Malcolm Gladwell: The strange tale of the Norden bombsight

[winny]

Sort of WW2 aviation related.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUVQP-erJ5Q

[Sternjaeger II]

Thanks for this Winny. I've always been fascinated by the Norden bombsight: apparently there's a red dot on it where bombers/navigators or other armed officers were to put their issued .45 pistol at point blank and shoot in case the plane survived on an emergency landing in enemy territory: the thing was designed so that the bullet would ricochet inside the bombsight and destroy its precious components. As that was not enough, they also had a thermite grenade to melt it.

From Wiki:

"Wartime security

Photo of the AFCE and Bombsight shop ground crew in the 463rd Sub Depot affiliated with the USAAF 389th Bomb Group based at Hethel, Norfolk, England
Since the Norden was considered a critical wartime instrument, bombardiers were required to take an oath during their training stating that they would defend its secret with their own life if necessary. In case the bomber plane should make an emergency landing on enemy territory, the bombardier would have to shoot the important parts of the Norden with a gun to disable it. As this method still would leave a nearly intact apparatus to the enemy, a thermite grenade was installed; the heat of the chemical reaction would melt the Norden into a lump of metal. The Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber was originally equipped with flotation bags in the wings to aid the aircrew's escape after ditching, but they were removed once the Pacific War began; this ensured that the aircraft would sink, taking the Norden with it.
After each completed mission, bomber crews left the aircraft with a bag which they deposited in a safe ("the Bomb Vault"). This secure facility ("the AFCE and Bombsight Shop") was typically in one of the base's Nissen hut (Quonset hut) support buildings. The Bombsight Shop was manned by enlisted men who were members of a Supply Depot Service Group ("Sub Depot") attached to each USAAF bombardment group. These shops not only guarded the bombsights but performed critical maintenance on the Norden and related control equipment. This was probably the most technically skilled ground-echelon job, and certainly the most secret, of all the work performed by Sub Depot personnel. The non-commissioned officer in charge and his staff had to have a high aptitude for understanding and working with mechanical devices.
As the end of World War II neared, the bombsight was gradually downgraded in its secrecy; however, it was not until 1944 that the first public display of the instrument occurred."

[Sternjaeger II]

as for the video, I think Gladwell was quite brave with his conclusion (especially in the US): many are still convinced that the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan was the only right thing to do.

[badfinger]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

as for the video, I think Gladwell was quite brave with his conclusion (especially in the US): many are still convinced that the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan was the only right thing to do.

If by "right thing to do", you mean the saving of thousands of soldiers and civilians from injury or death caused by an invasion of Japan, I agree. Or, we could have continued fire bombing, and killed more innocents than the two atomic bombs did while waiting for the Japanese military to admit defeat.

What were we supposed to do? Just stop fighting, and hope the Japanese generals suddenly had an epiphany and gave up?

binky9

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by binky9

If by "right thing to do", you mean the saving of thousands of soldiers and civilians from injury or death caused by an invasion of Japan, I agree. Or, we could have continued fire bombing, and killed more innocents than the two atomic bombs did while waiting for the Japanese military to admit defeat.

What were we supposed to do? Just stop fighting, and hope the Japanese generals suddenly had an epiphany and gave up?

binky9

well, thousands of innocent civilians and soldiers died anyway, I think that other than the Allied soldiers that were getting ready for an armed invasion, we didn't save anybody's life with the atomic bombs (ironically enough at least one British POW perished in the Nagasaki blast).

Truth is that things could have been handled in a different manner, but as said in the video, 3 billion dollars are no joke, such an investment needed an adequate output..

There have been many efforts and even letters from the scientists behind the Manhattan Project on alternative demonstrations that wouldn't cause the death of so many people (like inviting an international committee to assist the bombing of a desert island with one of the bombs), besides the two different kinds of atomic bombs were dropped so closely together that Japan had little or no time to understand what happened, let alone surrender. There is evidence that Nagasaki and Hiroshima had been selected for the orography around them, which would have channelled and amplified the blast better, so it was all planned to be the dramatic end scene of a bloody conflict, where it was time to raise the game to another level. Truth is that they needed to show the world (and above all the Russians) who had the stick of command, and the Cold War wouldn't have been the same without this horrible example.

But even if the ghost of Cold War was about to start, things could have been handled differently.

[Bewolf]

AFAIK the japanese were willing to surrender anyways, with the sole demand of their emperor staying in power. Irony, he stayed in power after the war, though reduced to a representative role.

About the atomic bomb drops, everybody has to deal with his/her own concsiousness in this regard. Nationalists certainly will prefer the death of the enemy over their own, humanists consider the deaths of children and women rather worse then those of solidiers, but to each their own.

As we are at it, what made the Norden stand out so much compared to, for example, the Lofte?

[louisv]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

well, thousands of innocent civilians and soldiers died anyway, I think that other than the Allied soldiers that were getting ready for an armed invasion, we didn't save anybody's life with the atomic bombs (ironically enough at least one British POW perished in the Nagasaki blast).

Truth is that things could have been handled in a different manner, but as said in the video, 3 billion dollars are no joke, such an investment needed an adequate output..

There have been many efforts and even letters from the scientists behind the Manhattan Project on alternative demonstrations that wouldn't cause the death of so many people (like inviting an international committee to assist the bombing of a desert island with one of the bombs), besides the two different kinds of atomic bombs were dropped so closely together that Japan had little or no time to understand what happened, let alone surrender. There is evidence that Nagasaki and Hiroshima had been selected for the orography around them, which would have channelled and amplified the blast better, so it was all planned to be the dramatic end scene of a bloody conflict, where it was time to raise the game to another level. Truth is that they needed to show the world (and above all the Russians) who had the stick of command, and the Cold War wouldn't have been the same without this horrible example.

But even if the ghost of Cold War was about to start, things could have been handled differently.

After the first blast, the emperor recorded a surrender speech on a disk to be played the next day. A group of officers stole and destroyed the disk and that left enough time for the second one. After Nagasaki, Hirohito fired all the top officers and surrendered live...(from a Japanese film)

When the bombs were dropped the Russians were massing soldiers and equipment in the islands just north of Japan. What was shapping up was evaluated at 10 million deaths, hundreds of thousands of american included. And probably a 'Northern Japan' like East Germany, controlled by the Soviets.

Japanese civilians were killing themselves by the thousands in the pacific islands near Japan as the Americans were moving in, no reason to think they would have stopped on the mainland.

Other options were considered, like showing off the bomb at a safe distance etc...But Stalin forced the play...

[badfinger]

I guess the U.S. should also take the blame for starting the Pacific war by cutting off Japan's oil supplies as a way of denouncing the atrocities committed by the Japanese in China.

We Americans just can't ever seem to do it right.

binky9

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by binky9

I guess the U.S. should also take the blame for starting the Pacific war by cutting off Japan's oil supplies as a way of denouncing the atrocities committed by the Japanese in China.

We Americans just can't ever seem to do it right.

binky9

oh you do lots of stuff right, many americans just have the problem of seeing everything in extreme black and white and overly simplified, never multi layered.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by Bewolf

oh you do lots of stuff right, many americans just have the problem of seeing everything in extreme black and white and overly simplified, never multi layered.

bingo