WW2 – Cold War Giants

August 2, 2022

Bernie Bernstein receiving the Congressional Gold Medal

Just had the honor of attending a celebration of Bernie Bernstein receiving the Congressional Gold Medal at Harper College in Schaumburg. Bernie served in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) in the 23rd Special Headquarter Troops commonly called the Ghost Army of World War II.

In this photo Bernie, who was a spy, is 99 years old and is in the center. To the left is Rick Beyer, the President of The Ghost Army Legacy Project (ghostarmylegacyproject.org). Rick spearheaded the drive to honor these men that served in the top secret ghost army, and were never recognized for their service. The Ghost Army first contingent arrived on Omaha Beach on D-Day+8 days and trained for more than 21 deception operations. They supported Generals Patton, Montgomery, and Bradley while logging many miles in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. Their most successful deception for which General “Hood” Simpson wrote a letter of commendation to Army Headquarters was in aiding the crossing of the Rhine by his 9th Army. Decoying the Nazi’s to move 35,000 enemy troops to the southern sector while General Simpson crossed in the north-virtually unopposed, with only 32 casualties. During this deception, utilizing acoustic, radio, camouflage, and “loose lips” in pubs, the 1100 Ghost Army GI’s appeared to be 2 divisions of 30,000. The playacting the Ghost Army utilized, or “loose lips” in local pubs, was improvised during the war as the Nazi’s relied more and more on ground spies for information about where US & Allied troops would be positioned. About 1,000 “ghosts” on the frontlines of the Rhine, without weapons, truly did rely on their brains to beat the enemy, more than their brawn.

Bernie Bluestein told a couple of good stories about this deception. He was tasked with both sewing the fake 89th division patches on the shirts of his colluding GIs, and washing and painting the 89th division markings on the jeeps.

It was a wonderful ceremony at Harper College with speeches from among many delegates of both IL Senators Duckworth and Durbin, as well as Congressman Krishnamoorthi, Harper College President Avis Proctor, Rick Beyer as well as Bernie’s son Keith.

May 3, 2022May 17, 2022

Early Atomic Artillery

As noted in previous writing, during the period of the Cold War when deterrence by amassing more nuclear weapons than the Soviets was the goal, the critical question in addition to “who has more” was “who can hit the target fastest? This was a time before long range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), and time to deploy and fire was an important factor.

Especially worrisome to President Eisenhower and his Army Joint Chief of Staff, General Joe “Lightning Joe” Collins was the deployment of 200,000+ Soviet infantry on the line dividing East and West Germany. It was said that in the area of the Fulda Gap German and US troops could see each other through the flimsy barbed wire fence that divided the country in half. The Fulda Gap, a flat plain between mountain ranges, was the area identified by the US military as most likely to stage a Soviet invasion of West Germany.

With the onset of the Korean War in 1950 and our belief it might be a Soviet decoy-war so they could invade West Germany. In 1950, President Truman recalled 5-star General Eisenhower to military duty and made him the Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe. Ike immediately deployed the US Army 3rd Infantry Division to the frontlines at the Fulda Gap to replace the green UN forces that were there. This was a message to Stalin the WWIIs most renowned and famous General was ready for any Soviet Army advance.

On the weapons front in the early 1950s, development and testing of atomic artillery was being heavily funded to get these precision nukes to our front line troops. Top Secret documents of Army JCS General Collins showed time to target was considered best, 3 hours, with an atomic cannon and worst with an aircraft bomber(10 hours). The Honest John Rocket was also fast at 4 hours but early versions had liquid fuel rockets that took a while to fill with fuel and risked explosion during filling. Both Corporal and Redstone missiles, or guided rockets, were being developed but hadn’t tested up to needed specifications.

The Uranium in the early atomic shells reached criticality by a “gun style” mechanism, that is an internal explosion in the warhead shot a small mass of uranium-235, shaped like a ball, into a donut shaped ring of Uranium-235. Together inside an 800 pound, 4,5’ long, warhead (the donut and the inserted “donut ball” achieved critical mass and exploded with the force of the 10,000 Fat Man that we dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

These warheads, developed in 1950-1955 were named W7 and W9 warheads and were used on the earliest nuclear-capable artillery: Atomic Cannon, Corporal Missile and Honest John Rocket.

March 11, 2022May 17, 2022

More Artillery, You Betcha

Artillery encompasses weapons that can be used on the battlefield by opposing troops and fall into four categories:

Long barrel guns (cannons)
Howitzers
Mortars
Rockets

During the early development of missiles (guided rockets), these were initially short range weapons and were a 5th category of artillery, but with the technological advances and development of long range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, these are no longer considered artillery.

The development of guided rockets was fraught with difficulty and failure even among the scientists that ultimately succeeded at Redstone Arsenal.

An interesting tidbit from the Cold War years, scientists at Bell Labs in Homdel NJ were key scientists in the development of the first guided artillery shell. The PROXIMITY FUSE based on Doppler principle would detonate the artillery shell when the shell sensed it was close to its target. These were produced in late 1944 and increased the strike accuracy of the artillery from 10-15% to 85-90%.

An actual Proximity Fuse was passed by the Rosenbergs to the Soviets and ultimately led to their conviction for treason in 1951 and in 1953.

The major nuclear artillery developed after WWII includes the following:

Atomic Cannon – W9 warhead 1953

Honest John Rocket – W7 warhead – 1954

In April of 1954 the US Army requested research into smaller, low power but enhanced radiation yield weapons to provide closer nuclear support and also hit deep battlefield targets. By 1956 this idea was considered technically feasible and the efforts to produce a 9 inch atomic warhead was scrapped in preference of production of 8 inch (W33) and 6 inch (W48)shells.

Corporal Missile – W7 warhead – 1955

Mark 7 Gun – W23 warhead for Naval Ships – 1956

110 & 115 Howitzers – W33 warhead -1957

Davy Crockett Atomic Rifle – W54 – 1959

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