Re: [MV] What did your company do in the war daddy?

From: Richard Notton (Richard@fv623.demon.co.uk)
Date: Sun May 06 2001 - 02:58:55 PDT


----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Greville" <dgrev@ruralnet.net.au>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2001 3:49 AM
Subject: Re: [MV] What did your company do in the war daddy?

> > I find it facinating what different companies did in WW2:
>
> I think one of the strangest was the allocation of sub-work to cabinet
> makers all over England by the War Ministry/De Havilland for the
> construction of the Mosquito, Wardrobes today, fast bombers tomorrow.
>
Another excellent product made in spite of officialdom rather than with its
encouragement.

> One way to save on valuable aluminium and
> involve a previously under utilised part of industry for war production
> work.
>
Repair also only required a decent carpenter with basic instructions on
where to saw the broken bit off.

This aircraft started the trend for low-signature stealth and flying under
the radar cover, many came back with yards of continental telephone cable
hanging from the tail wheel and many didn't having made high speed
unintentional landings on buildings and other small obstructions.

> The Air Ministry and USAAF were far from impresssed, they
> didn't think of any part of it themsleves so didn't want "the Wooden
> Wonder". Why would any air force want a bomber with a crew of 2 that
> could go on unescorted missions to Germany and back in half the time
> of any other and deliver a bomb load in excess of that of a B-17G AND
> that could outrun all Germany's convential fighters except the Do-335
> and the secret weapons such as the Me-262 and Me-163?
>
However, the AM suddenly recognised a good thing when they saw it, the
Germans tried a "copy" in the ME 110 and largely failed, our American chums
came up with the Lightning, not entirely suited to the ETO but very handy in
the PTO.

Later marks for photo-recon duties were stripped of all armaments and heavy
items, pre-empting the American drag racers by many years they were equipped
with nitrous oxide, methanol and water injection which activated on "gating"
the throttles, usually protected by a breakable wire stop my late WWII PR
pilot friend told me.

An action not to be taken lightly since the situation would already be quite
desperate and not all Merlins actually took to kindly to several minutes of
operation around 4,500rpm at twice the wartime combat power rating although
the surge in airspeed was highly satisfying apparently. Pilots also
regretted the other problem which necessitated a lengthy written report
fully justifying the need to gate the engines which were consigned to the
scrap bin out of hand immediately after landing.

> Then they tried sending the Mosquitos out to this end of the world and
> they promptly started falling apart as English furniture glue was not
> suited to the tropics, so a tropical proof glue was needed.
>
Embarrassing and hair raising, certainly tropical operated Mozzies had a
tendency to self-disassemble in flight. Part of the reason why the flying
stock today is about 1 I think.

> If what I have read years ago is correct, that is how Araldite
> came into being.
>
And spawned the range of almost unbelievably effective epoxy sticky stuff we
have today.

Richard
Southampton - England



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