Crosley's Secret War Effort
Ed Jennings
Three critical secret projects were pivotal for the Allied
victory in WW2. Two of these were the development of the atomic
bomb and radar. The third was the development of the proximity or
VT (Variable Time) fuze.
Prior to the war two types of fuzes were used: the timed fuze was
set to explode at a predetermined time after firing and the
contact fuze, used in smaller caliber weapons, exploded on contact
with an object. Neither was effective against the highly
maneuverable airplanes that had been developed since the end of
the First World War. The British began the development of a
projectile which would automatically detonate in close proximity
to the target in 1939 and the American effort began in early 1940.
The US Navy was particularly concerned with the vulnerability of
surface ships to aircraft attack. It was clear that the problem of
fleet protection demanded a drastically more effective means of
destroying enemy air power than either the timed or contact fuze
provided.
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Section T of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns
Hopkins University, under the direction of Dr. Merle A.
Tuve, was assigned the task of developing and overseeing
the production of a proximity type of fuze for the
Navy's 5" guns which were their primary long-range
anti-aircraft weapon. The theory was simplicity itself:
the fuze would contain a miniature radio
transmitter-receiver which would send out a signal. When
the signal reflected back from the target reached a
certain frequency, caused by the proximity of the
target, a circuit in the fuze closed firing a small
charge in the base of the fuze that detonate the
projectile.
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The theory may have been simple, but the problems encountered in
all steps of development and after the fuze was released for use
by the fleet were formidable. Consider, that the components in the
fuze, including tiny glass vacuum tubes, had to withstand the
shock of being fired from a 5" gun. This set back force of 20,000
g's is instantly generated by accelerating the projectile to a
2,800 foot per second muzzle velocity. In addition, the shell's
brief trip through the gun's rifling grooves starts it spinning at
25,000 revolutions per minute. Safety features had to be built in
to protect the men handling the ammunition in transit and aboard
ship. Additional safety features were necessary to prevent the
shell from exploding too soon after firing which would endanger
the gun crews and nearby ships. A self-destruct feature was also
necessary to prevent dud fuzes from falling into the hands of the
enemy. Moisture was an ongoing problem that had to be dealt with
and there were many other problems that are too numerous to
mention here.
The Crosley Corporation was one of five companies that assembled
proximity fuzes. A total of eighty-seven different firms using one
hundred ten factories were engaged in some phase of production
work. Crosley's involvement began in late October 1941 when they
were contacted by the Bureau of Ordnance and told that they would
be contacted later that month concerning a "top secret, top
priority" project. Lewis M. Clement, Crosley's vice-president in
charge of Engineering, recalled that Crosley had been selected
because they had the required background in electrical and
mechanical engineering and in mass production. The letter of
intent from the Navy came in late November 1941 and a contract for
500 fuzes in December. The first accepted fuzes came from the
production line in September 1942. On January 5,1943 Lt. "Red"
Cochrane, commanding the aft 5" battery on the light cruiser
Helena, shot down a Japanese Val dive-bomber with the second of
three salvos of VT-fuzed shells, near Guadalcanal. The fuzes were
manufactured by the Crosley Corporation and this was the first
kill of enemy aircraft.
Cruiser USS Helena CL-50
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Although primarily a supplier to the Navy for use in
the Pacific and the Mediterranean theaters, Crosley
fuzes were used with great success by the British
against the V-1 buzz bomb, by the U.S. Army on the
European continent in the defense of Antwerp against V-1
attacks and in the Battle of the Bulge.
In a post war interview, Lewis Crosley said that fuze
production reached sixteen thousand five hundred units
per day. The Crosley Corporation employed ten thousand
people and worked around the clock, seven days a week.
Mr. Crosley said, "We enlarged until . . . we were the
largest employer and produced more than anybody in
Cincinnati, including any of the other big companies
located in Cincinnati at that time. We had some very,
very secret and wonderful products that we produced in
volume for the Armed Forces and we got a lot of credit
for doing it." Bureau of Ordnance figures show that
Crosley produced 5,205,913, or 24%, of the slightly more
than twenty-two million proximity fuzes manufactured
during the war.
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The importance of the proximity fuze to the successful outcome of
the Second World War is best stated by those who witnessed it's
effectiveness.
James V. Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy said, "The proximity
fuze has helped blaze the trail to Japan. Without the protection
this ingenious device has given the surface ships of the Fleet,
our westward push could not have been so swift and the cost in men
and ships would have been immeasurably greater."
Prime Minister, Winston S. Churchill was quoted with "These
so-called proximity fuzes, made in the United States.., proved
potent against the small unmanned aircraft (V-1) with which we
were assailed in 1944."
And Commanding General of the Third Army, George S. Patton said,
"The funny fuze won the Battle of the Bulge for us. I think that
when all armies get this shell we will have to devise some new
method of warfare."
