. What was "Operation Josephine" ? And, why does this charge not appear in any of the normal british saotage or engineer device catalogs ?
regards,
Bellifortis.
P.S.: To my first question I meanwhile found the answer on Wikipedia.

 

[Bonnex]

Thank you N. for this interesting info. But, then I have additional questions. What was "Operation Josephine" ? And, why does this charge not appear in any of the normal british saotage or engineer device catalogs ?
regards,
Bellifortis.

The target for Josephine was an electrical transformer station at Pessac near Bordeaux which supplied power to the Naval base and, I think, a German fighter station. Two operations were mounted. The first was called off on-route due to premature release of vital equipment. The second, Josephine B, was ultimately successful insofar as 6 out of 8 transformers were destroyed but the operation was fraught with difficulties and delay. There are several references to Op Josephine on the internet.

The Josephine charges (coupled with some standard incendiary devices) were specifically designed for the attack of oil-filled transformers. ISRB designed a number of charges for specific operations which, although referred to in the National Archives papers, do not appear in standard manuals. Presumably tailor-made charges were only made in small quantities and didn't warrant general issue.