Will the whistling bomb hit me?

The German newspaper 'Der Adler' carried the following article in September 1942:

"One question that we are often hear posed is: If I can hear a bomb whistling, does that mean it is going to hit me? Front-line soldiers have found that when they hear bullets whistle, the bullets do not hit them because by that time they have already flown past. Often people take this fact and try to apply it to aerial bombs, saying that you do not have to be afraid of a bomb you hear whistle or scream, because it will not hit where you are. The old soldiers rule that a whistling bullet does not harm you is true; but the same does not apply to an aerial bomb.

It should be kept in mind that infantry projectiles, and also flat-trajectory shells fired from cannon (e.g. from anti-tank guns) travel faster than the speed of sound. Thus they outrun the gun report and drag their whistle along behind them, so to speak, and consequently no report or whistling sound precedes them.

The sounds come in the reverse order from the usual slow-flying high-angle artillery fire. If you are fired on, the shell impact comes first, then comes the screaming of the missile, and finally the firing report. The aerial bomb is not comparable to a flat projectile; it falls much more slowly at the start. It takes over 10 seconds for it to fall a distance of 1,600ft, and 25.5 seconds to fall 9,750ft; the bomb will not reach the speed of sound (1,085ft per second) until it has fallen a distance of approximately 19,500ft. Once the bomb has reached a certain fall velocity, it begins to whistle (The sounds we hear are piercing due to its aerodynamically imperfect shape). As long as the bomb is falling slower than sound, the whistling noise will precede it, and and so is audible at the target point before the bomb itself impacts.

However, it is completely wrong to assume that the duration of a bomb whistle near the target coincides exactly with the time the bomb is falling, because the bomb is always chasing after the sound wave which it approaches at ever increasing speed. No sound follows after the bomb - unlike the case of the projectile that travels faster than the speed of sound".


Hope this makes sense

 

Makes sense to me, but may I also add that I read a while back that the Allies began attaching whistles to some bombs for the psychological effect after their experiences of the Stuka with it's siren under the belly.

 

Hi Peter,

I am a writer doing research for a historical novel on WW2. Is there any way you can post a link to that article from Der Adler about the whistling bombs? Or tell me how I can find it? I've found several September issues of the magazine, but wasn't able to find that particular article. Thanks so much!

 

Well they fitted whistles to the stuff dropped by the Stukas to give every one the willies. Then there was the multi barrelled mortar known as the moaning Minnnie and they used to scream through the air, but due to the arc of the trajectory the sound arrived long before the bomb.
Mind you as kids we found the louder the whistle of the bomb that had been dropped the closer it was going to hit. You would always hear the bombs coming down in the Blitz.

 

Hi Peter,

I am a writer doing research for a historical novel on WW2. Is there any way you can post a link to that article from Der Adler about the whistling bombs? Or tell me how I can find it? I've found several September issues of the magazine, but wasn't able to find that particular article. Thanks so much!


Hello and welcome to the forum.

As you will see my post on this subject was some years ago now, and I'm not sure where it came from but I have a feeling it was an extract taken from 'The Air War 1939 - 1945' - Janusz Piekalkiewicz which quoted Der Adler. If I can find it again I'll let you know.

 

The sounds come in the reverse order from the usual slow-flying high-angle artillery fire. If you are fired on, the shell impact comes first, then comes the screaming of the missile, and finally the firing report.


This is the major difference from WW1 Artillery Bararges
and the cause of the extreme fear and devastation to the Axis forces when confronted with the then new High Velocity Allied concentrated artillery fire on the battlefields of WW2.
Rob

 

Thanks Peter. I appreciate it. I think I'll find a lot of useful and really interesting information on this forum, I'm glad I found it!

 

Will the whistling bomb hit me?
The German newspaper 'Der Adler' carried the following article in September 1942:

The above article does indeed come from the book 'The Air War 1939 - 1945' by Janusz Piekalkiewicz (page 207) The book relies throughout on press releases of the day. No other link is given. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Regards
Peter

 

Thanks Peter! You were actually a lot of help! I found the book on Amazon, and I'm sure it will have a lot of useful information. Thanks again.