"Target for Today"

Jim K

Final Approach
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Richard Digits
I've been reading "Masters of the Air", which has been quite fascinating. It sent me down a rabbit hole today of films shot during the war. This evening I watched "Target for Today". It was released in 1944. It is the most in depth and fascinating movie on the 8th Air Force that I've seen. It covers every aspect of a bombing mission in detail and there's some amazing footage in it. Being an 80 year old government film, it's available on YouTube for free, and is well worth your time if you're into heavy bombers. I learned a lot.

Also, how is the B17 so sexy and the B24 so hideous?
 
High wing < Low wing, Amiright?

Watched "The Fighting Lady" this morning while doing some desk work. Awesome (color!) footage of carrier ops in the Pacific. Lots of gun camera footage, hellcats, naval battles. Super Cool.
 
There is a category of planes which are designed purely to haul a maximum load. The B 24 was one of those.

It was also designed to be built by a car manufacturer, with unskilled assembly personnel. I visited one being restored in Florida, and was amazed how crude the overall design was, but rock solid.

The production rate at Ford's Rouge plant was incredible.
 
High wing < Low wing, Amiright?

Watched "The Fighting Lady" this morning while doing some desk work. Awesome (color!) footage of carrier ops in the Pacific. Lots of gun camera footage, hellcats, naval battles. Super Cool.
I like the look of the B24 better because of the twin tail.
 
Nothing better than twin tail. Except maybe the one named Connie.
 
I like the look of the B24 better because of the twin tail.
The twin tail is its only redeeming quality. I guess the roll up bomb doors are pretty cool too.

The production rate at Ford's Rouge plant was incredible.
Facts

I just find it fascinating how the B17 turned out so beautiful. I assume they didn't do it on purpose, but in that era maybe they did. The angle on the pilot windows makes it look so menacing...that had to have been at least somewhat on purpose.

Also fascinating that there were more B24s, but news reports, movies, etc always featured the "Forts". Has to be because of the looks? Even now, how many B17s are preserved vs B24s?
 
Considering the complexity, absolutely amazing Ford cranked out about 1 B24 an hour.

Actually the quantity of all the war production was amazing.

Would have been both a scarry and incredible time to live.
 
Considering the complexity, absolutely amazing Ford cranked out about 1 B24 an hour.

Actually the quantity of all the war production was amazing.

Would have been both a scarry and incredible time to live.
I have long been in awe of that time.... just think about how much new tech was developed, how many new designs were churned out, and all the industry that was flipped to make completely different unrelated products from their norms and with the bulk of their workforce expertise pulled away with the draft....and all that production at such an amazing rate.
Look at what the US accomplished in such a short time. And our involvement in that war was only about 45 months!
 
More B 24s were built vs B 17s. Could carry more payload further. Had the aesthetics of a John Deere steam tractor. It was pure function over form. I think the B 17s got more press because they were the most numerous in England, and that's where most of the "bomber news" came from.
 
[The B-24 ] was pure function over form.

This is also true of the Liberty ships. The volume of production was incredible. Although it was more of a PR stunt than status quo, they actually assembled and launched one Liberty ship in one 24 hour day. Go Rosie!

-Skip
 
I always liked the looks of both the B24 and the Lancaster.
 
JimK said:

The twin tail is its only redeeming quality. I guess the roll up bomb doors are pretty cool too.

For the aircrew, those roll up doors were the most hateful feature of the B 24. They constantly rattled and banged, open or closed. They let in copious quantities of frigid outside air. They often hung up, and you had to return and land with a full load of bombs. Or fly back with it open, and unable to keep up with the formation due to the drag, and possibly run out of fuel.

On the big plus side, they were the only bombers capable of reaching the Ploesti refineries, and then reach a friendly country. In total value, that raid compared to the Doolittle raid on Tokyo.
 
And our involvement in that war was only about 45 months!
Also in that time the US went from the approximately 16 strongest military to top dog.!!

When it came time to split up Japan for the occupation, the russians (who joined the war against Japan very late in the game) walked in demanding their share. General Eisenhower pointed to the door and said, ''Get out.!!''

They got out.
 
I think the B 24 vs B 17 is similar to the P47 vs P51. P47's shot down more planes than P51's. With drop tanks they also had the range to escort bombers all the way to the target and back in Europe, even in the Pacific with the N model. P51's after getting sorted out with the Merlins were favored because you build two P 51's for the cost of one P 47.

There is an interesting historical YouTube on why the Bomber Mafia held back escorts for a while, dedicated to the doctrine that the bomber alone will always get through.

I heard that some said in WWII "If you want to write to your girl at home and impress her, say you fly a P 51. If you want to go home to your girl, fly a P 47".




General Eisenhower pointed to the door and said, ''Get out.!!''
Might have been MacArthur ?
 
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I've only flown the B-24 but some of the guys I fly it with have flown the 17. I have flown a few airshows with both. The 24 is slow but the 17 is oh my gosh, pull-over-to-the-shoulder-and-out-of-my-way-old-lady slow. The 24 could carry a lot more, a lot further and a lot faster. One huge problem with the 24 was it's ability to survive. The wing was efficient (for it's day) but didn't take kindly to damage (unlike the 17). The 17 flew primarily out of the UK because of it's limited range, the 24 flew from Africa and elsewhere further out. It may be a nose wheel airplane, but it flies like a tailwheel. The lack of decent brakes, a fully castering nose wheel that's chopped out at a big rake angle which makes for a handful to taxi. We prefer competent tailwheel pilots for a spot in the 24 or the 29 because they both fly more like a TW than tricycle. The guys who've flown both say the 17 flies a bit nicer, the 24 is a lot more work.
 

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My dad flew the F-7 recon. version of the B-24 and would tell of times during training when they would spot a B-17 flying along, would come up behind them at full power, feather an engine and then wave to the B-17 as they flew past on three engines.
 
There is a category of planes which are designed purely to haul a maximum load. The B 24 was one of those.

It was also designed to be built by a car manufacturer, with unskilled assembly personnel. I visited one being restored in Florida, and was amazed how crude the overall design was, but rock solid.

The production rate at Ford's Rouge plant was incredible.

The River Rouge facility built tanks, amphibious vehicles, tank engines, aircraft parts and engines, jeeps, and many other war materials, but not aircraft. Ford's B-24 production was accomplished at Willow Run, an entirely new plant built on farmland west of Detroit that was owned by Henry Ford. The story of the facility's construction and completion, with initial aircraft parts production beginning just eight months later with an assembly line over a half mile in length, is an amazing story in itself.

The B-24 was completely redesigned by Ford to facilitate mass production. Before their involvement in the program, the aircraft was essentially individually hand built with many parts fitted one by one. The factory and workforce were woefully inadequate to meet the demands of war production, and if Ford had not intervened, the final number built, in excess of 19,000, would never have been accomplished.

When Ford employees arrived at Consolidated Aircraft's Southern California plant in 1940 to gauge their interest in building the B-24, they found a disorganized hodgepodge that horrified their engineers. Ford was producing automobiles using, in some instances, measurements in millionths of an inch; Consolidated was continually modifying individual aircraft on the assembly line without making changes to drawings and records, and those drawings had little relationship with what was being made.

Parts made inside the factory were used to assemble aircraft outdoors on the ramp, and the temperature differences caused by sunshine and heat required individual parts to be cut and trimmed to fit.

Ford's director of engineering and the man most responsible for inaugurating the moving assembly line at Ford's Highland Park plant in 1910, Charles Sorensen, stayed up all night the same day he arrived in San Diego, and by morning had sketched out the design and flow of an assembly line over a half mile in length that would become the world's largest aircraft manufacturing facility, Willow Run.

One of Ford's first actions after signing a contract to build the bomber was to lease office space in downtown San Diego and import 200 engineers from Detroit. They spent several months cataloguing the myriad of drawings, notes, and even scraps of paper so a complete set of documents could be generated that had hard dimensions and numbers for each and every part.

Ford built a huge training center at Willow Run, and classes focused on all aspects of aircraft construction built a workforce that unerringly performed the tasks required to produce one of the most complex machines on Earth. It took unskilled men and women from all over America and turned them into dedicated workers that built the bomber with precision and speed that at its peak took just 63 minutes for a completed aircraft to roll out the doors of the cavernous factory.

Ford's experience in mass production was adapted to the construction of the huge bomber.

The aircraft was redesigned so separate prefabricated sections could be assembled and joined on the assembly line. A massive jig and machine tool was built by Cincinnati Milling Machine Company to mate, drill, and machine the B-24 wing center section; it saved millions of man hours over the production cycle. Among other functions, the fixture simultaneously drilled and tapped dozens of 5/8" holes used to bolt the four Pratt & Whitney R-1830 engines to the wings.

1000002457.jpg

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of facts and statistics about Willow Run that are incredible even today. For example, like many automotive plants of the period, the acres of concrete factory floor were covered with 4" X 4" X 6" yellow pine blocks, treated in creosote and placed on end with the grain vertical. The blocks provided cushioning for the workers and protected the concrete from damage by dropped tools and parts. There were around sixteen million of them, and according to books I've read, two or three railroad cars full of the blocks were used every month to replace worn or broken pieces.
 
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Reminds me of the story of Packard and the Merlin engine. Packard engineers told Merlin they had to reset the tolerances to be able to manufacture them. “Too tight?” they asked? Packard responded “Too loose”. Parts mass produced made with that much variance would never fit together.
 
The River Rouge facility built tanks, amphibious vehicles, tank engines, aircraft parts and engines, jeeps, and many other war materials, but not aircraft. Ford's B-24 production was accomplished at Willow Run, an entirely new plant built on farmland west of Detroit that was owned by Henry Ford. The story of the facility's construction and completion, with initial aircraft parts production beginning just eight months later with an assembly line over a half mile in length, is an amazing story in itself.

The B-24 was completely redesigned by Ford to facilitate mass production. Before their involvement in the program, the aircraft was essentially individually hand built with many parts fitted one by one. The factory and workforce were woefully inadequate to meet the demands of war production, and if Ford had not intervened, the final number built, in excess of 19,000, would never have been accomplished.

When Ford employees arrived at Consolidated Aircraft's Southern California plant in 1940 to gauge their interest in building the B-24, they found a disorganized hodgepodge that horrified their engineers. Ford was producing automobiles using, in some instances, measurements in millionths of an inch; Consolidated was continually modifying individual aircraft on the assembly line without making changes to drawings and records, and those drawings had little relationship with what was being made.

Parts made inside the factory were used to assemble aircraft outdoors on the ramp, and the temperature differences caused by sunshine and heat required individual parts to be cut and trimmed to fit.

Ford's director of engineering and the man most responsible for inaugurating the moving assembly line at Ford's Highland Park plant in 1910, Charles Sorensen, stayed up all night the same day he arrived in San Diego, and by morning had sketched out the design and flow of an assembly line over a half mile in length that would become the world's largest aircraft manufacturing facility, Willow Run.

One of Ford's first actions after signing a contract to build the bomber was to lease office space in downtown San Diego and import 200 engineers from Detroit. They spent several months cataloguing the myriad of drawings, notes, and even scraps of paper so a complete set of documents could be generated that had hard dimensions and numbers for each and every part.

Ford built a huge training center at Willow Run, and classes focused on all aspects of aircraft construction built a workforce that unerringly performed the tasks required to produce one of the most complex machines on Earth. It took unskilled men and women from all over America and turned them into dedicated workers that built the bomber with precision and speed that at its peak took just 63 minutes for a completed aircraft to roll out the doors of the cavernous factory.

Ford's experience in mass production was adapted to the construction of the huge bomber.

The aircraft was redesigned so separate prefabricated sections could be assembled and joined on the assembly line. A massive jig and machine tool was built by Cincinnati Milling Machine Company to mate, drill, and machine the B-24 wing center section; it saved millions of man hours over the production cycle. Among other functions, the fixture simultaneously drilled and tapped dozens of 5/8" holes used to bolt the four Pratt & Whitney R-1830 engines to the wings.

View attachment 133531
It's really too bad that we weren't able to somehow save the whole factory at Willow Run. Its pure size was a testament to the efforts that were routinely undertaken in WWII to get things done.
 
Reminds me of the story of Packard and the Merlin engine. Packard engineers told Merlin they had to reset the tolerances to be able to manufacture them. “Too tight?” they asked? Packard responded “Too loose”. Parts mass produced made with that much variance would never fit together.
This recalls the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun, first designed in the 1920s by the Swedish manufacturer. Several iterations built by multiple countries followed during the 30s. When the US entered WWII, the need for an effective naval AA weapon became critical, and eventually Chrysler began producing a version under license that was converted from metric dimensions. Similar to American manufacturer's experiences with the B-24 and Merlin engine, build tolerances were greatly reduced to enable seamless mass production and interchangeable parts.

Chrysler's engineers discovered the gun was built using several parts that had to be trimmed or hand lapped to fit, and undertook a redesign that would facilitate mass production. One of the biggest modifications was changing the gun case. It was a very large piece, machined from a steel billet that took hours to produce.

Chrysler switched to a case that was made from several pieces and welded together. Along with other innovations, they reduced the build time by 50%, material consumption was also halved, and the rate of fire was improved to two rounds per second.

By the end of WWII, almost all US Navy and Coast Guard vessels of every size had the Bofors gun on board, in either double or quad mounts. Chrysler manufactured over 60,000 units, which also included guns mounted on towed carriages for the Army, and over 120,000 replacement barrels.
 
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I've only flown the B-24 but some of the guys I fly it with have flown the 17. I have flown a few airshows with both. The 24 is slow but the 17 is oh my gosh, pull-over-to-the-shoulder-and-out-of-my-way-old-lady slow. The 24 could carry a lot more, a lot further and a lot faster. One huge problem with the 24 was it's ability to survive. The wing was efficient (for it's day) but didn't take kindly to damage (unlike the 17). The 17 flew primarily out of the UK because of it's limited range, the 24 flew from Africa and elsewhere further out. It may be a nose wheel airplane, but it flies like a tailwheel. The lack of decent brakes, a fully castering nose wheel that's chopped out at a big rake angle which makes for a handful to taxi. We prefer competent tailwheel pilots for a spot in the 24 or the 29 because they both fly more like a TW than tricycle. The guys who've flown both say the 17 flies a bit nicer, the 24 is a lot more work.
I got a good look at the nose wheel when I took a ride in the Collings Foundation's B-24, taking a seat on the floor in the cockpit prior to takeoff. At wheels up, the copilot motioned it was OK for me to climb through the tunnel on the left side of the nose gear and enter the greenhouse nose.

The tunnel was tight, especially since I'm 6'2" and weighed about 240 at the time (I'm old and skinny now :biggrin: ). I'll always remember the sight of the nose wheel still spinning fast as I slid by. I could have reached out and touched it.

I was fortunate to have flown in all three of their bombers, especially Nine-0-Nine. Instead of the usual quick 30 minute flight circling near the airport, I got a ride from KACT, Waco, to KFTW, Meacham. I was the only non-crewmember on board. I moved from my radio room seat to the tail gunner position, then made my way up front, crossing over the narrow catwalk in the bomb bay, and squeezing through the tunnel up front to sit behind the Norden bombsight.

Moving back to my seat as we neared Fort Worth, I took some great photos through the open radio room hatch by bracing myself on a longeron and bulkhead and hanging outside as we passed Meacham on the downwind, turned base, and then final.

I'm quite sure that wasn't an approved tourist viewing spot, but was a lot of fun. I took my avatar photo at Waco as Nine-0-Nine taxied in from a previous flight. It's there as a memory and tribute to those lost.
 
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Also, how is the B17 so sexy and the B24 so hideous?
To me, it starts with the 24's boxy cross section and the long, flat top of the nose with the tiny cockpit windows on top. The awkward, giant zit/mole nose turret that was added on the B-24H only made it worse.
I have long been in awe of that time.... just think about how much new tech was developed, how many new designs were churned out, and all the industry that was flipped to make completely different unrelated products from their norms and with the bulk of their workforce expertise pulled away with the draft....and all that production at such an amazing rate.
Look at what the US accomplished in such a short time. And our involvement in that war was only about 45 months!
Yes. I find WWII fascinating mostly because of the insanely fast technological progress and the staggering level of effort expended to win the war. All it takes is one Wikipedia article on some obscure WWII subject for me to go into a 16-hour marathon on a bunch of different subjects. I also tend to not be able to put down books on the subject...

Even just looking at aviation alone, before WWII small airplanes were generally built from fabric, many were still biplanes and even open cockpit, most were taildraggers... And a few years later, things were metal, tri-gear monoplanes. In 1937, Beech was making the Staggerwing and Beech 18. In 1947, they were making the Bonanza.
 
All it takes is one Wikipedia article on some obscure WWII subject for me to go into a 16-hour marathon on a bunch of different subjects.
Whew. I'm glad I'm not the only one :biggrin:

This recalls the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun, first designed in the 1920s by the Swedish manufacturer. Several iterations built by multiple countries followed during the 30s. When the US entered WWII, the need for an effective naval AA weapon became critical, and eventually Chrysler began producing a version under license that was converted from metric dimensions. Similar to American manufacturer's experiences with the B-24 and Merlin engine, build tolerances were greatly reduced to enable seamless mass production and interchangeable parts.

Chrysler's engineers discovered the gun was built using several parts that had to be trimmed or hand lapped to fit, and undertook a redesign that would facilitate mass production. One of the biggest modifications was changing the gun case. It was a very large piece, machined from a steel billet that took hours to produce.

Chrysler switched to a case that was made from several pieces and welded together. Along with other innovations, they reduced the build time by 50%, material consumption was also halved, and the rate of fire was improved to two rounds per second.

By the end of WWII, almost all US Navy and Coast Guard vessels of every size had the Bofors gun on board, in either double or quad mounts. Chrysler manufactured over 60,000 units, which also included guns mounted on towed carriages for the Army, and over 120,000 replacement barrels.

the insanely fast technological progress and the staggering level of effort expended to win the war.

But how did they do all this without a legion of MBAs inhabiting corporate offices in Maryland and Virginia?
 
While Ford built 24 B 24 bombers a day, the Military and contractors were training 48 pilots, 24 bombardiers, 24 flight engineers, 24 navigators, and a large number of gunners, every day, just to crew those B 24's. From raw recruits, never even had been a passenger in an airplane to their first mission, maybe a little as a month or 2 in service.

That daily aircrew output was just for the '24. B 25, B 26, B 17 also needed crew, just for the main bomber fleet in the European Theater.

I lived in Louisville, KY during that time, and LOU was not far from our house. They trained C 47 pilots there, and the take off and land circuit on most days went over our house. Part of the day, their shadows went right down our street. Think of the present day pilot training mills, and pattern density, but swap the172's and Cherokee's for C 47's. The landing side of the airport is mostly the no accident side, most of the problems landing were on the field. All of the training was empty A/C, so single engine training had plenty of power to spare and relatively safe.

Real battlefield conditions, engine failure was usually catastrophic. After the war, one of my older fellow employees was a C 47 navigator flying the Hump, India to China. Another was the weather station in China. Both had amazing tales of routine daily flights. Many times they loaded, took off for the Himalayas, with an unflyable forecast, and flew as far as the mountain conditions allowed, and one by one, turned back as the individual PIC decided he was not good enough to make it. The navigator had a large part of that decision. Navigation was heading from wind corrections, time with corrected ground speed, turns through invisible passes, and as long as you thought you had it right, keep on going. There were limited places where it was safe to turn around. There was a low power NDB with current weather at the destination airport, and the final leg was Direction Finder guided. Low visibility, there were flares along the runway.

Turn around was fast, you did not want to be there if the weather cleared, and the Japanese could bomb or strafe the airport, so gas from 55 gallon drums was hand pumped into the tanks to just enough to get home with a reasonable margin, as gas was always in short supply. Gas all came in in C 47's, all that was in your tanks in India wasted previously accomplished capacity.

Their C 47s were replace with C 46 nose wheel planes, a much newer design, higher payload, higher ceiling, more comfortable for the crew, what's not to like? The air crews knew their planes good and bad characteristics, and did not wish to try something the did not know, but in the military, someone else makes that choice. The navigators pilots learned to fly at low altitude, and then climbed to the real ceiling of the C 46, over the airport, and did a full throttle stall, and kept the wheel all the way back until they were about a mile high, recovered, and landed. They pronounced the plane good, and the next day flew a cargo into China.

Twice, the navigator and his crew received a 1 week leave home, but it was a working trip, they ferried a new plane back, to replace a lost one. The crew for the new plane was also n board, in the Hump, a lost plane was also a lost crew, and they had final OJT from the experienced crew.
 
I too have been reading and viewing a lot of material on the 8th Air Force and the B17. The museum behind my hangar where I volunteer has a B17 going through Major work and come back in the spring so I’ve had a while to educate myself.

Above all, I have learned so much more about the stark HORROR that the bomber crews experienced. I knew that it was scary, but it was so much more horrific than I had thought.

Among the vast amount of material about, my favorite is interviews with John “Lucky” Luckado. He is 102 years old and absolutely sharp as a tack. He is a fountain of information, and describes the horror well. Google him up on YouTube and watch one of his interviews.
 
It's really too bad that we weren't able to somehow save the whole factory at Willow Run. Its pure size was a testament to the efforts that were routinely undertaken in WWII to get things done.
Imagine the height of today's environmental impact statement report to build it today! Then a few years for the Feds to decide whether to build it. Then either the hopeful manufacturer files suit or the greens file suit, and while the suits are argued, we're all mandated to start speaking German by our new chancellor.
 
Can anyone recommend a good book or even documentary on how the levels of precision described in this thread were achieved at the time? Millionths of an inch done millions of times is hard to wrap my brain around.

In return, my book recommendation is Neptune by Craig Symonds. The audiobook is also great.
 
I got a good look at the nose wheel when I took a ride in the Collings Foundation's B-24, taking a seat on the floor in the cockpit prior to takeoff. At wheels up, the copilot motioned it was OK for me to climb through the tunnel on the left side of the nose gear and enter the greenhouse nose.

The tunnel was tight, especially since I'm 6'2" and weighed about 240 at the time (I'm old and skinny now :biggrin: ). I'll always remember the sight of the nose wheel still spinning fast as I slid by. I could have reached out and touched it.
As research for my first novel, I took a ride in the B-24 Witchcraft. We had free rein of the entire ship except the flight deck. Below is a photo of the lower tunnel leading to the bombardier's station 3393RP described. The nose gear is down.
1075.Nose.Gear.Down.2048.30.jpg

And later with the nose gear up.
1125.Nose.Gear.Up.2048.30.jpg

On the left is a one-cylinder APU generator to supply power for engine starts in order to save the main batteries also there on the left.
1060.APU.2048.30.jpg

I took a hundred photos, but here's a link to twenty I post-processed to half resolution:
 
My grandfather in law died a few years ago. He was a pilot on the B-24. After the funeral the family was going through his trunks and storage from his days in the war. I have an original POH of the B-24 along with a throat mic and various other things. I read the entire POH and determined that it wasn’t an easy plane to get even off the ground let alone fly. The auxiliary power unit was a hand cranked gas engine they called a put-put.
 
A B17 was parked at my local airport a few years back. They let us into the plane and spend a lot of time just gawking.

I walked away thinking from the outside it’s a lot bigger in person than what they show in the movies. From the inside it’s much smaller than what they show in the movies.

I think they do a bit of a disservice the way it’s filmed to not convey how cramped and almost claustrophobic it is with 10 guys inside. With full gear on, temp -25 degrees, no air to breath, and constant loud engine noise and plane vibrations. How did they do what they did?
 
While we're telling bomber-ride stories....

Flew in EAA's B-17 a few years back. Put this together to share with friends.

Ron Wanttaja
 

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