SECRET TECHNIQUE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIII, Issue 236, 3 September 1943, Page 5

SECRET TECHNIQUE

SKIP-BOMBING PERFECTED

SYDNEY, Aug. 29. How revolutionary skip-bombing, first tried out by an American Fortress at Port Moresby in the .autumn of 1942 was later responsible tor the Bismarck Sea victory, is told by Mr Henry Pringle in an article in Collier's magazine, writes a New York correspondent of the Melbourne Herald. ~ Mr Pringle, claiming that lie tells the first complete story of the secret technique worked out at a United States Army Air Force proving ground in Florida early last year, declares the idea originated during the search for a method of bombing tanks which are a>nost invisible to high or medium altitude bombers. It was recognised that fast fighters, which arc themselves projectiles', might come in low at their highest ' speed, point themselves at the tank and release their bombs. But the bombs sometimes overskipped the tanks, while the explosion threatened to wreck the attacking plane. A secret sighting method corrected the first weakness and a delayed fuse the second. .■',.', Late in 1942, skip-bombing was first adapted to the heavy bomber when a fortress, patrolling off PprtMoresby, attacked a. Japanese freighter and cruiser from masthead height, sinking both with four bombs, .-'.:.' , . The pilot strives to ensure that the bomb does not enter the water, but skims into the ship. . Misses occur only when the. bomb is dropped too far away and skips over the vessel. Mr Pringle recalls that skip-bomb-jn«* has also sunk hundreds of thousands of tons of Axis shipping m the Mediterranean, while 400 miles an hour Lightnings skipped bombs successfully into Axis gun-pit m Nortli Africa.