AIR: Sights & Racks

To many a U.S. merchant seaman facing danger on the high seas, two organizations stand head & shoulders above all others. One of them is an obvious object of professional admiration: the U.S. Navy. But the other would stump most guessers. It is the unpaid, volunteer Civil Air Patrol. Men in ships, hardened by endless repetition to the inherent hazards of their own calling, still gape with honest admiration when they hear the sewing-machine hum of a low-powered CAP engine far from land and see a tiny landplane soaring overhead, patiently on the watch for the feather of a U-boat’s periscope.”

Last week there were signs that CAP’s seagoing airmen had another and more exciting job to add to reconnaissance for submarines and torpedoed seamen.

The official Journal of the U.S. Army Air Forces debagged a cat which the close-mouthed CAP had kept discreetly tied: many CAP planes have been equipped with bomb racks and bombsights.

The CAP racks and sights are simple, efficient devices. Designed by an Air Forces officer, the rack can carry two demolition and two smoke bombs (for marking sub locations), is operated by a lever on the floor. The bombsight, hung outside the window, is effective up to 3,000 feet and is made of materials worth only 20¢.

Until it got racks and sights, CAP was chiefly effective in locating submarines for the big-game hunters in bombing planes and surface craft. CAPmen would radio a sub’s location, wait for the nearest craft with slugging power to get on the job.

Now that CAP planes have the 20¢ bombsight and the eggs snuggled up against their bellies, German sub commanders will have to dive faster and more often and fewer will escape.