Saturday, September 22, 2012

Wondering about bouncing bombs.

Bought a book at the flea market awhile back.  It is called "The 20th Century Year by Year" and is quite interesting.  Since I was born in the second month of 1943, naturally I looked at that year first.  It was late in WW2 and some new destructive devices were being developed.  I am going to tell you about the one that got my attention and I thought it was quite unique.

This Dambusters' bomb (nicknamed "the bouncing bomb") was developed by the engineer Barnes Wallis and during the night hours between May 17th and May 18th a raid was carried out on the Nohne and Eder dams in Germany.  These dams provided power for the German industrial district of the Ruhr.  The 617th Squadron of the Royal Air Force was specially trained to drop these new and unique bombs.  Both dams were destroyed and over a thousand people were killed.

This bomb worked way better than conventional bombs.  It was specifically designed just for dams.  It took precision flying against heavy antiaircraft fire but was accomplished by a well trained crew. This special ball shaped bomb had to be dropped at a precise altitude and a precise distance fromt the dam.  It then bounced along the surface of the water  until it reached the dam where it then sank and exploded.  Now that is an unique device that I never heard of.  Have any of you heard about that "bouncing" bomb?  This gives a different perspective to the term "follow the bouncing ball", doesn't it.  Now, you all have a peaceful and wonderful day, you hear?  For us, it is off to the flea market.  BTW, glad blogger is working for me today.

10 comments:

  1. That's one ball I don't want to follow.

    Hadn't heard of it.

    I was thinking you were going to post about the bouncing Betty antipersonal mines.

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  2. the things people come up with, wow. next month there will a show in Pittsburgh about the World Fairs years 1890-1930. It's about science and art. I can't wait see what is on display.

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  3. Sixbears, yes, I am familiar with those. They were put in service before the bouncing bombs. They were nasty things, jumping up almost three feet before detonating. I was trying to find something that happened the year I was born.

    Jill Eudaly, If they allow pictures to be taken, do so and share. I bet there are lots of fascinating things to see.

    Trouble, I have no idea. How do you tell? Maybe they just slipped it in on me when I wasn't looking. (grin)

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  4. I heard of others having Google troubles, but I'm not sure exactly what was going on.

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  5. Jill, OK, I am using my tablet. That seems to be working. Maybe Android works better than Chrome? You can add me to the list of those having trouble.

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  6. PBS's Nova had story about Bombing Hitler's Dams. The trick was to get the bomb to sink right before it got to the dam so it would blow out the bottom part.More GPM's would flow. I opened up your blog last week and this crazy computer loaded up about 30 windows of your blog. I thought "DD will think I'm trying to crash his site" Bet your odometer was clicking that day. Ain't this fall weather great?

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  7. Blogger has been acting up lately, at least I hope it isn't on my end. Sorry about you getting flooded with my blog. Now I can take 30 days off while you get caught up reading the 30 that you downloaded (grin).

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  8. There was a movie made about that, "The Dambusters".
    Here is part of it on YouTube: http://youtu.be/lCRIsjJFRNo

    Happy Tails and Trails, Penny

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  9. Thanks Penny for the link, I will check it out.

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