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To better understand us, the words we used and the war we fought: A/C means aircraft---one plane---one airplane. Fighter or Interceptor means a single or twin-engine airplane designed to protect or attack by firing machine guns and cannon. Fighter-bomber is a fighter that also carries bombs and rockets. A Formation means almost any number of planes flying close together and playing follow-the-leader. A Box is an 18-plane formation. A Flight is a 6-plane formation. Flak or Ack-ack or Anti-aircraft Fire all mean being shot at from the ground. The best battery was the German 88mm. It was devastating against both airplanes and ground targets. A Togglier is a crew member, usually a bombardier-navigator, flying in the nose of a plane other than a lead plane. He follows the leader. He releases his bomb load when the lead plane drops theirs. A Lead-plane or Lead-crew is the one in front of 6,18,36,72 or more planes. For command and navigation purposes a formation has just one lead plane. Pathfinder describes a single airplane that has special people and equipment for special jobs, such as marking a target at night with fire bombs for night bombing. In our case the Pathfinder leads bad-weather bombing missions by using radar stations and triangulation to compute the dropping point. A German V-1 Rocket or Buzz-bomb or Flying-bomb is a bomb with a wing and a fiery tail. The first: hit London on June 13, 1944. Of a total of about 10,500 - 6725 hit England, 2420 hit London, 2448 hit Antwerp, Belgium.* A German V-2 Rocket has a modern rocket appearance. It is very big with a high trajectory. The first hit London on Sept. 8, 1944. The last two were launched Mar. 27, 1945. A total of 1115 hit England. 517 hit London.* G.P. refers to the general purpose nature of a bomb. It is safe to handle. It can be dropped with the arming wire attached and not explode. It can have an instant or delay action fuse. For its size it makes a big explosion rather than fire or flying metal. A Fragmentation Bomb is like a hand-grenade except that it is much larger and explodes on contact. It showers the area with metal fragments. An Incendiary or Fire-bomb is fairly small and are dropped in large numbers. It is composed of various materials, such as explosive, oil and rubber. A Revetment is a protected or bunker-type parking space for one airplane. *Ref.--The World at Arms page 309 |