Pic of the Day

The RB-47’s three electronic warfare officers (in 1955) spent up to 14 hours
at a time in the windowless, modified bomb bay, surrounded by electronics.

The US Military engaged in all kinds of bizarre intelligence gathering operations during the Cold War, some of which are just now coming to light. I don't even want to think about what the Russians were doing. The RB-47 was the reconnaissance version of the B-47 bomber. The photograph is from a story on the Smithsonian Air & Space site. It reminds me of a story a former military guy told me about his time stationed in Germany. Everyday he and a bunch of his fellows would spend all day in a room twirling the tuning dial on a radio receiver listening for any kind of signal coming out of the Soviet Union. The job was tedious in the extreme because you hardly ever picked up anything, and if you did it was pretty much an incomprehensible series of buzzes and clicks. They were pretty much left to themselves, but every so often an officer would poke his head and then, by god, you better be turning that dial. Being chronically short on sleep, which seems to be a common affliction in the military, he got to the point where he could sleep with one finger on the dial and as soon as the door opened he would wake up and resume turning that dial.

Via Posthip Scott