On page 50 of Atkinson's Guns at Last Light, he mentions a US light bomber fitted with 200 million candle power lights in the bomb bay. He says it was specifically used for photo recon to locate Panzers moving towards Cotentin as a D Day counter attack. What he doesn't mention is the model of the particular aircraft which was probably a Mitchell or B26? Anyone know where I can find photos and data on what exact light bomber was used? I'm considering building a model of it. Thank You
No2 Group RAF interdicted the roads leading to Normandy at night with Mosquitos. I suspect these operated in conjunction with Mitchells or Bostons dropping parachute flares. IX US Air Force may have had a similar operation.
Rick has a website with his contact information http://liberationtrilogy.com/contact/ If not too busy he might be able to shed some light. Excuse the pun.
In 1941 the British experimented with the fighter "Havoc" version of the A20 fitted with a search light to illuminate bombers so it was possible to fit a searchlight into a bomber. However, I do not think this was the solution used for nmight time battlefield interdiction. BTW I can't find any mention in the German accounts of there being serious problem with air attack at night. The history of 12 SS and Panzer Lehr and Mitcham's publication based ion Eberbach's papers and the various FMS intervioews with commanders from 1 & II SS Corps all claim that mention that they could move at night and that is when resupply took place. So the big light in the sky dioes not seem to have worked very well.
From my understanding this is about nighttime photo reconnaissance - identifying the numbers of german armor being moved into the combat zone - and has nothing to do with any attempt at nighttime ground attack.
It seems to me that If you were close enough to the ground to use a search light, you'd be within range of light AA guns. However, if the light jagmkx was referring to was the Leigh Light, it was 22 million candle power, not 200 million. By the way, I too have never read any reference to this method in German or Allied accounts. The German's problem was that there was too much daylight! June was high summer in high latitudes with veryfew night-time hours.
The Leigh Light used a spreading lens, which is the candle power figure you are quoting. Without the lens, it was around 50 million for the turret Leigh, and 90 million for the nacelle Leigh.
Actually, it appears to be that it could be as high as 300 million candlepower. https://rocketguy1010.jimdo.com/155th-photo-recon-squadron/ If nor more...Harold Edgerton designed 6 different flash units for night aircraft reconnaissance(D-1 through D-6). http://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2000/edgerton/EdgertonWW2.pdf