[Milsurplus] [ARC5] Watch out! Norden Bombsight rant incoming...

[Robert Nickels]

On 12/8/2015 1:20 PM, Taigh Ramey wrote:
> I love the revisionist historians take on the lack of accuracy of the Norden
> bomb sight in WWII. Yes the whole bombsight program was very expensive to
> develop and put into service but what else was available at the time?
>


Thanks for an excellent summary/rant, Taigh.    As one who has always
been awed by this technological development I can only add one small
detail that supports the strategic importance of the Norden bombsight to
the war effort.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Congress declared war on Japan 74
years ago this very day and against Germany and Italy a few days later.
    President Roosevelt called for a large-scale military build-up to
"hasten the ultimate all-out victory",  including the construction of 11
Army Air Corps training fields in my home state of Nebraska.  Some
remain in use as municipal airports to this date but most have been
abandoned for years and only a few relics remain as a reminder of their
wartime role.

While only a few original hangars or other buildings have survived, one
structure has stood the test of time at many of these airfields:  the
Norden bombsight vault.   This article explains

http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/aviation/sec.htm
also:
http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1524295.html

While it may not have quite met the claim of being able to "drop a bomb
into a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet", the Norden bombsight was of
vital strategic importance as explained in the following two paragraphs
lifted from one of the articles above:

"By the end of World War II 45,000 USAAF and USAF bombardiers had been
checked out on the Norden bombsight, and all of them had signed papers
promising to protect the bombsight with their lives, and to destroy it
if they were forced to abandon their plane.

The ritual of using a Norden bombsight at air bases was rigid,
(including its use at the McCook Army Air base). The bombsight was kept
in a fortified storage building. When it was to be used, it would be
brought out of the storage building by a contingent of armed guards. It
was kept in a zippered bag until it was put in its place aboard a bomber
(B-25, B-17, or B-29), by the plane's bombardier. Returning from a
mission, the bombsight was again placed in its zippered bag, removed
from the plane under the watch of an armed guard, and deposited back
into its storage building, which was also under a constant guard."

---

The steps taken to safeguard it (not to mention the extent our enemies
went to steal it's secrets) are ample testimony the role the Norden
bombsight played in achieving victory.

73, Bob W9RAN