"molotov cocktail"

[Elaine -HFB- Ashton]

*>The book titled "Frozen Hell" by William Trotter has an excellent
*>bibliography and I remember reading "My Finnish Diary" by Sir Walter
*>Citrine [ 1940 ] which may have what you seek.

I dug out my copy of My Finnish Diary and, sadly, it makes no mention of
Molotov Cocktails.

Frozen Hell - The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40
Willam R. Trotter
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
1991

"By now, too, a cheap effective homemade weapon had appeared in great
quantities. It was the "Molotov Cocktail." The Finns did not invent these
devices -- that honor apparently goes to the Republicans in Spain -- but
they did christen them with the name that has stuck like glue ever since,
and in the first week of the war the Finns manufactured vast quantities of
them. When the supply of bottles ran short, the State Liquor Board in
Helsinki rushed 40,000 empty fifth bottles to the front.

In it's crudest form, the cocktail was no more than a bottle full of
gasoline with a rag stuck in its mouth; but the puny fireball that
resulted from this device was rarely enough to do more than scorch paint.
The Finnish version was far more powerful, consisting of a blend of
gasoline, kerosene, tar, and chloride of potassium, ignited not by a
dishrag but by an ampoule of sulfuric acid taped to the bottle's neck.
Other more potent versions included a tiny vial of nitroglycerine."

It is likely the first instance of the name is in Finnish press as
"Molotovin cocktail".

e.