Tag
Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican free-tailed bat with a small, timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats, which would then disperse and roost in eaves and attics in a 20–40-mile radius (32–64 km).
While anyone who flew on a B-17 bomber during World War II had a pretty dangerous job, the ball turret gunner was undoubtedly put in the most-precarious position.
“You literally had your knees up to your chest and in between you had the machine guns,” said Gary Lewi, spokesman for the American Airpower Museum based at Republic Airport. “You really had to have pretty tough nerves to be in there.”
Yes. In fact, in the 1939-40 war against the original allies of France, Poland and Great Britain, Germany did win.
Today, we see these victories as inevitabilities. To the world in 1940, they were nothing short of unimaginable. These victories are not just tactical:
-Poland ceases to exist;
-France’s Third Republic is replaced by the Nazi collaborationist Vichy government;
-Great Britain’s forces are pushed off the continent, barely clinging to survival.
By the summer of 1940, Hitler’s stage-by-stage plan (‘Stufenplan’) as dreamed in the 1920’s is coming to fruition:]\
– Austria, Bohemia and Poland are now part of Greater Germany.
– France and the Treaty of Versailles are neutralized.
– The British, Hitler believes, are finished and will soon negotiate.
