Dogs of War

 Colonel Norman Vaughan was a famed Antarctic explorer and musher. He participated in the Iditarod race 13 times and also competed in the 1932 Olympics dog sled racing event. He was part of Admiral Byrd’s team to explore the Antarctic.

Colonel Vaughan played an important role during WWII. He had numerous assignments in Greenland where he assisted in recovery and search and rescue missions. He also helped train men and 425 dogs to complete various rescue missions of downed pilots. One mission was to recover a Norden bombsight.

By 1943, the effort to utilize dogs for war purposes was shifted to command of Colonel Vaughan, North Atlantic Wing, Air Transport Command, Army Air Corp. He trained and equipped the search-and-rescue sled dog units to retrieve pilots and cargo from crashed aircraft. By the end of the war, at least 100 downed pilots were recovered. 

He devised a plan to parachute sled dogs to the Battle of the Bulge to rescue injured allied soldiers stranded in the snow. He convinced George Patton to approve the plan. He was camping at Le Bourget airfield in Paris with 17 men and 209 dogs when the mission was canceled due to logistical delays and weather changes.

Vaughan returned to military service during the war in Korea. Assigned to the psychological warfare division at the Pentagon, he wrote pamphlets that were dropped behind enemy lines urging North Korean soldiers to surrender.

Lee Reasor helped deliver the sled dogs to the Battle of the Bulge and dropped surrender leaflets over North Korea.

 

 Norman Vaughan: Musher and Antarctic explorer

Norden Bombsight

The Norden bombsight combined optics, a mechanical computer, and an autopilot for the first time to not merely identify a target but fly the airplane to it. The bombsight directly measured the aircraft's ground speed and direction, which older types could only estimate with lengthy manual procedures. The Norden further improved on older designs by using an analog computer that continuously recalculated the bomb's impact point based on changing flight conditions, and an autopilot that reacted quickly and accurately to changes in the wind or other effects.