The collision of ideas.

This story was cut from my forthcoming book, STORY BUSINESS, for length. But it captures a core theme—how stories collide and create new ideas. -Gavin

Stories are pathways for the collision of ideas.

One such collision is the story of bunker-buster bombs. A story where it’s difficult to separate the chicken and the egg.

The Battle of the Atlantic, July 1942.  

Convoy PQ-17 set out from Iceland, bound for Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union. Wolf packs struck.

With only six destroyers for cover, the convoy scattered under relentless attack from U-boats, losing twenty-two of its original thirty-six merchant ships. Those losses were the heaviest casualties of the Battle of the Atlantic, a war of supply and attrition between Allied and Axis forces. 

Each side, looking for the smallest advantage, invented new technology and tactics.

Unable to locate the U-boats at sea, the Royal Air Force tried to eliminate their threat by bombing German bases. But the docks were an impenetrable haven—U-boats sheltered in 14-foot-thick concrete pens. 

Wolf packs continued to maul Atlantic convoys.

Inside that conflict is a story about ideas.

A lean, dark-haired man, Royal Navy Captain Edward Terrell worked at the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development. A practicing barrister, Terrell joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve at the outbreak of war. He was seconded to the Admiralty Research Laboratory, where he focused on anti-submarine warfare.  Terrell was part of a group that developed the “Hedgehog,” a deck-mounted launcher that fired twenty-four small, contact-fused bombs in a circular pattern ahead of an attacking ship. Unlike depth charges, which exploded at preset depths, Hedgehog rounds detonated only on contact, allowing sonar contact to be maintained. A breakthrough.

Following that success, Terrell was a key player in the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development. As part of this group, colloquially known as the “Department of Wheezers and Dodgers,” Terrell was tasked by the Admiralty to dream up novel weapons that might tip the war.

One evening in 1943, Terrell went to the movies.

The feature was Victory Through Air Power, Walt Disney’s animated documentary, made to sell the Allies on the practical uses of long-range strategic bombing. In one scene, a cartoon rocket-powered bomb punched through the roof of a German submarine pen.

Victory Through Air Power - Animated History Of Aviation (1942)

This was the story that created a spark.  

Terrell’s team drew on Barnes-Wallis’s “earthquake” bombs—the Tallboy and Grand Slam. Dropped from altitude, their mass and delayed fuses allowed them to penetrate deep before detonating, collapsing structures with seismic shockwaves. The Disney bomb was similar, but with a rocket.

The Wheezers and Dodgers began developing a solid-fuel rocket-assisted, armor-nosed bomb. Its official designation: the 4,500-pound Concrete Piercing/Rocket-Assisted Bomb, MOD catalog number 670.

Bureaucracy bogged it down. The British wanted the weapon, but no aircraft in the RAF could carry it. Only American B-17 “Flying Fortresses” and B-29 “Superfortresses” could lift the load.

Finally, in 1945, the so-called “Disney Bombs” entered service. Dropped by the U.S. 8th Air Force, they struck pens at IJmuiden, paving the way for a later attack on the Valentin submarine pens in Bremen.

A cartoon bomb became a real one.

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Gavin.

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There’s a book!

Story Business. How stories and ideas make the world go round ...

Now available for pre-order. More here.

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Shout out.

The incomparable Eugene Yoon does many of the illustrations for this newsletter. She is amazing; Alexandra McMahon assists her from time to time. And thank you, Giovanni Olla, for the legwork, edits, and revisions.

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