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In 1940, Polaroid and Edwin Land were best known for polarized film, used most famously in sunglasses. When World War II started, Land thought up another use for polarized light, one he hoped would yield a war-winning bombsight.
Rings of Fire: How an Unlikely Team of Scientists, Ex-Cons, Women, and Native Americans Helped Win World War II, by Larry J. Hughes, tells the story of the Optical Ring Sight, a weapon with the potential to win the war — that did not.
Land’s bombsight used the unique light-polarizing properties of calcite. It created concentric brightly-colored circles. The military realized it was a better gunsight than bombsight. Centering targets within the rings aimed the gun perfectly. It did not require crosshairs or for the observer to be optically aligned to the sight. Simple to use, guns equipped with ORS sights yielded double the hits of identical guns with iron sights.
Both the Army and Navy were enthusiastic. The US Army ordered tens of thousands for bazooka sights. The Navy placed large orders for antiaircraft guns. Both wanted it for flexible aircraft guns.
Hughes tells what happened next. The sight required large quantities of calcite. The mineral had a low demand. Nicol prisms used scarce, optically-perfect calcite. Land’s sights used cheap sub-optical calcite, but calcite was not mined industrially. A calcite-mining industry had to be built at the remote locations where calcite was found.
Hughes describes how mining developed. Efforts were handicapped because calcite was not a strategic material and secrecy prevented reclassification. The mines were set up using leftover resources. Miners and processing workers were drawn from those unable to find work elsewhere: desert rats, ex-convicts, Native Americans, and women.
Landowners confusing expensive optical calcite with the cheap sub-optical calcite Polaroid wanted, started royalty fights that created delays. Production issues had to be solved. Ultimately the bugs were worked out and full production started just in time for radar-guided gunnery to eliminate the need for the ORS as a gunsight.
The ORS made a minor comeback 20 years later, as the camera sights used in the Gemini and Apollo programs for space photography. The iconic Blue Marble and Earthrise Over the Moon photos were created using cameras fitted with ORS sights.
Rings of Fire is a fascinating story. It examines the promise and limitations of technology. It presents an array of eccentric characters, and illustrates the process required to take an innovation from concept to production.
“Rings of Fire: How an Unlikely Team of Scientists, Ex-Cons, Women, and Native Americans Helped Win World War II,” by Larry J. Hughes, Stackpole Books, 2024, 600 pages, $34.95 (Hardcover), $33.00 (E-book)
This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.
Discussion (5)
CHARTER MEMBER
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These sorts of problems popped up a few times in my career. And then there are the occasions where the design or white paper you just created is no longer accessible to you because completing the task ended your need to know. I am definitely part of this book's target audience.
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Why would one think that a better bomb sight would have won the war? Particularly as our side won the war anyway, though the Soviets did most of the work.
I think that we had improved bomb sights, and other superior methods of targeting, in the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraq wars. We didn't win any of those.
CONTRIBUTOR
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Um . . Land wanted to use it as a bomb sight. The military wanted to use it as a gunsight for antiaircraft artillery and aircraft flexible guns. Use of it doubled the number of hits obtained. That yields a significant increase in aircraft shot down. It was also being used for bazookas which were a one-shot weapon. Accuracy was literally a matter of life and death for bazooka crews.
All of this is in the review.
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And that's why Russia owns and occupies Japan, North Africa, and Italy to this day.
CHARTER MEMBER
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He didn't read all the way through.
Jerry, just because an inventor invents something for one purpose doesn't mean a better purpose doesn't present itself. Viagra was meant to be a treatment for hypertension and angina. It wasn't very good at that. It wasn't until it went into clinical trials that a side effect – ahem – became apparent. Pla-Doh was meant to be wallpaper cleaner. Silly Putty was a failed effort at a new formulation for synthetic rubber needed for World War II. The adhesive for Post-It Notes wasn't strong enough for aircraft manufacture. Bubblewrap was intended to provide the world with textured wallpaper. Since wine was taxed by volume, enterprising vintners tried boiling off some the water content and came up with brandy. The cigars came about 600 years later.