Did the Germans have the Norden bombsight?

Reading what appears to be a solid history of FDR and espionage.
Author makes the flat statement that in 1940 someone in the Norden
plant smuggled out the plans, which went to Germany. From these, the
Germans "developed their own bombsight," presumably based on the
Norden. The author points out the irony that at this point we still
wouldn't give Britain the bombsight (we did later).

Any truth to this? What part if any of the Norden sight did the
Germans utilize?

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

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In article , Cub Driver
writes

Reading what appears to be a solid history of FDR and espionage.
Author makes the flat statement that in 1940 someone in the Norden
plant smuggled out the plans, which went to Germany. From these, the
Germans "developed their own bombsight," presumably based on the
Norden. The author points out the irony that at this point we still
wouldn't give Britain the bombsight (we did later).

Any truth to this? What part if any of the Norden sight did the
Germans utilize?

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Probably true - I seem to recall reading about a severe shortage of
pickle barrels in Britain from 1942 until the end of the war...

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth

Probably true - I seem to recall reading about a severe shortage of
pickle barrels in Britain from 1942 until the end of the war...

You mean Jerry was able to put 50 percent of his bombs within a
thousand feet of the barrels?

vince norris

In article , vincent p.
norris writes
Probably true - I seem to recall reading about a severe shortage of
pickle barrels in Britain from 1942 until the end of the war...

You mean Jerry was able to put 50 percent of his bombs within a
thousand feet of the barrels?

vince norris

Yes indeed. I seem to remember that MI6 got wind of the German coup and
commandeered every pickle barrel south of Hadrian's wall. Numbers of
these were then placed a calculated distance away from important air
bases, and when the German bombers released their load over the
airfields, the bombs would unaccountably veer off in the direction of
the pile of barrels.

Major reason for the development of the V1 and the V2, I believe...

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth

In article , Dave Eadsforth
writes
In article , vincent p.
norris writes
Probably true - I seem to recall reading about a severe shortage of
pickle barrels in Britain from 1942 until the end of the war...

You mean Jerry was able to put 50 percent of his bombs within a
thousand feet of the barrels?

vince norris

Yes indeed. I seem to remember that MI6 got wind of the German coup and
commandeered every pickle barrel south of Hadrian's wall. Numbers of
these were then placed a calculated distance away from important air
bases, and when the German bombers released their load over the
airfields, the bombs would unaccountably veer off in the direction of
the pile of barrels.

Major reason for the development of the V1 and the V2, I believe...

Cheers,

Dave


Does anybody know where these pickle barrels came from? Were they Lend
Lease? AFAIK we didn't make pickle barrels in the UK at that time, and
I'm not sure if we do now. You can't get the wood, you know (according
to Henry Crun).


Could there have been some linguistic confusion years ago with the WWI
German helmet, the Pickelhaube? Perhaps Billy Mitchell said he wanted to
be able to drop a bomb on a Pickelhaube, and was misquoted.
--
Peter

Ying tong iddle-i po!

In article , Peter Twydell
writes
In article , Dave Eadsforth
writes
In article , vincent p.
norris writes
Probably true - I seem to recall reading about a severe shortage of
pickle barrels in Britain from 1942 until the end of the war...

You mean Jerry was able to put 50 percent of his bombs within a
thousand feet of the barrels?

vince norris

Yes indeed. I seem to remember that MI6 got wind of the German coup and
commandeered every pickle barrel south of Hadrian's wall. Numbers of
these were then placed a calculated distance away from important air
bases, and when the German bombers released their load over the
airfields, the bombs would unaccountably veer off in the direction of
the pile of barrels.

Major reason for the development of the V1 and the V2, I believe...

Cheers,

Dave


Does anybody know where these pickle barrels came from? Were they Lend
Lease? AFAIK we didn't make pickle barrels in the UK at that time,

We did, but it was a well-kept secret. If the Germans had got to know
even which towns had factories, the factories would have been bombed -
very accurately...

and
I'm not sure if we do now. You can't get the wood, you know (according
to Henry Crun).


Could there have been some linguistic confusion years ago with the WWI
German helmet, the Pickelhaube? Perhaps Billy Mitchell said he wanted to
be able to drop a bomb on a Pickelhaube, and was misquoted.

Possibly misheard - if he happened to be munching a gherkin at the
time...

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth

Does anybody know where these pickle barrels came from? Were they Lend
Lease? AFAIK we didn't make pickle barrels in the UK at that time, and
I'm not sure if we do now. You can't get the wood, you know

Of course, the Mosquito figured into all of this. Pickle barrels had been
coopered in the UK for many dozens of years in the run up to the "disagreement
among cousins" (as Goebbels described the conflict between Britain and
Germany). During that rather spirited disagreement, the de Havilland company
created the aerial equivelent of a grand piano in its DH 98, and this new
wooden wonder required every barrel shaper, clog carver, and cabinet finisher
in the realm to bend their oars in production of the Mosquito.

But what of the pickle barrel? Production in the UK ceased abruptly with the
first order to DH - an immediate vaccum was created, a wartime critical
shortage in pickle barrels. Just another damned inconvenience of the war.
Even with the required coupons, there was simply no guarantee a proper pickle
barrel could be found.

Well, you all are familiar with the story by now. While touring the great
pickel barrel factories that once lined the Mississippi, Japanese
future-Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto could only marvel at America's pickle barrel
production capability. "We're doomed", he muttered. (In Japanese, of course.)
Later he was able to use his acquired knowledge - one captured JN 25 message,
decoded in the days prior to Pearl Harbor, included the exact locations of each
of the pickle barrels on board the Oklahoma and the Arizona - only luck and a
Seaman named Mojo Nixon kept the Nevada from suffering a similar fate; he is
widely credited with having moved the Nevada's pickle barrel to the dock
alongside the battleship, so he could polish it on the early morning of
December 7th, 19 Fo-tee-won. Tragically... well.. you know.

All of this is pickle barrel history, known by most school children.

The mystery of the English wartime pickle barrels is solved by checking the
makers mark on the bottom of one of the few wartime survivors - on the Imperial
War Museum's pickle barrel, "Old Smellysides", all of the coopers signed their
names as it was the 5,000th pickle barrel to roll off the production line at
the Cape Girardeau plant. That makers mark, faded by decades of service and
overpolishing, is clearly the mark of Henry Ford. Perhaps most famous for his
innovation in pickle barrel production, he earned the nickname 'the American
Coopernicus'.

Yes, of course they were lend-lease. What a ridiculous thing to say.

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

An LZ is a place you want to land, not stay.

Does anybody know where these pickle barrels came from? Were they Lend
Lease?

No, they were exclusively used by the USAAF.

"The target for the Eighth on 4 April was the Renault plant near Paris. Three
diversions drew the German defenders away and permitted the lead 305th Bomb
Group to destroy the complex; 498 out of 500 bombs fell within the target
area."

--"JG 26; Top Guns of the Luftwaffe" p. 156 by Donald L. Caldwell

Walt

Peter Twydell wrote:


Does anybody know where these pickle barrels came from? Were they Lend
Lease? AFAIK we didn't make pickle barrels in the UK at that time, and
I'm not sure if we do now. You can't get the wood, you know (according
to Henry Crun).


Could there have been some linguistic confusion years ago with the WWI
German helmet, the Pickelhaube? Perhaps Billy Mitchell said he wanted to
be able to drop a bomb on a Pickelhaube, and was misquoted.

Well, I wooden know 'bout no pickle barrels but we sure gotta
lotta pork barrels in our Capitol
--

-Gord.

You mean Jerry was able to put 50 percent of his bombs within a
thousand feet of the barrels?

It would have been only 33 percent, unless he improved on the design.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! blog www.vivabush.org