The World War 2 is a type of a conflict that involved military and political power and territory that caused the loss of lives of many people across the world. During the conflict for dominance, both parties involved in the war were forced to create new advanced technologies that would enable them to defeat, outgun, and outplay their enemies. The World War 2 changed everything that include development of new technologies for the sake of the war. As a result, the period during the World War 2 witnessed an extremely immense innovations some of which are even used in the modern world. The paper provides a discussion of the particular innovations that occurred during the World War 2 and the geographic considerations that were required for planners and politicians in terms of strategy and tactics.
The first innovations of the Jerrycan that was invented by the Germans. Known as the Wehrmachtskanister by the Germans, it was a strong container that was designed to carry fuel during the war. The invention of the Jerrycan was as a result of the request made by Adolf Hitler, the German dictator during World War 2 to help in carrying fuel by hand. The Allies reversed the clever design of the Jerrycan and embraced its use to replace the canisters that were easily prone to puncture. The invention of the Jerrycan was significant for a number of reasons that include having three hand handles for one or two to carry easily. In addition, the two handles enabled it to be handed along a human chain during the process of putting fire out as a bucket containing water to the full. When the Jerrycan was empty, the three handles implies that they two jerrycans can be positioned together and only an individual was able to use their two hands to carry two jerrycans in each hand. The Jerrycan had a cross design on its sides that aided in strengthening the cans while at the same time permitting the contents inside the cans to expand. Air pockets were also available beneath the handles.
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The second innovations is the use of pressurized cabins. High altitude flying puts aircraft occupants at danger of hypoxia which is a condition of experiencing poor levels of oxygen in the blood, decompression sickness, altitude sickness, and a condition called barotrauma which is caused by differences in pressure. In spite of the risks, the World War 2 bombers only had and used oxygen masks that constrained movement and often susceptible to failure. Before the introduction of the B-29 Superfortress in 1944, only aircrafts for experiments had been manufactures earlier containing pressurized cabins. Because of this aircraft, the first cabin pressure system was developed by the Americans where the nose and the sections of the cockpit were connected to the aft using a long tunnel that was wholly pressurized. But, the sections containing the bombs were still unpressurized. Regardless of that, the advancement in aircraft pressurized system implied that the crew could manage to move along with the aircraft comfortably. After the war came to an end, the knowledge and ideas gathered from the pressurized cabins were employed to the design of commercial passenger planes that enable people to fly at high altitude levels comfortably.
The third innovation is the Radio Navigation and Landing system. During the start of the World War 2, the introduction of the airplanes was a new concept used during the war. The challenge during the War was how to get the planes land safely from a target while enhancing accuracy. In the beginning of the War, navigation systems were not available resulting in several bomber crews failing to hit their targets. The situation became difficult by the decision of the Bomber Command to fly during the night only believing that it was safer more than daytime. Many navigation systems were developed to assist the crews for accurate bombing. Some of the navigational systems used were the Gee-H and Oboe. Later, GEE was developed to accommodate the use in many planes.
The fourth innovation is the Blind Approach Beacon Systems (BABS) developed by the British to help airplanes land safely. This was the first radar system that was developed. The system makes use of a transponder which is located in a Hillman van located to the end of the runway. Aircraft used the Rebecca unit to interrogate the transponder. The BABS would sent back a transmission of dots to the BABSA on a single section of the runway and some other dashes to the other section. The reception strength of both the signals in both sides of the runway were used by the aircraft to determine its relative position so as the pilot could align the airplane safely.
The fifth innovation is the use of penicillin. During the war, the use of the antibiotic gained much popularity. The potential of penicillin was showed by Howard Florey with a team of researchers in 1939. The United States War Production Board in 1943 developed a plan to distribute penicillin massively to Allied forces that were fighting in Europe. In 1944, more than 2 million doses of penicillin had been produced by the US. The medicine was recognized for saving approximately 15 percent of war causalities.
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- War History Online (2012). Top 10 Inventions Discovered During WW II. Retrieved 17 November 2014 from http://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured-article/top-10-inventions-discovered-during-wwii.html
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