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Authors: John Steinbeck
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must not only have in his possession many confidential documents, but also he must guard and protect and in a final emergency destroy the secret bombsight. This bombsight has become the symbol of responsibility. It is never left unguarded for a moment. On the ground it is kept in a safe and under constant guard. It is taken out of its safe only by a bombardier on mission and he never leaves it. He is responsible not only for its safety but for its secrecy. And finally, should his ship be shot down, he has been instructed how quickly and effectively to destroy it. The bombardier goes always armed when he has the sight. His mission starts at the moment when he receives the sight from the safe. Instructions for protecting the bombsight are so exact that they amount to a ritual. Discussion of the sight with an unauthorized person is forbidden and no unauthorized person is ever permitted to see it. Packed in its canvas case, it is never even opened except in a guarded classroom, a trainer center, or in the nose of a bomber.
These things were explained on that first day in class and then, after a searching questionnaire, Bill and the others signed certificates of responsibility and were issued their secret textbooks and their equipment.
Now the work was given to them quickly. They discussed the theory of falling bodies, speed, trajectory, and the variables which affect the fall of a bomb, such as drift of plane and wind. Range problems were given to the class and immediately problems were set down to be worked out by the cadets in the light of their growing knowledge, for no principle is ever given without an immediate application. Thus, the discussion of trajectories is immediately demonstrated with models.
The work was given to them very rapidly. It was poured on, in fact—discussion and demonstration of gyroscopes and finally the bombsights themselves. From classroom they went to drill, from drill to athletics, and always they ate hugely. Now, the bombsights were brought into the classroom and taken apart so that the cadets knew every piece and how it worked, and what they learned cannot be told.
Bill’s class had not been off the ground yet, but it was beginning to study the ships. They were taught how to use the oxygen equipment in high altitudes, how to use parachutes. They went into the bombers and learned about the emergency exits and the fire extinguishers.
Bill wrote to his father saying, “I don’t know how we are going to do it all in twelve weeks. It seems like a mountain ahead, but the others did it so I guess we can. But don’t come down here now,” he went on; “I don’t know whether I could get a moment to see you.”
The others not only had done it, but were doing it. There were classes in all degrees of completeness and one class finishing every week. Going to his classrooms, Bill could see the advanced students marching to the training planes—the AT-11’s—to fly on practice bombing missions, and at night the planes roared overhead on night missions. The whole field was alive with energy but Bill’s class had come to the use of the ground trainer. This was a fascinating gadget, a three-wheel carriage, very tall. It had three seats on the top of it twelve feet above the floor. There were two seats ahead and one behind. The cadet sat in the left-hand seat and his instructor beside him, while the pilot who steered the carriage sat behind. A bombsight was mounted in front of the cadet. Ahead of the carriage, on the floor, a tiny little wagon moved and it had on its flat top a paper target. It was called a bug. It crawled in any set direction. The big carriage moved slowly ahead and the bug moved sideways, but the speed of the carriage was, in relation to the bug, what a bomber’s speed would be at high altitudes. The sideways-moving bug simulated the side drift of the plane. Bill sat in his seat looking through the bombsight and he directed the pilot as he would in a plane. He found his target in
These things were explained on that first day in class and then, after a searching questionnaire, Bill and the others signed certificates of responsibility and were issued their secret textbooks and their equipment.
Now the work was given to them quickly. They discussed the theory of falling bodies, speed, trajectory, and the variables which affect the fall of a bomb, such as drift of plane and wind. Range problems were given to the class and immediately problems were set down to be worked out by the cadets in the light of their growing knowledge, for no principle is ever given without an immediate application. Thus, the discussion of trajectories is immediately demonstrated with models.
The work was given to them very rapidly. It was poured on, in fact—discussion and demonstration of gyroscopes and finally the bombsights themselves. From classroom they went to drill, from drill to athletics, and always they ate hugely. Now, the bombsights were brought into the classroom and taken apart so that the cadets knew every piece and how it worked, and what they learned cannot be told.
Bill’s class had not been off the ground yet, but it was beginning to study the ships. They were taught how to use the oxygen equipment in high altitudes, how to use parachutes. They went into the bombers and learned about the emergency exits and the fire extinguishers.
Bill wrote to his father saying, “I don’t know how we are going to do it all in twelve weeks. It seems like a mountain ahead, but the others did it so I guess we can. But don’t come down here now,” he went on; “I don’t know whether I could get a moment to see you.”
The others not only had done it, but were doing it. There were classes in all degrees of completeness and one class finishing every week. Going to his classrooms, Bill could see the advanced students marching to the training planes—the AT-11’s—to fly on practice bombing missions, and at night the planes roared overhead on night missions. The whole field was alive with energy but Bill’s class had come to the use of the ground trainer. This was a fascinating gadget, a three-wheel carriage, very tall. It had three seats on the top of it twelve feet above the floor. There were two seats ahead and one behind. The cadet sat in the left-hand seat and his instructor beside him, while the pilot who steered the carriage sat behind. A bombsight was mounted in front of the cadet. Ahead of the carriage, on the floor, a tiny little wagon moved and it had on its flat top a paper target. It was called a bug. It crawled in any set direction. The big carriage moved slowly ahead and the bug moved sideways, but the speed of the carriage was, in relation to the bug, what a bomber’s speed would be at high altitudes. The sideways-moving bug simulated the side drift of the plane. Bill sat in his seat looking through the bombsight and he directed the pilot as he would in a plane. He found his target in
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