Page Two
CLOUDBUSTER
Friday, March 16, 1945
CLOUDBUSTER
Vol. 3—No. 26
Friday, March 16, 1945
Published weekly under the supervision of the Public
Relations Office at the U. S. Navy Pre-Flight School, Chapel
Hill, N. C., a unit of the Naval Air Primary Training
Command. Contributions are welcome from all hands.
The Cloudbuster receives Camp Newspaper Service ma
terial. Republication of credited matter prohibited without
permission of CNS, War Department, 205 E. 42nd St.,
N. Y. C.
Lieut. Comdr. James P. Raugh, USNR
Commanding Officer
Lieut. Comdr. Howard L. Hamilton, USNR
Executive Officer
Lieut. Leonard Eiserer, USNR
Public Relations Officer
Lieut, (jg) Francis Stann, USNR
Editor
R. D. Jackson, PhoMIc Harold Hanson, Sp(P)2c
Photographers
With all the reports of radically new
combat planes on the planning boards, it is
well to remember that many or most of
the accepted designs will never see action
in this war. Today’s aircraft design cannot
be transformed into a ready-to-fight com
bat plane tomorrow, next year, or probably
even the year after.
The battle of aircraft design begins as
much as four years ahead of aerial combat,
a study by the War Production Board dis
closes. Design engineers must think in
terms of the future while considering cur
rent practices.
The time required to develop new types
of aircraft or engines is roughly propor
tional to their size.
It takes an average of four years and
eight months to get a new design of four-
engine aircraft into quantity production.
One of America’s most famous heavy
bombers first began its development in Au
gust, 1934. It was not until October, 1940,
that it was being turned out at the rate of 12
per month, and two years later before it
began precision daylight bombing of the
enemy.
The average overall elapsed time between
start of engineering and peak production
of a medium weight airplane is one month
less than three years. Planes of this size
(10,000-25,000 lbs. gross weight) include
rnedium twin-engine bombers, single-en
gine dive bombers, and twin-engine fight
ers.
For single-engine fighters and Naval re
connaissance aircraft the average elapsed
time from drawing board to production
peak is approximately 28 months.
AmphibiousTrainingCommandObserves
Its Third Birthday Anniversary Today
More than 400,000 officers and men,
trained by the Atlantic Fleet’s Amphibious
Training Command observing its third
birthday anniversary today, have earned
the right to say, “Invasion is our business.”
Thirty-five major invasions! That’s the
record compiled by these invasion-wise am
phibians—men who run the 60,000 ships
and craft of the “fleet within a fleet.”
Early in 1942 it became evident that the
Allies would have to carry the fight to the
enemy’s front door. It was apparent that
new ships, especially designed for am
phibious warfare, must be built—ships and
craft with shallow draft and powerful en
gines that could roll onto a beach, spew
forth their load of tanks and cargo, and
retract.
On 16 March, 1942 the order was given
establishing an amphibious force whose
task it was to train lawyers, bakers, clerks
and students how to handle ships that
would soon be in construction. With only
one ship and no textbooks, eight members
of the newly formed staff, under Rear Ad
miral Roland M. Brainard, USN, borrowed
space in a building at the Naval Operating
Base, Norfolk, Va. They scraped together
information, borrowed equipment, invented
their own training doctrine, and began to
train men, many of whom had never before
seen a Navy ship.
Invasion Pattern Set
Significantly, eight months later, the Al
lies invaded North Africa, using the land
ing craft men trained by the Amphibious
Training Command. The pattern was set:
Invasions were on the way.
Subsequent landings in the Pacific and
the assault on Sicily taught the war plan
ners lessons that could be translated into
better training techniques. The command
took the new training plans, smoothed out
the wrinkles and sent men to the amphib
ious fleet armed with a thorough knowledge
of what to do and when to do it.
Today the training command reaches up
It takes about 45 months to mass-pro
duce a new aircraft engine.
New SB2C-4 Packs Wallop
The SB2C-4—the Navy’s newest carrier
plane which participated in the recent raids
on Tokyo—packs the biggest punch ever
carried by a single-engined aircraft. In ad
dition to the “more-than-lOOO-pound” bomb
load carried in the belly, as in predecessors
of this type, the new plane mounts 20 mm.
cannon in each wing, carries another 1000
pounds of bombs in wing racks and shoots
eight five-inch rockets from similar posi
tions.
V
'For just a moment 1 thought I heard a ferry whistle!"
and down the eastern seaboard and along
the Gulf Coast, inland to the quiet stretches
of lakes and rivers where ships are build
ing, and westward into Pacific shipyards.
Whether it be bullets, bulldozers, blood
plasma, butter beans or bully beef, the am
phibious forces have the job of making cer
tain that invasion armies are adequately
served . . . and on time.
Today’s huge assaults on enemy-held
beaches hinge on getting the right equip
ment on the right beach, at the right time
in required quantities.
That’s the maxim employed by the
men who map the logistics plan for am
phibious invasions. And it’s up to the
Navy’s 60,000 landing ships and craft to
deliver the battle cargoes in accordance
with this blueprint for victory.
This gag made the rounds as the riddled
Seventh Marine Regiment advanced on Jap
cave strongholds in sweltering jungle. It
was passed from man to man, shouted from
behind boulders, whispered into ears in the
underbrush.
“Gonna be tough sleddin’ today.”
“How come?”
“No snow!”
Here’s the new number one on the PFS
Hit. Parade:
“Give me land, lots of land,
With a starry sky above—
Don’t ship me out!”
“Why do men have hair on their chests?”
“Well, they can’t have everything.”
Male Call
by Milton Caniff, creator of "Terry and the Pirates'
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