NEW BOMB SIGHT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 16 August 1944, Page 7

NEW BOMB SIGHT

A BRITISH ACHIEVEMENT USED IN GREAT BOMBING BATTLE July 2G. For two years Bomber Command has been using a bomb sight of which details may now be given—the Mark 14. Its history goes back to the early days of the war. At that time Bomber Command had neither sufficient aircraft nor modern four-engined bombers necessary for swift attacks. When the first of these was carried out on Cologne in May, 1942, the right instruments, including a proper type of bomb j sight hod not. yet been invented. The sight which was in use in 1939, al- | though good in many ways, was noc j suitable for bombing a heavily de- [ fended target. It was effective only when the pilot was flying straight and level and, even on the experience of the first few months of war, it was clear that over important targets liak would be too intense for this text-book technique.

British scientists were therefore asked to design a new sight. The problem they had to solve was to find a sight which would be accurate even though the bomber had to take evasive action. A new sight of this kind would restore the aircraft’s comparative freedom to manoeuvre on the bombing run. The Mark 14 was the result and, in August 1942. the first ones were delivered to the new Pathfinder force. Before long the Mark 14 was in use throughout Bomber Command, and it was with this sight that all the great bombing battles were fought—the battles of the Ruhr. Hamburg and Berlin. USED FOR PRECISION ATTACKS But the sight was not restricted to the bombing of industrial areas. It was also used for precision attacks on targets in France when it was imperative that French lives should not be unnecessarily endangered. Often the targets were as small as a single building, a bridge or a concrete casemate. Yet, although the Mark 14 had been mainly used up to that time to bomb areas of one or more square miles, it proved itself equally useful against small objectives. Bridges, buildings, key railway points, coastal batteries were all hit with deadly accuracy. The Mark 14 has two advantages over earlier types of sights: first, it gives the pilot comparative tactical freedom during the bombing run; secondly. the number of settings and computations that the bomb-aimer has to make is reduced to a minimum. As the bomb-aimer takes his aim. he looks through the sight and sees a svvordj.haped cross moving over the groundHe knows that the point covered by the cross at the moment he releases the bombs is the place where the bombs will fall. The pilot can take evasive action almost up to the moment when the bombs are released and the bomb-aim-er can still aim accurately even when the pilot is making a bonked turn, or gliding or climbing.