What's new
British Ordnance Collectors Network

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Miscellaneous Weapons (OSS SOE)

Bonnex

Premium/Ordnance Approved
Ordnance approved
Premium Member
Those of you with an interest in OSS and SOE equipment will no doubt have a copy of 'Miscellaneous Weapons' written in 1946 as part of the Summary Technical Reports of Division 19 of the National Defense Research Committee. It is a brilliant summary of the work done but the copy available to me was very poor. I am pleased to say that a very good copy of the report is now available at:


https://ia801204.us.archive.org/25/items/miscellaneouswea01bush/miscellaneouswea01bush.pdf


With apologies to those who have already discovered it.
 
Thank you very much Bonnex, for showing this link. In 1975 there was published in the US a book, with the title, "The Plumber's Kitchen" (ISBN 0-87947-203-0) which is based on the above report, but contains a lots of additional info and many more fotos. Quite a few of the projects in both publications are concerned with incendiaries. The scientist behind these and the developer also of NAPALM, was Louis F.Fieser. His , mostly unknown, 1964 book "The Scientific Method" is a gem and highly recommended to everybody interested in the subject matter. It contains many fotos and details not found elsewhere. Really interesting reading. He mentions for instance a train ride from Harvard Univrsity to Edgewood Arsenal with a trial M47 incendiary bomb in an unmarked package on the lower berth on the Federal Express. A freedom unknown today. The book is online. The other 2 NDRC reports available online, I know of, are: "Summary Technical Report of Division 11, NDRC, Volume 5 : Fire Warfare. Another highly qualified and well researched work in this line is : Making "Goop" Out of Lemons: The Permanente Metals Corporation, Incendiary Bombs, and the Costs of Industrial Overexpansion during World War 2, by Mark Wilson. (also available online). One of the war-work projects of Louis F. Fieser for OSS was the production of a training manual for OSS agents, with the title "Arson". In the 1980's this manual was sold as a reprint by Paladin Press in the US. I lost my copy many,many years ago and have not been able to find a new one. Does anybody know, where I can find a copy ? I also would be happy to know about any other NDRC reports available online, as these are really highly interesting reading. The only other one that I know of is the one about VT fuzes by Division 4, NDRC, Vol.1
I have one other question Bonnex. On page 46 of your above link, the sectioning of a british "Inertia type Sympathetic Fuze" is shown. I never heard of this before and can not comprehend its functioning by the description given. Do you have any additional info on this ?
Regards,
Bellifortis.
 
Last edited:
Bellifortis,

There are quite a lot of NDRC summary reports now available on the Internet Archive covering a lot of the 19 divisions work. Search "National Defense Research Committee" reports and limited by using the dates facility (Advanced Search) and display in title order. Subjects include Underwater, rockets, proximity fuzes, torpedoes, chemical warfare etc etc.

Spell defense with an s.
 
Top