Subject: How did the Brits do it?
From: (OXMORON1)
Date: 3/10/04 12:15 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Kieth noted in response to Art's question about driftmeters on Bomber Command
A/C:
Sure but how useful they were on a dark and cloudy night
is another matter.

As long as it was overcast not clouds below, it is/was amazing how much info
you could get from one of those suckers.
One light on the ground or the reflection off of one body of water (pond,
lake,
stream) provided something to work with as opposed to nothing.
Gee and H2S were a great improvement to accuracy.
It is one pain in the rear to shoot celestial in an a/c bouncing and bucking
around in Northern European skys.

Rick Clark

Exactly, If you could see a glimmer of anything on the ground you could grab
off a drift reading. Of course the best driftmeter was the Norden bombsight.But
you had to be in the nose to use it. If you were in the nav compartment there
was no way you could get a drift reading You were blind. I always wondered why
they didn't put a driftmeter in the nav compartment. Nothing fancy any simple
driftmeter was better than none. Flying along with no idea of where the wind
was blowing you was not a good feeling.




Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer