Musings and Thoughts

[Harry Nicholson]

Originally Posted by John Rogers

During the bombing in WW2 one could tell the difference by the weird sounding droning of the the diesel engine compared to the petrol engine, however the bombs sounded the same as they hit the ground and buildings.

Our blackout curtains glowed when they chucked basket loads of phosphorus incediaries onto us. The target was a magnesium plant, which they missed, but the cornfields were well alight. Designed to smash through roofs, they were adorned with spinners which caused screaming wails as they came down. Dad was a fire watcher - it kept him busy. Next day we would hunt for the cases, tie a spinner to a rope and whirl it about to reproduce the wail. One lad found a live incendiery - his mam had a fit when she found it among his tin soldiers. Hitler must have thought we were short of toys.

[John Rogers]

Harry we had the Police and army Demo men visit our homes and took many of the kids souvenirs', some kids had found ack-ack shells that never hit anything and came down in the streets and the kids were picking them up and using them to trade other stuff for them, fins were a good item for trade.

[Malcolm G]

By ‘spinners’ I assume you mean what they called butterfly bombs.
They were still being found in the 1950s so I guess that the failure rate was quite high.

Re Diesel engine planes - Diesel engines in aviation were used originally on airships, then on flying boats. The Junkers Jumo was, I think, the engine used in some Junkers aircraft, but not universal.
I was told that the sinister drone was produced by having the engines (petrol or diesel) run at different speeds with prop pitch used to match the power. This produced a ‘beat’ in the tone, the ‘drone’.

[Makko]

My Dad went out one morning after a raid on Wallasey/Birkenhead Docks.

About three houses had been hit down the street and one was still burning. He found, and kept, a piece of shrapnel.

When I saw it, it turned my blood cold - About 2.5 inches long by 0.5 inches, rectangular with jagged edges and "spikes" at either end.

Rgds.
Dave

[Engine Serang]

I was born 5 years after the finish of WW2, born into the first tranche of Baby Boomers. National Health Service, cod liver oil, orange juice and NHS glasses, an enlightened time.

Call me Junior.

[Dartskipper]

Originally Posted by Malcolm G

By ‘spinners’ I assume you mean what they called butterfly bombs.
They were still being found in the 1950s so I guess that the failure rate was quite high.

Re Diesel engine planes - Diesel engines in aviation were used originally on airships, then on flying boats. The Junkers Jumo was, I think, the engine used in some Junkers aircraft, but not universal.
I was told that the sinister drone was produced by having the engines (petrol or diesel) run at different speeds with prop pitch used to match the power. This produced a ‘beat’ in the tone, the ‘drone’.

The drone may have been the result of "fake intelligence" acted upon by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz.

Once enemy aircraft had penetrated beyond the "Home Chain" radar screen, their positions were plotted by the Observer Corps. Trying to locate aircraft accurately by sound, especially at night, was difficult. I read somewhere that our Intelligence Service planted the idea in Germany that by not having engines synchronized made it impossible to track them with the listening devices then in use. In reality, it easily identified the enemy aircraft compared with the single engined defenders then in use before the Beaufighters and Mosquitoes of later years. (A very few Blenheims were used as night fighters in 1940, but their Bristol radial engines sounded very different to Junkers and Daimler Benz engines.)

[YM-Mundrabilla]

1918 Austrian-Hungarian aircraft listening device in the Vienna Military Museum.

[BobClay]

That reminds me a little bit of this thing. Used by Penzias and Wilson to listen to the beginnings of the Universe via radio. At one time they thought that the hiss they were hearing was caused by pigeon sh1t from some unwelcome visitors that had made their home in the horn. So they rolled up their sleeves and scrubbed it all out, but the Big Bang hiss didn't go away.
The things you have to do to get a Nobel Prize ....

[Malcolm G]

Britain had them too…

[al1934]

Originally Posted by John Rogers

Harry we had the Police and army Demo men visit our homes and took many of the kids souvenirs', some kids had found ack-ack shells that never hit anything and came down in the streets and the kids were picking them up and using them to trade other stuff for them, fins were a good item for trade.

Yup! I lived just outside Plymouth and we became shrapnel and bomb fins collectors and swappers. Incendiary bomb fins were common and not desirable items for swaps. Dad was in the ARP in Plymouth every night and had some serious dents in his helmet which he said were from shrapnel, probably smaller pieces than the hunks which we bartered with. We had a Junkers 88 missed our roof by literally feet and crashed in the field behind us, with bombs exploding all over the field. We kids were there first thing the next morning, all trying to get around the back of the policemen who were guarding the aircraft from us souvenir hunters.

What horrified us all was the toys, books, chocolate, etc booby traps which the dear Germans dropped all around, all capable of causing serious damage to kids. Total war, he called it.

[Varley]

I remember at infant school in the mid fifties (Dunrobin, Limpsfield) a uniformed policeman bringing in examples of what we were never to pick up on our 'nature walks'.

(The school took girls on to secondary school level and the headmistress, Miss Pace, was evidently something of a celebrity educator of the fairer sex. Anneka Rice was her pupil, much later than I, I am sure).

[John Rogers]

Alick, it appears that's the way we kids grew up in the war years, take pieces of bombs and tail fins to school for show and tell. I can still remember the smell of the incendiary bombs, in the army we called it WP (Willy Peter) short for White phosphorus.

[Makko]

I didn't know about the booby traps - I suppose they were IEDs.

My grandfather was a guest of Germany in Milag Nord, following the bombing/sinking of T&J's Dalesman in Crete in 1941.

My Dad was born in March '36.

Anyway, he went with his mates to the corner of Gorsedale Road to "explore" the pre-fabs they were building. They spotted a young adult, blonde and shirtless. Who was he?

Well, they got close and asked him his name: "Hans", he answered with an accent.
"Where are you from?", was the next question.
"Hamburg", he answered.

He was a POW, put to work. Thinking of his father and the hardships that the family had endured, it was a sort of epiphany for my Dad and a very popular story that he would relate to us.

Well, it is "Musings & Thoughts".........

Rgds.
Dave

[Makko]

I just spent all day replacing our water pump.

In Mexico, water arrives from the mains to a cistern and the water is pumped up to tanks on the roof, depending on use/demand and thus giving head pressure for showers, etc.

I noticed that something was wrong because, on Tuesday nght, I was washing the dishes and the water ran out!

FFS!!! It took me all day to buy a new pump, remove the old one, go and buy a 1"x1-1/4" bushing, install, pinch up to stop leaks and, finally, put it into service.

Why do things take so long to do as you get older (I am 59). Also, I am knackered!

"Musings and Thoughts"

Rgds.
Dave

[YM-Mundrabilla]

That's life these days Dave.

Replaced the door closer on our screen door a month or so ago.

Simple I thought. Just get identical unit and merely replace the cylinder thing re-using the brackets on the door and the door frame.

Oh dear me (or words to that effect)..................

Tongue on the cylinder is a bee's dick larger - drill out the pops and replace the door bracket with the one supplied.
Piston rod is larger diameter than the old one and does not fit the hole in the door frame bracket .
Replace the door bracket with the new one - no the screw holes are a different spacing.
Drill out the rod hole in the old bracket so as to reuse the existing frame holes.

Yippee it works. Only took two hours instead of five minutes.

How will the next generation cope? No drill, no pop riveter, no bloody idea. On the other hand they can, no doubt, drive a smart phone which I can't.

Geoff

[ShipwreckX]

Originally Posted by BobClay

That reminds me a little bit of this thing. Used by Penzias and Wilson to listen to the beginnings of the Universe via radio. At one time they thought that the hiss they were hearing was caused by pigeon sh1t from some unwelcome visitors that had made their home in the horn. So they rolled up their sleeves and scrubbed it all out, but the Big Bang hiss didn't go away.
The things you have to do to get a Nobel Prize ....

I remember being able to hear Jupiter having a hissy fit on shortwave, just above 15 megahertz or so.

[BobClay]

Yes Jupiter is very active on all manner of electro-magnetic waves. It actually radiates more energy than it receives from the Sun ! Definitely not a place you want to go for a holiday. Some of Moons though might be nice if they build a Butlins there or something ...

[Dartskipper]

Originally Posted by BobClay

Yes Jupiter is very active on all manner of electro-magnetic waves. It actually radiates more energy than it receives from the Sun ! Definitely not a place you want to go for a holiday. Some of Moons though might be nice if they build a Butlins there or something ...

Not if the Environmentalists organise road blocking demonstrations to stop the delivery trucks, bulldozers and dumpers! I wonder if super-glueing their hands and faces to the road would work on planet Zarg? Gotta save the climate.

[Ron Stringer]

Originally Posted by John Rogers

During the bombing in WW2 one could tell the difference by the weird sounding droning of the the diesel engine compared to the petrol engine, however the bombs sounded the same as they hit the ground and buildings.

I thought that the difference in sound was because British multi-engined aircraft had their engines/propellors synchronised but the Gernmans didn't bother.

[Ron Stringer]

Originally Posted by Makko

Why do things take so long to do as you get older (I am 59).
"Musings and Thoughts"

Rgds.
Dave

Dunno but I used to get up at 6.30am, shave shower and then have my breakfast while reading the morning newspaper. By 7.30am I was in the car on my way to work.


Now I don't get up until 7.15am but although I live in the same house and follow the same shower/breakfast routine and read the same daily newspaper (different edition, smartarse ), I struggle to be ready to leave the house before 10.00 am.

[Malcolm G]

Originally Posted by Ron Stringer

I thought that the difference in sound was because British multi-engined aircraft had their engines/propellors synchronised but the Gernmans didn't bother.

As I said above, I don’t think that it was a matter of not bothering to sync but done deliberately either, as I was told, to make them sound more menacing or, as also suggested, because they had been fed duff intel.

[Tim Gibbs]

Originally Posted by Makko

I just spent all day replacing our water pump...........

...Why do things take so long to do as you get older (I am 59). Also, I am knackered!

"Musings and Thoughts"

Rgds.
Dave

Dave, they don't take very long if you put them straight in the too difficult file, but then I am 78. Using this technique, unless it is seriously important and/or interesting, has stopped me getting knackered. So, for example, I have a problem with a toilet valve in the house but that didn't seem seriously important and so is currently in the too difficult file, However, I was asked to look at an insurance claim involving 2000 tonnes of duff fuel and that was seriously interesting and so has received my immediate and undivided attention.
You need to pace yourself ( and see below) otherwise you might not get to 78

[BobClay]

Originally Posted by Dartskipper

Not if the Environmentalists organise road blocking demonstrations to stop the delivery trucks, bulldozers and dumpers! I wonder if super-glueing their hands and faces to the road would work on planet Zarg? Gotta save the climate.

What's a delivery truck ?

[Dartskipper]

Originally Posted by BobClay

What's a delivery truck ?

I passed loads of them on the M6 and M5 on Monday night. They all had drivers in them too, surprisingly.

[al1934]

Originally Posted by Malcolm G

As I said above, I don’t think that it was a matter of not bothering to sync but done deliberately either, as I was told, to make them sound more menacing or, as also suggested, because they had been fed duff intel.

Definitely to make them sound more menacing. When I was a kid we could all recognise which were ours and which were krauts, even at night - and taught to take evasive action accordingly...