This is my uncle,s crew in Roy, France; he is the oldest member standing on the left.

Martin Marauder Bomber Crew Roy,France 1945

The C-79, serial number 42-52883, unique example of Junkers Ju 52/3m employed by the U.S. Army Air Force in this photo, late 1942, at Howard Field, Panama Canal Zone, in service with the 20th Transportation Squadron, Sixth Air Force. The aircraft was originally the Lufthansa’s Ju 52/3mge (c/n J5283) D-AENF transferred on 1 April 1937, it was transferred to Lufthansa Südamerika for Andes service and named &quot;Aconcagua&quot;. It was again transferred to the Brazilian airline Sindicato Condor as PP-CBA on 11 September 1939 and then to Lufthansa Sucursal Peru as OA-HHD on 29 November 1940. Syndicato Condor then leased it to Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Transportes Aereos (SEDTA) on 25 April 1941, where it was registered as HC-SAD. On 5 September 1941 was confiscated by Peruvian government and later, on 13 May 1942, was acquired by the USAAF as war prize and designated C-79. In the USAAF service the aircraft was refitted with Pratt &amp; Whitney R-1690 engines with modified cowlings and 3-bladed propellers. Other modifications was the replacement of the air-brakes with hydraulic brakes, replacement of original tail skid with a tail wheel and U.S. instruments and the radio in place of the original equipment. In December 1943, it was turned over to the U.S. Public Roads Administration in Costa Rica in as TI-60. The C-79 was phased out one year later. Victor Sierra

An American “Tante Ju”

This is the bat bomb.  It is actually a cardboard cage (or cage container), designed to be dropped over the target where, having reached low altitude, it would open and release a large number of Mexican free-tailed bats, each carrying a small incendiary charge.  The bats would then roost under the eaves of buildings and, in due course, ignite, spreading fire and destruction far and wide.  I kid you not.  Even I could not make this up.

The idea resulted from the observation that Japanese cities in the 1940s were largely composed of wooden buildings.  However, in the early part of the war, it was not possible for US aircraft to make effective airstrikes to set them on fire.  Dr Lytle S. Adams conceived the idea that effective bat bombs - much lighter than conventional blast bombs and incendiaries - could be delivered over Japanese industrial cities from long range by the bombers then available.  Thus, large parts of Japan's industrial capacity could be destroyed or crippled.  Dr Adams was not a defence scientist or an engineer; he was a dentist.  Figures.

I am indebted to some bat-fixated geographers from the University of Santa Barbara (I almost went to do research there, a long time ago) for the following "pitch" for the bat bomb programme which was, incredibly, approved by President Roosvelt - 

"Bat Bomb Ingredients:

- 180 Mexican free-tailed bats

- 180 miniature incendiary bombs (oblong nitrocellulose  cases filled with thickened kerosine) weighing 17 grams each which will burn for 4 minutes with a 10 inch flame or  180 of them weighing 28 grams each which will burn for 6 minutes with a 10 inch flame) 

- 180 small time-delay igniters, cemented to each bomb case along one side

- 1 cardboard conainer with a parachute that will open automatically in mid-air at about 1,000 feet when dropped from a B-25 flying at 5,000 feet

Bat Bomb Instructions

- Place bats in refrigerators to induce temporary hibernation

- Attach bomb cases and igniters, to the loose skin on each bat's chest with a surgical clip and a piece of string

- Pack bats into the cardboard container

- Repeat the above until you have about 3,500 bat bombs

- Using a b-25 flying at 5,000 feet, drop the bat bombs over a city at night

- When the parachutes deploy at 1,000 feet, the bats will awaken in the warmer air, fly out of the cardboard boxes, spread out from the point of release, and, at dawn, will hide in buildings across the target city.  Shortly thereafter, the time-delay ingiters will set off the incendiary bombs, causing widespread fires and chaos (and, sad to say, killing the bats)."

Initial tests, conducted by the US Army Air Force, did not exactly go well.  Many bats dropped in the prescribed manner did not wake up from their temporary hibernation.  The dropping and distributing method was unreliable - many bats were killed on impact with the ground.  The destructive highlight of the programme occurred, not in Osaka, but in the Auxiliary Army Air Base at Carlsbad, New Mexico.  A large force of bats, armed, primed and readied to take part in a test, escaped, and hid out, not only in the base's buildings, but also in the comfy hidey-holes supplied by heaps of tyres, ammunition stores, fuel tanks ... the resulting conflagration certainly caused "chaos"; in fact, it pretty well destroyed the Carlsbad base.

This sort of thing seems to have dampened the Army's enthusiasm for the proposed weapon.  The project was passed to the Marines, who named it "Operation X-Ray".  Tests conducted by the Marines in 1944 in simulated operational conditions persuaded them (somehow) that the Bat Bomb was an effective weapon.  One suspects that this estimation was somewhat optimistic.

By this stage, however, the US pincer movement across the Pacific was bringing American bombers close to practical bombing range of Japanese cities, which were, indeed, destroyed by US bombers by fire - but using conventional incendiary bombs.  Dr Adams maintained his faith in the concept but, in the end, the Bat Bomb was never deployed.

Dr Stanley Lovell, Director of the US Office of Strategic Services, OSS, subsequenly described the Bat Bomb project as "Die Fledermaus Farce".  My own conclusion ?  Ingenious idea but, in the end of the day, pretty batty .... Yours from the Batcave, JR.