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The Lewes bomb was a blast-incendiary device, manufactured by mixing motor oil and Nobel 808 plastic explosive . It was created by Lieutenant Jock Lewes, one of "the originals" of L Detachment SAS in 1941. The intention was to solve the problem of blowing up an enemy plane and then making sure it caught fire shortly afterwards. The SAS at the time it was started had a problem with parachuting down behind enemy lines to destroy enemy aircraft in North Africa. the problem was they needed a bomb light enough to be carried by a small group of commandos to destroy an airfield of planes. To incapacitate a plane, they needed a bomb that was both incendiary and explosive.

The only available bomb to do the job was cumbersome to be carried by infantry, let alone a paratroop (in the early years of world war II, they were called parachutists). So Lewes experimented with various types of incendiary and explosive materials, using trial and error. Jock experimented with a plane wing and a drum of petrol to simulate the explosions.

His formula was a pound of plastic explosive, a quarter pound of thermite mixed with a bit of engine oil. Inside the gooey mass was inserted a 2-ounce dry guncotton primer and detonator and a thirty-second fuse. The most common ignition method they used was time pencils or pencil detonators They also occasionally used release switches, pressure switches, etc.sl:Lewesova bomba