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In March 1945 the team returned to Britain and the
Richards Report was written for the government.
Cooke-Yarborough was then moved to the Journeys End Project. A
Brigadier Jefferies had devised an idea for a bomb which could blow large
enough holes in the ship for the ship to sink, this used plastic explosives.
However the bomb needed a form of guidance so that it hit the most vulnerable
part of the ship, and bombing alone was not accurate enough. The project
was given to Taylor, who had a team, including Cooke-Yarborough.
The design that the team came up with was ingenious
as it used one of the major problems, the rotation of the bomb, to their
advantage. The bomb was equipped with a television camera. This had to
be as cheap as possible and so used parts such as plastic camera lenses.
Behind this lens were two slits, one fixed and one moving. This gave the
the camera a linear scan on to a photocell. As the bomb fell the rotation
of the bomb transmitted a radial image, rather than a linear one, to the
CRT display in the bomber. This image was synchronised to the linear scan
rate and the rotation rate so that the image on the CRT
display appeared not to move.
The control mechanism was as equally unique in its
design. the bomb had a small charge in it which would offset the bomb
by a know angle. This known angle was plotted on the CRT display as a
target circle. Once the target was within this circle it was known that
the use of the charge would cause the correct angular correction so that
the bomb would hit the target. The CRT operator would close a switch which
would then send a radio signal back to the bomb firing the charge.
Before the trials of this device were finished the
war ended and so, as with many of the projects that the TRE had underway,
it was suspended.
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