What Kind of Bombs Are These?

[uhhuh35]

I was at the National Archives in College Park MD today researching my Grandfathers bomber squadron and I came across these pics. Actually, I found A LOT of pics but this one stood out. (OK, actually A LOT of them stood out!) These look a bit longer than a conventional 500 pounder plus they have a more blunted nose. Can anyone tell us what they are?:

Conventional 500 pounders dropped from a different ship in this photo. The B-24's bomb load was normally 10 500 pound gravity bombs:

These pics were taken on November 5th 1944 on a mission over Vienna Austria. The top photo was taken from a B-24 from the 455th Bomb Group, 740th Squadron, tail number #951. The bottom pic was taken from a B-24 from the 455th Bomb Group, 742nd Squadron, tail #105.

These are not from my Grandfathers bird though. He was on a mission over Mitrovica, Yugoslavia that same day but unfortunately there were no pictures taken. I do have pics of bombs dropped from his plane on different missions though. He was with the 455th BG, 741st Squadron "Vulgar Vultures" and from what I can tell from records, flew the B-24 on at least 37 missions out of San Giovanni Italy.

I'm pretty sure these pics have never been published and they are de-classified.

 

[fastmongrel]

They might be Small Bomb Containers or whatever they were called in the USAAF. SBC contained 4 pound magnesium incendiary bombs originally the SBC stayed with the bomber and dropped the incendiaries from the bomb bay but a development was a dropped version that was fitted with a barometric fuse or time fuse set to about 7 to 10 thousand feet. A small charge opened the container and dropped the incendiaries. This was done to make sure the incendiaries dropped in a small dense cluster and had a greater effect than incendiaries dropped from the bombing height and getting spread out too far

 

[N4521U]

Funny story about these magnesium thingies.

I worked for an aluminum company many years ago. A magnesium "anode" was developed for black iron gas line leading from the meter to the house. An anode is a sacrificial piece, something that would corrode first. Most water heaters have an anode inside that will corrode Before the liner dose. We made a little coining press that would press these mag anodes to the black iron pipe. The magnesium was about 8 inches long, 2-1/2" across the flats and a hole just big enough to slide over the end of the 3/4" pipe. I understand this is about the size of the incendiary pieces.

 

[fastmongrel]

Found a link to a site with some line drawings
ORDATA Online: International Deminer's Guide to UXO Identification, Recovery, and Disposal

 

[uhhuh35]

Ah. so these are incendiary bombs? Mystery solved then! Thanks for the info Fastmongrel and N4521U.

 

[ramc181]

Just to confirm, the first photo shows M17 500lb Aimable Incendiary Cluster Bombs, each containing 110 seperate M50 4lb magnesium incendiary bombs which were discharged at a set time after release.

All the best,
PB

 

[Snautzer01]

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