Norden Bombsight
After watching a movie on TV one evening last week, I was surfing the channels and ran across a World War II documentary on the History Channel. The segment was about the tactics used to bomb German industrial sites from 1940-45. To avoid detection and loss of planes, the British chose to fly at night, but the bomb drops mostly missed their desired targets due to the lack of visibility and accurate targeting techniques. So they then went to a tactic called carpet bombing over industrial cities, which worked, but quickly depleted their limited bomb supply and mercilessly killed many civilians.
On the other hand, the American air force decided to bomb during the day, so they could take advantage of a new invention added to all the long range bombers called the Norden bombsight. I hadn’t heard that term for years, but recalled instantly after hearing the name during the History Channel segment when I first became aware of this mechanism as a kid visiting my uncle Hank in Dayton. Hank was an Air Force pilot during the war whom I had written about in this previous blogpost. He had a box of Air Force paraphernalia that we would play with, including goggles, gas masks, K ration cans, etc. One of the items was a lens from a Norden bombsight, which meant nothing to me at the time. But fast forward years later when I first moved to Dayton after high school, uncle Hank invited me to tour the Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum.
Seeing the planes while listening to his stories about each proved to be very interesting. One exhibit was a Norden bombsight that he explained in detail, which as a budding engineer intrigued me. Similarly, the History Channel segment also described how the Norden bombsight worked, which brought back these long lost memories from my child and young adulthood.
The Norden bombsight was said to be so accurate, it could land a bomb in a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet! For sure an exaggeration, but a Japanese prisoner of war naval officer provided the following story to somewhat validate the claim:
"At 1:27 while everyone on board was searching the sky for the B-17s that could be heard but not seen, six 300-pound bombs suddenly burst at split second intervals on the deck of the battleship, and it was at least 30 seconds later before someone spotted the B-17 at 12,000 feet.”
The bombsight was said to be the most complicated mechanical device ever created up to that point. It was somewhat automated, but still took a skilled operator to tweak the dials once a target was locked in. The device included a computer, which was mechanical, not electrical, to calculate the precise point where the bombs were to be dropped, based on factors such as air speed, altitude, weather conditions, wind speed, etc. It took many hours of training by the operator, who was precariously positioned within the glass enclosed nose of the plane.
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| Norden Bombsight Mounted in the Nose of a B17 Bomber |
The Norden bombsight was invented by Carl Norden, a Dutch engineer educated in Switzerland who emigrated to the US in 1903. The Nazi’s stole the bombsight plans; however, their mechanism fortunately never worked as effectively for them as it did for the Americans. Check out this hilarious Hogan’s Heroes spoof about stealing the Norden bombsight plans.
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