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Show 'Bombs' Steel Center In Imaginary Flight 'Briefed' at Army Air Force School for Raid on Yawata; Follows Course Over Huge, Realistic Map. By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. r ri1 WNU Seivlce, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. How wnuld you like to bomb the Yawata fteel works in a flying fortress? for-tress? I did ft without moving from my classroom seat in Orlando, Fla., in one of the courses I attended at the army air force school of applied tactics. tac-tics. It is part of the "post graduate" gradu-ate" instruction of the high officers of the army and it really is a realistic realis-tic "briefing." When I had finished that demonstration, as it is called, I actually felt as if I had been on that bombing mission which started at an unnamed base in China and flew straight to a target, which is as clearly pictured in my mind as if I had made the trip. I'll try to reenact it for you. First, Imagine a great map stretching across the room in which you are sitting with two black lines on it. The lower line runs, with a few slight deviations, straight to the target In Japan. Then there is a short leg running north and the second sec-ond line, a little above the other, running run-ning back to the base. This is the course we took. "Now, men," says the officer standing with a pointer in his hand, "you are going to bomb the steel works at Yawata. Daylight precision bombing and naturally you'll meet a little more opposition. But you know the importance of steel. I don't need to talk about that. You have been selected for your record last time. Keep up that record. "As you know this is the first time for the new stagger formation. You've practiced it. I won't go into that. We have just 45 minutes to check the whole plan. We start at 650 and the first ship goes down the runway at 700." (Military clocks theoretically run 24 hours. If the number is above 12, subtract 12. For instance 1630 is 4:38 in the afternoon 1630 minus 12 equals 4:30.) Then came some directions about "assembly" (where this group joins the formation) which I won't go into here since space isn't adequate, but anyhow the assembly point is Chengtu. Level Off For Bomb Run "We must be at Chengtu at 800. Climb at 190 miles an hour to this point here (the pointer taps the map) ... to 1,500 feet and level off. 208 miles per hour . . . this junction junc-tion (another tap) 940; then swing on course ... 91 degrees . . . (the pointer swishes out along the black line) to the coast. "Here is your second climb . . . 1212 ... 190 miles per hour . . . 300 feet a minute ... to bombing altitude, at check point of island at 1245 (the pointer touches a little island off the Jap coast) ... it will look like an inverted pyramid . . . then level off to the IP." (That is the point of entry which must be definitely established, for the flight from there on is directly to the target tar-get and careful synchronization with the other planes must be made.) "Show a yellow-yellow flare so we'll know you've reached the IP ... if dark, toggle four-and-a-half over the bomb run, then to the rally point, 14 miles north of target. "If you are crippled going over the target try to cut short your turn. . . ." I'll explain that: you see normally normal-ly the planes would go north from the target and then turn at a right angle to the assembly point. Then another right angle back toward home, so if a plane had been hit and couldn't last long, it must try to catch up with the others and make known its condition. If the plane lags behind it may be located by the group leader who will make continuous con-tinuous s-turns, looping back, trying to locate any stragglers. Meanwhile Mean-while (as I forgot to explain) there is a friendly submarine loafing somewhere within radio call for two purposes. First, to try to locate any plane that has been forced down into the water; second, to pick up information concerning any enemy ships which the planes may have spotted so the sub can go over and take a poke at them. I cannot in this space give you a fraction of 'the detail of this brief ing, which pointed out on the map every hazard, every advantage, every ev-ery varying condition. Special areas were blown up in large size: as a lake serving as a landmark where the planes start their ocean jump, a peculiarly shaped river where they reach land again. Sketches are furnished by meteorologists, showing show-ing just the types of clouds they will encounter, some "full of rocks" (covering mountain peaks) which are to be avoided. The known location and number of enemy fighter planes is marked, as are the antiaircraft guns, and the temperature and wind velocity at various levels. Target's There, Then Gone As to the target itself, large scale aerial pictures were shown which looked very much as the actual terrain would look to the pilot and bombardier. Also, a map of the whole city. Then a map of the target area, then photos of the target tar-get area, taken from an angle, as it will look when the plane approaches ap-proaches it from a distance, and another as it will look when it is directly below the important moment. mo-ment. That last statement "directly below" be-low" is misleading, as I found out. What you see when you look through the glass walls ef the bomber's "nose" and what you see when you look through the bombsight are two quite different pictures. What you see "when you look through the bomb-sight bomb-sight is the area (far ahead of where your plane is) upon which the bomb will hit if released at that precise instant. Naturally, at the speed at which a plane travels, the inertia of the bombs carries them far ahead as they fall. This is disconcerting to the layman. lay-man. I looked through the glass of the nose and picked me out a little Florida lake upon which I decided to drop my imaginary bomb. Then I looked into the sight and there was no lake there! Too late! If I had released my bombs then, they would have hit far beyond the distant dis-tant shore although the plane hadn't even reached the near shore, yet. But to return to my synthetic flight. I find it impossible to recount it with half the realism with which it was presented to me as my eyes followed that moving pointer from base to assembly point to "bomb line" (where the planes cross into enemy occupied terrain) on to the target itself, with the looping tracks that bounded it and tlren back, north and west again, over water and land, lake and mountain, on the long trek home. After the briefing was finished four men in uniform took seats on the platform. They were men with stars on their service ribbons and some purple hearts, too. Men of many missions just such as the one described, or they would not have been chosen as instructors in this post graduate university of the air. And they acted out with startling conviction the briefing of a returned crew. One, his nerves on razor edge from what he had gone through, another an-other a little dazed, as if he had had a few drinks too many, another solemn, sol-emn, wide-eyed, another jumpy, loquacious, lo-quacious, controversial, all true-to-life types, we were told. Carefully and tactfully the officer checked their conflicting statements until finally all were molded into a reasonable and rational report. "How many enemy fighters . . . here?" "Oh, 80, easy," said the jumpy one. "How many do you say?" (to the fellow in the half-daze). "Well, a lot of 'em, I didn't count." "Enough anyhow. And you didn't warn us about the others here," says the slap-happy one as he jumps up and jabs the map. Finally it settles down to about 50. This estimate will be checked as other crews are checked and an accurate estimate is obtained. The same careful and studied analysis analy-sis of data on troop concentrations observed, movements along highways, high-ways, convoys, new landing strips, as well as the damage done to the target. |