168.full

http://bst.sagepub.com/

Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society

http://bst.sagepub.com/content/30/3/168The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0270467610371713 2010 30: 168Bulletin of Science Technology & Society

Michael TremblayBombsights and Adding Machines: Translating Wartime Technology Into Peacetime Sales

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

National Association for Science, Technology & Society

can be found at:Bulletin of Science, Technology & SocietyAdditional services and information for

http://bst.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://bst.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://bst.sagepub.com/content/30/3/168.refs.htmlCitations:

by Laura Siri on October 8, 2010bst.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society30(3) 168 175 2010 SAGE PublicationsReprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0270467610371713http://bsts.sagepub.com

Bombsights and Adding Machines: Translating Wartime Technology Into Peacetime Sales

Michael Tremblay1

Abstract

On 10 February 1947, A.C. Buehler, the president of the Victor Adding Machine Company presented Norden Bombsight #4120 to the Smithsonian Institute. This sight was in service on board the Enola Gay when it dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Through this public presentation, Buehler forever linked his company to the Norden Bombsight, the Enola Gay, and to history. Buehlers ultimate goal, however, was the sale of adding machines, and while significant, the presentation to the Smithsonian was essentially the final step in a long running advertising campaign designed to sell adding machines. During the War, Victor was the Armys main contractor for the production of Norden Bombsights. This work is an investigation into the dysfunctional relationship that existed between Victor Adding Machine Company, the Army, the Navy Bureau of Ordinance (BuOrd). Wartime shortages demanded that pre-war arrangements between the Army and BuOrd be reconsidered and it was agreed that the Army be allowed to build its own units. Within a year of production Victor sights were scrutinized for their inaccuracies, and ultimately Victors contract was cancelled ending the Armys short sojourn into bombsight production.

Keywords

Norden Bombsight, Victor Adding Machines, Precision Daylight Bombing, Army Air Force, Carl L. Norden

By the time the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the Army Air Forces most secret weapon had become a focal point for public discussion and conjecture. This secret weapon was the Norden Bombsight (NBS), a sight-ing mechanism that supposedly enabled American airmen to drop bombs precisely (inside a pickle barrel, to use the con-temporary phrasing) from 20,000 feet and ostensibly end wars without the loss of friendly ground forces. Many airmen argued that the NBS would guarantee the destruction of the enemys ability to wage war by destroying the industrial capacity of the belligerent nation without inflicting heavy civilian casual-ties. Only the American military possessed this weapon, and for many Americans it became a symbol of both American technological prowess and compassion. The device never did what it was purportedly able to do, and tens of thousands of American airmen as well as German and Japanese civilians died during the air campaign. Despite this, the belief in the mythical qualities of this technology persisted well beyond the end of the conflict.

The myth that surrounds the NBS was a deliberate creation by different interest groups for several reasons (Tremblay, 2009), among them financial gain. During the early 1942 rush to arm the nation, the need to produce the NBS in quantity became a serious issue for the United States Army Air Force (AAF). Contractors were needed that had the ability to produce

the intricate devices quickly enough, not only to replace the units lost in combat but also to equip those aircraft to be used by the ever-expanding AAF. The Victor Adding Machine Com-pany was one of the companies selected to take on this job. Victor became the Armys primary NBS contractor in 1942 and subsequently produced close to 1900 complete units.1 Victor Adding Machine Company later used its association with the NBS to sell adding machines. Needless to say, to do so required the exploitation of NBSs fame in order for the company to profit from Victors Norden-producing contribution to the war effort. Conversely, Victors exploitation of Nordens fame through commercial advertising and commemoration perpetuated the Norden myth.

This article will investigate the process by which Victor secured its position as the main contractor for the NBS, the difficulties that Victor encountered during production, and how the company then exploited its role in an attempt to secure its position in the postwar economy. Contemporary commercial advertising, archival material, and a history of the

1The University of Victoria, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada

Corresponding Author:Michael Tremblay, The University of Victoria, 720 Chestnut Street, Nanaimo, British Columbia, V9S 2L2, CanadaEmail: [email protected]


Tremblay 169

Victor Adding Machine Company will be used to present the companys role in the production of the NBS and, later, Vic-tors contribution to the Norden myth. Modern analysis of advertising and marketing will be used to identify and qualify the characteristics of Victors advertising campaign. This is important for two reasons. First, the campaign undertaken by Victor, and Victors exploitation of its association with the NBS, clearly signifies that the NBS had already achieved a certain amount of fame. Second, the advertising campaign launched by Victor, successful or not, served to make the Nor-den more public than it would otherwise have been. Therefore, the Victor Adding Machine Company played an important role in the development and promulgation of the Norden myth.

An interesting and important by-product of this investigation is to reveal the reasons why the AAFs NBS project ultimately failed. The process of tooling-up Victor Adding Machine Com-pany was complicated and in many ways hampered by the strained relationship between the Army Materiel Division, the Navy Bureau of Ordinance, and the Carl L. Norden Company. Although this relationship plays little role in Victors promul-gation of the Norden myth, the detrimental impact of the rela-tionship on the NBSs operational record provide real contrast between the reality of the NBS failure and the Norden myth. More importantly, the Victor experience exposes the relation-ship between the military and those civilian contractors that either designed or built munitions during the war. Although the example provided in this article is unique and does not represent a general analysis of the production of munitions during World War II, the investigation presents an interesting case study of the development and mass production of a tech-nology that at the time was extremely important for both AAF doctrine and civilian morale.

The Victor Adding Machine Company was by far the most aggressive commercial user of the NBS myth during and after the war. Prior to the war, however, Victor had suffered through the Depression, just like many other companies. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the company was forced to sell high-quality devices at low cost in order to establish itself in the adding machine market. The result was that Victor sales increased by 301% between 1938 and 1941 (Darby, 1968, p. 80). Although the civilian demand for adding machines decreased during the war, the military need to calculate and record the everyday logistical needs of the armed forces ensured that Victor plants remained fully operational. Only through Victors Depression-era marketing did the company remain viable into the war period, and this was due in large measure to the com-panys president.

Victors president, A. C. Buehler, was a meat man. Buehler had been schooled in business management and marketing through his fathers, and later his and his brothers, meat mar-kets. Buehler was one of those remarkable individuals who could calculate and manage vast amounts of information in his head, which is an interesting characteristic for the future presi-dent of a calculator company. In 1918, Buehler purchased what

he thought was an adding machine but what instead turned out to be 10 shares of stock in a proposed business called Victor Adding Machine Company. Still wanting an adding machine, Buehler met with the fledgling companys directors and negoti-ated a settlement, which resulted in him being elected its direc-tor by September 3, 1918 (Darby, 1968, p. 14).

Under Buehlers direction Victor gained a foothold in the small market of mechanical calculators. Buehler was, if any-thing, a good businessman, and he understood from his experi-ence in the meat market that people would pay for quality. He proposed to offer the best product at the best price. Thus, Victor Adding Machine Company offered its customers a machine that was . . . lighter, more compact, and less expensive than all the competitors (Darby, 1968, p. 22). The first Victor machine produced under Buehler, the Victor 110, was a compact model with some 1,250 separate parts. Although these machines had higher tolerances than the competitors devices with 2,000 to 3,000 parts, the Victor machines boasted greater accuracy for a longer duration. At 75 dollars cheaper than any competitors machine, Buehler needed only to ensure that Victor machines would make a reputation for themselves. The solution was simple: Victor offered a full refund guarantee on its machines. If more than 10 machines were sold to a single corporation, Victor offered to pay any amount above 10 dollars in repairs annually per machine. Buehlers decision to build an afford-able, quality machine paid off. While the competitors operated with one serviceman per 1,000 machines, Victor could boast one serviceman per 5,000 units (Darby, 1968, pp. 36-39).

Within 3 years of Buehlers takeover, the Victor Adding Machine Company expanded from a fledgling business in a small office in Chicago, to a national company with district sales managers in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. By 1923 there were 400 dealers around the country, and 3,000 just 3 years later. During the Depression, Victor survived both by exploiting overseas trade and by releasing a new and improved product at the same price as the original machines. Buehler persistently argued that the best course for the company was to produce the highest quality product for the lowest price. Still the company did see a marked decline in sales during the period between 1930 and 1935. Despite the slump, every effort was made to keep all the Victor plants operating during the toughest economic period in American history. The ability of this com-pany not only to survive but to expand, albeit minimally, during the Great Depression is testament to the ability of Buehler as both a manager and a marketer.

Buehlers insistence on keeping Victor fully operational dur-ing the Depression ensured that the company would fully recover when the economy did. As a result of Buehlers fore-sight, it was possible for Victor to become involved in wartime production almost immediately after the U.S. declaration of war in December 1941. The Air Force Special, a small device that calculated flight times in hours and minutes, was suppos-edly air dropped with invasion forces.2 Furthermore, the AAF had been using Victor-made directional compasses, various


170 Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 30(3)

connectors for oxygen supply systems, optical gunsights for the turrets in B-24s, and an automatic fire-control and cut-off unit for heavy bombers. This fire-control mechanism ensured that the upper-turret gunner could not shoot through the tail of his own aircraft in combat. But despite Victors war contribu-tions, the company was by no means guaranteed to become a manufacturer of the NBS and it was only through a supply crisis that Victor became the Armys primary NBS producer.

It was fortunate for Victor that the most critical issue the AAF encountered regarding the NBS was the inability to pro-cure enough bombsights to meet its operational demands. The Carl L. Norden Company, through the intermediary of the Navy Bureau of Ordinance (BuOrd), was the only supplier of the bombsight to the Army until mid-1943. The supply issue was further exacerbated by the Navys insistence on supplying the Army only after its own operational demands had been met. Needless to say, the AAF suffered drastic shortages, and even before the start of the war tension arose between the Army Materiel Division and BuOrd. The shortages became more pronounced, even critical, during the early stages of the conflict.

The prewar agreement between the Army Materiel Division and the Navy BuOrd was inimical at best, and resulted in a deficiency of supply that had been estimated to exceed 3,000 Air Force units by June 1943 (MacFarland, 1995, p. 135). Army NBS procurement, or lack thereof, became so dire that the Air Force was, according to the Secretary of War Henry Stimson, sending airplanes into combat theaters without pre-cision sights due to the lack of th[e] equipment.3 BuOrd had been ruthlessly proficient in ensuring that all its requirements for the Norden Sight were being met prior to any delivery to the Army. Moreover, BuOrd insisted on establishing and main-taining a 20% surplus to act as emergency spares. The AAF shortage became so acute that Stimson was forced to intervene on the part of the Air Force by reminding BuOrd of its earlier agreement with the Army. A letter of November 11, 1942 indi-cated that the Navy had promised 800 units a month for the Army by September of 1942.4 The Army, however, had yet to receive its quota for a single month by the time Stimson intervened.

Wartime demands and the disastrous relationship between the Army Materiel Division, BuOrd, and the Carl L. Norden Company necessitated a change in the prewar agreement between the Army and Navy. The Army proposed the estab-lishment of its own manufacturers of both parts and complete NBS units. As early as January 8, 1942, Frank Knox, the Secretary of the Navy, had agreed to allow the Army to find its own contractors to meet Air Force demands. This change would alleviate the supply issues with BuOrd and allow the Army to procure the equipment it needed to meet its opera-tional demands. It would also eliminate the dysfunctional bureaucratic process that required the Materiel Division to go through BuOrd. The initial agreement allowed for an equal distribution of production devices from the Navy supplier, effectively boosting Army procurement even more, but the

decision was inexplicably reversed by February 24, 1942.5 Brigadier-General George C. Kenney, the Assistant Chief of the Materiel Division, highlighted the attitude of the Army: It is believed that continuance of the present Army-Navy policy relative to the manufacture of bombsights by the C.L. Norden Company is injurious to the interests of national defense (MacFarland, 1995, p. 135).

On February 27, 1942, the Navy acquiesced, but only with the promise that the Carl L. Norden Company would retain control of bombsight production by selecting a supplier for the Army (MacFarland, 1995, p. 137). BuOrd and Norden took the liberty to suggest a contractor for the Army, but it was not Victor Adding Machine; instead, they recommended the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, Victors peacetime competitor.6 The Cardanic Corporation, one of Nordens sub-ordinate companies, would take the role of technical advisor for the Army in all matters associated with the bombsight. However, all bombsight procurement still had to be processed through BuOrd. This arrangement served only to keep the Army out of Norden and BuOrd affairs, and never yielded the production necessary to meet Army demands.

An interservice meeting on November 29, 1942 resulted in a tentative agreement. The new arrangement stipulated that the number of M-series sights to be reallocated from the Navy to the AAF was to increase over the course of 1943. The bomb-sight figures, however, were partly based on the assumption that the military contractors would be producing a significant number of sights in the near future. In a letter to General George C. Marshall, the Chief of Staff, Admiral E. J. King, the Com-mander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, explained how he was forced to consider the needs of the Navy first; as he reminded Marshall, the Norden bombsight is the only one used by the Navy. Furthermore, King pointed out additional sources of supply of the Norden bombsights are being developed by the army for army needs, and will be shortly in production.7 As King understood it, the AAF had access to other precision sights that they could be exploiting rather than taking the Navys only sight. These other sights were totally under the control of the Army and its contractors so, according to King, the AAF should have been well equipped.

The allocation program as agreed to by BuOrd would have resulted in an increased percentage of sights going to the AAF over the course of 1943, with fewer being delivered at the beginning of the year and more at the end. King defended the Navys allocation program because he felt that any further study of allocation of precision bombsights must take into consideration all the types available, and the sources of their supply.8 Marshall, however, believed that the numbers remained too low, particularly at the beginning of the year. He acknowledged that the Army did have several of its own contractors building their own sights, and these companies would eventually have the ability to alleviate the AAF short-ages, but by the end of 1942 no contractor had yet produced a satisfactory M-series sight. The Chief of Staff was essentially


Tremblay 171

pleading on behalf of the AAF for BuOrd to reconsider the allocation number. For its part, Marshall promised the Army would cooperate in every way possible to aid the production of bombsights.9

In the meantime, the AAF was forced to install the S-series Sperry sight on its B-24Es, but by the end of 1942, Sperry sights had yet to meet the precision standards set by the M-series sights. Sperry could produce 200 sights a month but if they failed to meet the precision standard, then these production numbers aided the AAF minimally, if at all. The AAF was also using the British Mark XIV, or American T-1, as a fill-in, [or] for night or specialized activities.10 The T-1 was especially problematic because it was not even considered a precision sight by the AAF. Moreover, the T-1s maximum operational altitude was approximately 20,000 feet, well under the ceiling of the Norden M-series sights and below the relatively safe higher altitudes required for daylight attacks.11 By May of 1943 the AAF command was so desperate for Nordens that the Air Force Anti-Submarine Command was ordered to remove 75% of its Norden Bombsights from its high-altitude planes. The AAF leaders reclassified anti-submarine warfare and insisted that it possessed only a defensive secondary nature.12 Con-sequently, only 25% of the planes to be allocated in the future to the anti-submarine division would be Norden equipped.

One of the immediate difficulties the Army had to overcome before building Norden Bombsights was the need to locate companies that could manufacture parts with the precise toler-ances of the NBS. Extremely tight specifications and hundreds of small parts meant that any contractor would require an intense tooling-up and training process. To help facilitate this process, the Army contracted companies already associated with the production of machines with relatively close tolerances (Darby, 1968, p. 83). The contractors eventually hired by the Army to construct Norden bombsights or components included Minneapolis-Honeywell and Victor Adding Machine.13 Appar-ently, Buehler had secured Victors position as primary con-tractor in the course of secret trips to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, to meet with Air Force officials during the early months of 1942 (Darby, 1968, p. 83).

It is not surprising that the Army chose Victor, as the company not only had experience with precision machines but it also had a highly trained workforce and large factories that could be easily secured (Darby, 1968, p. 83). Despite Victors size, the company was still forced to assemble some eighty subcontractors to manufacture various Norden components. The number of Victor employees jumped from 350 to more than 1,400, and a new dust-free, climate-controlled factory was built within a year of the Armys decision to hire Victor. Victor even initiated its own research and development branch, which was later credited with creating a high-altitude adapter for the NBS (Norden Bomb-sight Improved, 1943; Darby, 1968, p. 87).

Once the Army was sure that Victor had the facilities neces-sary to mass-produce the NBS, the tooling-up process began in earnest. This process, however, was unnecessarily hampered

by the animosity that had grown between the Materiel Division and the Carl L. Norden Company. The initial engineering draw-ings sent to the Victor engineers were devoid of all measure-ments or specifications. With two heavily guarded bombsights and useless blueprints, Victor engineers were forced to disas-semble one of the sights and measure each and every part in order to facilitate reproduction (Darby, 1968, p. 84). In another instance, Colonel O. Cook of the Army Engineering Section paid a visit to the Carl L. Norden plant in September 1942 and witnessed the installation of a new automatic wiring system in the production sights. Cook, who was the Chief of the Production Engineering Section, complained to the Command-ing General of Materiel Command that they had yet to receive the drawings associated with this critical upgrade, making the Army-produced sights already inferior.14 Shortly thereafter, at the behest of the Carl L. Norden Company via BuOrd, Army personnel were actually banned from entering any Norden facilities or contacting Norden directly.15 The Navy and Norden then complained that by employing Victor, the Army was hampering overall bombsight production, because the companies would now be competing for the same scarce parts (MacFarland, 1995, p. 139).

The lack of cooperation between Navy and Army contrac-tors extended beyond the Carl L. Norden Company and included some of BuOrds other producers. A memo from December 1, 1942 indicates that both the Victor Adding Machine Company and Minneapolis-Honeywell had received operational data and manufacturing drawings for M-series components from Remington Rand, one of BuOrds contrac-tors, but neither company had received the relevant test fixtures for the bearings to be used in the bombsight. The absence of this equipment held up the entire Army-NBS contractor pro-duction schedule. Colonel S. Brentnall of the Air Corps Pro-duction Engineering section indicated that both Victor and Honeywell were prime contractors in the manufacture of [the M-series, and they were] to begin deliveries in the very near future, therefore these bearing test fixtures have been required for some time.16 Brentnall wrote this letter in December of 1942. The United States had been at war for a year, and the Army contractors, Victor included, had yet to produce a single M-series sight. In fact, Victor was only able to produce 14 bomb-sights by May 20, 1943, 18 months after the country entered the war and well over a year after the Army received permission to build its own sights.17

The complaints of both BuOrd and Norden, however, were somewhat justifiable, and reflected the reality of the supply issues during this period, especially in the case of bearings. The original Norden devices, including the later premass production M-9s (Navy Mark XV), were built with hand-polished bearings. These frictionless bearings were crucial for the sight head to move in unison with the aircrafts flight path. The original Norden specifications demanded a bearing with an axial play tolerance of 0.0003 to 0.0005 inches. Because of bearing supply shortages, however, the original tolerances



were relaxed in order to accelerate bombsight production. The relaxed tolerances ranged from 0.0005 (the old maximum) to 0.0015 inches. The new tolerance allowance not only remedied the critical bearing supply issues, but it also resulted in more serious accuracy issues. By early 1944, Brigadier General F. Carroll, the Chief of the Engineering Division, indicated that the relaxed bearing tolerance was suspected of causing a serious percussion failure in M-series sights.18

Whether or not the bearings were the cause of the percus-sion failures, as early as October 1943 some Air Force person-nel recognized that modern mass production was to blame.19 An extensive and extremely rigorous series of testing proce-dures was implemented, but the tests failed to identify the specific cause of the percussion problem. The tests were suc-cessful, however, in isolating the devices that performed the worst, and those companies responsible for releasing the devices after inadequate testing procedures. For Victor Adding Machine, the results were disastrous; the tests indicated that Victor-made sights were among the worst of those in service.20 By May 1944, the Victor Adding Machine Company had pro-duced 1883 complete bombsights, and it was estimated that as many as 80% of the devices did not meet the required accuracy specifications.21 The mass production of the NBS, and the dysfunctional relationship between the Materiel Divi-sion and BuOrd, resulted in the production of Norden Bomb-sights that failed to meet the standards set by prewar tests. Incidentally, the percussion tests also indicated that the sights produced by the Carl L. Norden Company performed just as well if not better than those tested before the war.22

Victor Adding Machine Companys delayed stint as the Armys primary NBS contractor was coming to an end a little over a year after it had begun. The inaccuracy of the early mass-produced devices, together with tactical developments in Europe, specifically lead-plane formation dropping of bombs (in which precision targeting was done by a master bomber in a lead aircraft, and all other aircraft in the formation had only to target the bomb blasts of the master bomber), resulted in a decreased demand for Norden units. The supply crisis was over, and in fact by April 1944 the delivery of Navy M-series sights had exceeded the earlier estimates made by BuOrd. Records indicate that 1,516 units had been delivered to the Dahlgren testing grounds for their predelivery checks, but the sights had yet to be allocated to specific aircraft. By April 1944 Strategic Air Forces in Europe had ordered 1,000 more B-17 and B-24 bombers without the bombsights installed. Moreover, as of April 15, 1944, all replacement planes in the United States were to be stripped of their sights prior to their trans-Atlantic flights. After the delivery of these non-Norden equipped planes, only every second plane was to be bombsight-equipped. All the planes, however, were required to have automatic stabilizers, or at minimum a rudder potentiometer, allow-ing certain elements of the Army bombsight program to con-tinue, specifically Minneapolis-Honeywells contribution. Colonel R. Wilson, the Chief of Development of the Army

Engineering Branch, indicated that as long as Minneapolis-Honeywell was able to meet a production capacity of 500 sta-bilizers a month, the entire bombsight picture should be cleared up.23

The Army had originally intended that Victor would achieve a peak production of 500 sights per month. As of June 1944 the company had yet to meet this lofty number and because of the decreased demand for sights, and quite possibly the inaccuracy of the Victor devices, Victor production was scaled back to a peak of just 250 per month.24 It was also discovered that Victor sights were being produced at a higher cost than those manu-factured by the Navys contractors. Victor sights cost the Army $7625, while the Navy sights cost the Army only $7560.25 In a letter dated August 9, 1944, the Chief of BuOrd was informed that the Army was ordering an additional 1,000 bombsights from BuOrd. This rather large late-war order was necessary as all orders placed with the Victor Adding Machine Company through to 1946 had been cancelled, once again making the Navy the chief supplier of the NBS to the Army and relegating Victor to adding machine production once again.26

Interestingly, the actual failure of the mass-produced sights, Victors included, forced AAF officers to reflect on the Norden myth itself. Colonel J. F. Phillips, the Chief of the Air Force Materiel Division, wondered what would happen to morale when Air Force personnel learned of the bombsight accuracy issue:

The Air Service Command is preparing technical orders to their depots covering the new test procedure. When these technical orders are distributed and the service, as a whole, realizes the sights they are now using are not sufficiently accurate to hit the pickle barrel, the ques-tion immediately arises as to what will happen and what affect this will have on morale.27

Phillips actually refers to the whole service, indicating that the Norden myth was something that was generally accepted, or at least he believed it to be generally accepted. That the morale of the Air Service could actually be affected by the revelation of Norden inaccuracy clearly indicates that at least certain members of the Air Force had a strong tie to the moral superiority associated with American air doctrine and the NBS. As Walter Hixson (2008) points out, the common perception in America at the time was that air power was the transcendent force in modern warfare (p. 173). This, however, was a reflec-tion of a collectively accepted American identity strongly rooted in the belief that technology was the manifestation of human progress. In his discussion of the relationship between American society and technology, Michael Smith (1994) indicates that the material artifacts of technical innovation came to signify progress (p. 38). Thus, the failure of a device that so strongly represented American ideals helps to reveal the depth of what Hixon identifies as a technological fanaticism. If the NBS did not do what it was supposed to do, then neither


Tremblay 173

could the thousands of airmen who were risking their lives in daylight sorties over Europe; more important, American moral hegemony could be called into question.

Victors tenure as the Armys primary Norden manufacturer was finished, but the Victor advertising campaign that arguably added to the Norden Myth had been underway for over half a year by the time Victor was released from its contract. As soon as the NBS was officially revealed to the public in November 1943, Victor printed ads exalting its position as the Armys primary producer of the famous NBS. The ads appeared in widely read newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times. Buehler also targeted the business elite through a vigorous campaign in the special interest periodical Fortune. Whether or not Buehler was aware of the Victor unit deficiencies, his advertising campaign extolled the virtues of both Victor and the Victor-made NBSs.

The problem for Buehler was that his intended market was far from a popular one; the average consumer was not in the market for an adding machine. Limited technology at this time prevented devices such as pocket calculators from being real-ity. This meant that it was pointless for Buehler to use standard advertising techniques by trying to appeal to the emotions or irrational fears, anxieties, and day-dreams of the general public. These emotive devices are easily the most effective means of selling consumer goods, but clearly would not work when trying to sell commercial adding machines (Whitehead, 1975, pp. 35-36). Thus, the Victor ads needed to be directed toward those consumers who required dependable and accurate devices to meet the needs of their businesses. The link in the advertising between the Victor Adding Machine Company and the famous Norden Bombsight accomplishes the one cri-terion that should be applied to or asked of any advertisement: Will it help to sell more product? (Whitehead, 1975, p. 35).

Victors prewar success and Buehlers adherence to the better-for-less mantra meant that Victor could now capitalize on its association with the NBS and not worry about introduc-ing its product. Instead, these ads were used to exploit the asso-ciation with the commonly known and revered NBS rather than focus on the features of Victor products. According to adver-tising analyst John Hobson (1975), the consumer finds it far easier to identify, and therefore to remember at the time of purchase, a product which has some single claim associated with it (p. 205). The exploitation of Victors production of the NBS was used to create both a conscious and subconscious association between Victor adding machines and the NBS. Hobson points out that association is something quite apart from the substance of the claims one makes for the produc[t] yet it is of very real significance in the selling situation (p. 206). Essentially, Victor ads were attempting to invoke the emotional link between the NBS and the subjective values inherent in the NBS myth, that is, precision, efficiency, and accuracy. More-over, Victor machines would automatically be associated with the war effort and the sacrifice that all Americans made during the conflict, because Victor was a contributor.

Once the NBS was officially revealed to the public in late November 1943, Buehler took the opportunity to release a full-page ad in Fortune Magazine that was simply a picture of a Norden Bombsight. In the middle of the page, covering a small portion of the sight, a diminutive caption aptly titled This is IT! was followed by a brief paragraph and Victors logo. The text explains how the once top-secret device had now been exposed because even if the enemy captured the blueprints, no technology other than this nations is currently capable of producing this delicate dealer of doom. The ad went on to mention that Victor had been the prime contractor for the Army since the outsetthe outset of what is not clear. According to the ad, the secret of the Norden Bombsight was less to do with the device itself and more to do with the incredible accuracy that fashioned its component parts. The portion of this ad that forms the strongest link between Victor and the Norden myth follows: That this same skill will return to building Victor Adding Machines . . . under the same roof that housed the Norden Bombsight . . . using the same precise know-how . . . is no secret at all (Fortune Magazine, 1943, p. 45). The stress placed on the word same is in the original text, and is clearly the message Buehler wants the reader to pick up on.

Regardless of Victors prewar status, it did not protect the company from outside competition so it was necessary for the company to make Victor machines stand out from the rest. The purpose of Buehlers advertising was to explain why Victor Adding Machines stood out from the rest. For example, a full-page Victor ad from another Fortune Magazine (1945) depicts an image of Japan under the shadow of a plane that is easily recognizable as an American Superfortress. The title caption reads, Putting the Rising Sun in the Shade . . . Six Months Sooner! (Fortune Magazine, 1945, p. 198). Together, the title caption and the image take up two thirds of the adver-tisement, the remaining one third consisting of text that refers to the teamwork involved in producing reliable and precise NBSs. The teamwork, which facilitated attacks on Japan 6 months earlier than initially expected, was fostered, accord-ing to the ad, by Victors NBS team.

The focus of this ad is not on Victor adding machines; instead, the ad describes a certain type of teamwork that Victor possesses, the teamwork that enabled Victor to be part of the attack on Japan for the Norden Bombsights that [they] produce[d] for the Army went on that mission to Japan. Only the bottom right-hand corner of the page, approximately one fifteenth of the entire page, is occupied by a small Victor logo segment, including Victors slogan Still Working with right answers. This formulaic style of ad was reproduced in several versions, each extolling a different Victor company virtue, including punctuality, precision manufacturing, and attention to detail. The images represented the symbols of the air war as they would have been recognized by the American public: the Norden sight itself, a B-17 cutaway graphic showing the combat positions of the crew, Japan being attacked by an



American bomber, and the forward fuselage of a B-29 Super-fortress named Tokyo Rose.

While the ads that Victor produced during this period were meant to sell Victor adding machines, they also inadvertently served to perpetuate the myth of the NBS. The language used to articulate the values to be associated with Victor adding machines is the same language associated with the NBS. The myth existed already, which is proven by Victors association with both the sight itself and the language familiar to the public at large. The images in the Victor ads are not of adding machines, but rather images that associate Norden and Victor more directly. The ads, therefore, confirm the publics collec-tive memory of the war and the role of the NBS, as well as perpetuate the collective image of what the Norden was to the war effort: a high-tech, American-made precision instrument built by teams of highly trained and efficient manufacturers in order to defeat the enemy quickly by accurate bombing. Through advertisements such as Victors, the ideas and con-cepts that created the Norden myth became more widely exposed to the public and served to supplement the collective memory that perpetuated the myth.

The Victor advertising campaign was not the only way that A. C. Buehler and Victor participated in the Norden myth promulgation. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, dropped the first Atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Gay was equipped with a Victor-made NBS, bombsight No. 4120 (Darby, 1968, p. 85). Buehler, the shrewd businessman that he was, capital-ized on this fact and forever fused the name of his company with the NBS. Buehler purchased the sight after the war in a Government surplus sale and on February 10, 1947 presented the device to the Smithsonian Institute (Bombsight Going to Smithsonian, 1947). The device remains to this day in display at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum in Washington, D.C., a testament to Victors contribution to the war effort and the Norden myth. The fact that the bomb, Little Boy, missed its target, the Aioi Bridge over the Ota River, by some 800 feet was hardly an issue considering the ordinance in question (Ross, 2003, p. 192).

This study of the Victor Adding Machine Company and the role it played in the wartime production of the NBS exposed both the companys direct influence on the Norden myth, and some of the several reasons why the NBS program ultimately failed. The very fact that at least 80% of Victors sights was judged to be inaccurate indicates that there was indeed a mythi-cal element to the Nordens legendary status. The mass pro-duction of such an intricate device in such a short period resulted in the ultimate failure of the Army bombsight program. More important, this investigation exposed many of the prob-lems associated with interservice rivalry, wartime munitions production, and civilian contractors.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received Travel funding from Graduate Student Society and the Department of History of the University of Victoria, British Columbia Canada.

Notes

1. Captain E. C. Koerper, Air Corps Resident Representative to Commanding General, Materiel Command, AAF Headquarters, Washington, D.C., May 19, 1944, Box 764 E-294, RG-18 452.26, National Archives and Records Administration [NARA].

2. This vague quote is taken from It All Adds Up. There is no refer-ence to what invasion forces are being referred to, or when the said invasion occurred.

3. Secretary of War to General Stratemeyer, November 11, 1942, Box 763, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

4. Ibid. 5. W. H. P. Blandy to Commanding General, Army Air Forces,

Box 763, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA. 6. Ibid. 7. E. J. King to General Marshall, November 29, 1942, Box 763

E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA. 8. Ibid. 9. Chief of Staff to Admiral E. J. King, December 4, 1942, Box 763

E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.10. Ibid.11. Ibid.12. Memorandum for Commanding General, Anti-Submarine

Command, May 17, 1943, Box 763, E-294, 452.26 RG-18, NARA; Col. Mervin E. Gross, Air Corps to ACAS, OC&R Division, Armament Branch, 10 May 1943, Box 763, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

13. Col. S. R. Brentnall, Chief of Air Corps Production Engineering Section to Commanding General, Materiel Command, Head-quarters AAF, Washington, D.C., February 11, 1943, Box 763, E-294 RG-18 452.56, NARA.

14. Col. O. R. Cook, Chief of Production Engineering Section to Commanding General, Materiel Command, Headquarters AAF, Washington, D.C., September 4, 1942, Box 763, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

15. Brig-Gen. B. W. Chidlaw, Assistant Chief of Staff to Chief Bureau of Ordinance, Navy Department, Washington, D.C., January 27, 1942, Box 763, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

16. Col. S. R. Brentnall, Chief of Air Corps Production Engineer-ing Section to Chief of Production Engineering Section, Materiel Center, Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, December 1, 1942, Box 763, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

17. Memorandum for Brig-Gen. B. W. Chidlaw, May 20, 1943, Box 763, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

18. Brig-Gen. F. O. Carroll, Chief of Engineering Division to Headquarters Materiel Command, Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, February 22, 1944, Box 764, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

19. Memorandum to Commanding General, 15th Bombardment Operational Training Wing, Army Air Base Gowen Field, Boise,


Tremblay 175

Idaho, October 13, 1943, Box 764, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

20. Col. J. F. Phillips, Air Corps Chief, Materiel Division to Maj-Gen. O. P. Echols, August 25, 1944, Box 27 E-22, Research & Development RG-18, NARA.

21. Victor was not the only company implicated in this letter. Vic-tors main competitor, Burroughs Adding Machine, and Rem-ington Rand were both named as companies producing faulty sights. See Capt. E. C. Koerper, Air Corps Resident Representa-tive to Commanding General, Materiel Command, Headquarters AAF, Washington, D.C., May 19, 1944, Box 764, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

22. Phillips to Echols, August 25, 1944, Box 27, E-22, Research & Development RG-18, NARA.

23. Col. R. C. Wilson, Chief of Development Engineering Branch to Brig-Gen. B. W. Chidlaw, April 15, 1944, Box 764, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

24. Maj-Gen. O. P. Echols, Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Materiel Maintenance & Distribution to Chief of Navy Bureau of Ordi-nance, June 19, 1944, Box 764, E-294, RG-18 452.26, NARA.

25. Maj. R. E. Millarak to Capt. Carlins office, August 17, 1944, Box 27 E-22, R&D RG-18, NARA.

26. Letter to Chief of Bureau of Ordinance from J. F. Phillips, Chief of Air Corps Materiel Division, August 9, 1944, Box 765 E-294, Central Decimal Files, RG-18 452.26I, NARA.

27. Col. J. F. Phillips Air Corps Chief, Materiel Division to Maj-Gen. O. P. Echols, August 25, 1944, Box 27 E-22, Research & Development RG-18, NARA.

References

Bombsight going to Smithsonian. (1947, February, 9). The New York Times.

Darby, E. (1968). It all adds up: The growth of the Victor Comp-tometer Corporation. Chicago, IL: Victor Comptometer Corporation.

Fortune Magazine. (1943).Fortune Magazine. (1945).Hixson, W. L. (2008). The myth of American diplomacy: National

identity and U.S. foreign policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Hobson, J. (1975). The techniques of modern advertising. In M. Barnes (Ed.), The three faces of advertising. London, England: The Advertising Association.

MacFarland, S. L. (1995). Americas pursuit of precision bombing, 1910-1945. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Norden Bombsight improved. (1943, October 15). The New York Times.

Ross, S. H. (2003). Strategic bombing by the United States in World War II: The myths and the facts. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Smith, M. L. (1994). Recourse of Empire: Landscapes of progress in technological America. In M. R. Smith & L. Marx (Eds.), Does technology drive history? The dilemma of technological deter-minism (pp. 37-52). Cambridge: MIT Press.

Tremblay, M. (2009). Deconstructing the myth of the Norden Bomb-sight (Masters thesis). University of Victoria, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.

Whitehead, F. (1975). Advertising. In M. Barnes (Ed.), The three faces of advertising. London, England: The Advertising Association.

Bio

Michael Tremblay is currently a PhD candidate of Military History at the University of Victoria. Tremblay studies the perception of precision weapons and the implications of these perceptions on Western public discourse and foreign policy.


168.full

Documents

Transcript of 168.full