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Posted on 05/14/2004 12:02:42 AM PDT by snippy_about_it
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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 In mid-1944, AAF moved to checkmate a potentially disastrous German threat to the UK and perhaps even to the US.  Operation Crossbow, the Allied bombing campaign against German V-weapon launching sites in northwest France, held top priority in early 1944. Despite hundreds of strikes against these sites, German attacks with V-1 buzz bombs against urban targets in the United Kingdom began in June 1944 and soon resulted in extensive loss of life and great property damage. It was known that the Germans were working on a supersonic guided missile, the V-2, which was believed by many to be technically infeasible at that time. But surprise. The first V-2 hit the London area in September of that year, with 800 to follow.  In the V-weapon launching area, a number of very different large sites were under construction--their walls 12- to 14-feet thick and with massive steel doors. Were they intended to launch V-2s, or perhaps a rumored V-3, a missile with the range to hit targets in the eastern US? The Germans were striving to develop nuclear weapons, though progress in that area was not known. At any rate, the possibility of an operational V-2, or perhaps a nuclear-armed V-3, was not a threat to be taken lightly. These mysterious, heavily defended sites were attacked at night by the Royal Air Force, using 12,000-pound Tall-boy bombs, and during the day, by Eighth Air Force. Damage was minimal. A solution had to be found.  It was concluded that the most vulnerable element of the structures was their steel doors, which were virtually immune to damage by high-altitude bombing. Tactical fighters coming in at low altitude did not have the punch to do the job. Gen. Carl A. "Tooey" Spaatz and his scientific, technical, and operational advisors came up with a novel idea. Why not use war-weary B-17s as guided missiles? That would call for more than a few innovations.  The plan, labeled Project Aphrodite, was tested inconclusively at Air Proving Command in Florida. Essentially, the idea was that a completely stripped-down and explosive-laden B-17 with a crew of two--a pilot and an autopilot technician--would take off from a base in the UK. Once safely in the air, control of the B-17 would be turned over to a mother ship cruising at 20,000 feet, whose crew would fly it by radio signals fed into the B-17's autopilot. The B-17 crew would bail out over England. The mother ship then would fly the bomber, at an altitude of 200 to 400 feet, to the target and dive it into the steel doors. This, of course, was not an "any day" operation. Ceiling--and-visibility--unlimited weather was essential so that the mother ship's crew could follow the progress of its charge. Crews for the 10 modified B-17s were volunteers from bomb groups of the Eighth Air Force 3d Division. Each B-17 had been stripped of everything but a pilot's seat and loaded with 22,000 pounds of RDX, the most powerful explosive available. The war-weary bombers were given new engines and beefed-up landing gear, since they would be about 5,000 pounds over designed gross weight. The boxes were connected and fused so the load would detonate simultaneously.  On Aug. 4, the weather was good enough to launch the first two B-17 flying bombs. The first to go was piloted by Lt. Fain Pool with autopilot technician SSgt. Philip Enterline. They had to enter and leave the aircraft through the navigator's escape hatch, the only entrance not sealed. After making sure the controls operated properly on radio signals, Enterline bailed out at 1,200 feet. Pool followed at a much lower altitude after he had armed the load. When he landed, several British civilians came up to inquire what had happened. Since Aphrodite was highly classified, he told them his plane was on fire, forcing him to use his parachute. Almost immediately they heard a terrific explosion, caused not by Pool's aircraft but by the second B-17 flying bomb.  Its elevator control had malfunctioned, causing the plane to stall and crash before the pilot, Lt. John Fisher, could get out. Pool's plane made it to the target under radio control but on its second pass was shot down by ground fire. The crews of two other modified B-17s that were launched that day survived, but neither reached its target. Never wanting to be far behind the Air Force, the Navy adopted the Aphrodite technique, using its version of the B-24, but with two pilots who also were to bail out over England, while their aircraft was to proceed under radio control to submarine pens at Heligoland, Germany. The first pilot was Navy Lt. Joseph Kennedy, Jr., older brother of John F. Kennedy, 35th US President. His copilot was Lt. Bud Willy. While still over England, the aircraft exploded, killing both men.  No aircraft subsequently launched under Project Aphrodite or its Navy counterpart hit its target. As the Germans retreated in the weeks after D-Day, the large sites in France no longer were within their reach, and the project was abandoned. Despite its lack of success, Aphrodite was a daring, imaginative undertaking that might be considered a first, short step toward the development of American guided missiles. The crews that volunteered for these missions were stepping into an unprecedented, but dangerous, venture. For each of them, it was an act of exceptional valor. By John L. Frisbee, Contributing Editor Thanks to Herbert F. Mellor, president of the McChord Air Museum Foundation, and to Lt. Col. Fain Pool, USAF (Ret.). Published August 1997. Copyright © Air Force Magazine      |
My mistake it was a 75mm cannon.
http://www.acepilots.com/planes/b25.html
B-25G - The Big Gun
The "G" model featured a 75mm cannon in the nose, one of the largest weapons ever mounted in an airplane. After extensive testing at a secret base in California, the engineers made the idea work, but the B-25G was not very successful. While it could carry 21 rounds, aiming the big cannon was difficult, and it required a long "straight-in" run at the target. During this run, the aircraft was extremely vulnerable and could only get off four rounds. A number of B-25G's were modified by Pappy Gunn at the Townsville Australia Modification Depot, adding more machine guns and occasionally removing the 75mm cannon.
B-25H
A more successful 75mm cannon-equipped B-25, the "H" variant carried fourteen (14!) machine guns and a lighter-weight 75mm cannon. Room for all this hardware was made, in part, by deleting the co-pilot's position.
You had me wondering for a minute there. LOL
You can bet that wouldn't have been my response. LOL.
In 1950, von Braun and his team were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, his home for the next twenty years. Between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Arsenal's namesake: the Redstone rocket.
Triumphantly displaying a model of the Explorer 1 are (l-r): Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Director Dr. James Pickering, Dr. James van Allen of the State University of Iowa, and Dr. von Braun. JPL packed and tested the payload, a radiation detection experiment designed by Dr. van Allen.
Not shown: the van Allen belt, as the scientist wore suspenders the day this photo was taken.
Von Braun with the original Mercury Astronauts in ABMA's Fabrication Laboratory during a 1959 visit. Left to right are Alan Shepard, Donald Deke Slayton, Virgil Gus Grissom, von Braun, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra. John Glenn, and Scott Carpenter. Project Mercury officially began October 7, 1958 as the United States' first manned space program.
Visible beyond Glenn's bowtie is Professional Engineer slaving over a drafting table.
We did some work for an older couple downtown in the late eighties; Bill Neuhaus had a photo of a group including von Braun. He had been in Huntsville with the group, but of course, he hadn't been in Vietnam.
Here is the backyard of US Army EOD showing the site of the proposed swimming pool and the excavation equipment for adult and children's.
The largest and most secret project undertaken by the Third Reich consisted of 7 huge underground complexes and numerous above-ground structures code-named 'RIESE' (Giant). It includes thousands of kilometers of narrow-gauged railway lines built on the slopes of mountains for transport of tons of materials. After all the years since WWII, the question about the actual purpose of 'RIESE' still remains unanswered. Whether it was to be used as Hitler's largest military headquarters or as an underground secret weapons factory; we know that about 120 Scientists, Engineers, Physicists and Chemists were brought to this area deep in the Owl Mountains. Exactly what were the Nazis planning with Project 'RIESE'?
Ted Rall, Ted Rall, put your ear to the 75mm courtesy phone, Ted Rall, thank you.
Coming soon: Patton presents Lt. Kerry with a special award.
Now this:
Not shown: the van Allen belt, as the scientist wore suspenders the day this photo was taken.
Visible beyond Glenn's bowtie is Professional Engineer slaving over a drafting table.
Here is the backyard of US Army EOD...
Ted Rall, Ted Rall, put your ear to the 75mm courtesy phone, Ted Rall, thank you.
So many good ones today. :-)
Patton presents Lt. Kerry with a special award.
I can't wait!
Binh There
ROTFL. Great graphic, love the Commie star for eyes.
BTTT!!!!!!!
On the German nuclear weapon story, see:
http://www.luft46.com/armament/abomb.html
http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_n1782_v297/ai_21281407/pg_1
Been reading about this. Glass microspheres can be added to keep the detonating area ahead of the shock wave. Call them "low density explosives". Russians developed it. MOAB uses this technology, I hear.
The Germans ran a full length cylinder of PETN or picric acid crystals compressed to maximum speed down the center of their ammonium nitrate loaded bombs for the same reason - initiating on one end blew the other off without detonation. Sort of a real long booster. As I recall (hazily) the picric acid real long booster was something like 500 pounds in the largest German bombs.
I suspect the two fuzes, one on either end, might have done the same thing.
Thanks for all the additional info and pictures Matt. Here is another example of something that is little known about in the West.
This is true. The Germans also used transverse fuses in most of their bombs. With todays technology I suspect we can make explosives behave anyway we want them to. The bomb I was talking about (44,000lb) was a general purpose bomb, therefore light cased. I would suspect the bomb also started to physically break up on impact with the ground also.
The Japanese used a lot of piric acid explosives. I think that piric acid has a storage and shelf life problem and just loves to form crystals. That can be a problem in itself.
By the way Phil, I actually do have the tail section of a Davy Crocket. We use it to grow little mushrooms in it.
Plus all the exhust fumes from all those airplanes.
Thanks for posting this 3rd/7th Marines update, Johnny! Col. C.A.Tucker's letter on the 29 Palms site was a pleasure to read, especially this part....."There are no sacrifices to remember at the end of this letter."
I'll keep your co-worker's son in my prayers for his safe return from Iraq.
The scale of some of those tunnels is amazing.
And horrific at the same time, especially when one takes into account how they were punched through the mountain.
Thanks for the info and images.
I suspect that there's still stuff down there unknown by those who wander the surface.
I.E. bodies, equipment, weapons, power generators, vehicles maybe.
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