Incendiary bomb adapter

The Ordnance Department began development of the first American adapter. The CWS inherited the item when it accepted responsibility for incendiary bombs. The device was made up of two end plates, two longitudinal bars, and four steel straps, and it held together thirty-four bombs. The adapter was designated as Model M5, the entire cluster of bombs as the AN-M6. A larger adapter, holding 128 bombs, was developed shortly afterward. This adapter was standardized as the M6, the cluster as the AN-M7. 

CWTC Item 924, Standardization of Adapter, Aimable Cluster, MlO (500-lb size), 21 Jan 44. (2) Seth Q. Kline, Development of Aimable Cluster E4, 500-lb, for Incendiary Bombs AN-M50. TDMR 724 1 Sep 43. (3) CWTC Item 1019, Standardization of Cluster, Aimable, Incendiary Bomb, AN-M17A1, 5 May 44. (4) TB CW 11, Aimable Cluster, AN-M17A1, 27 Jun 44. 

Nellie Anson, Clusters and Adapters for Chemical and Incendiary Bombs. ETF 420-21, 1 Dec 47. 

This plant at Edgewood turned out the AN-M54 incendiary bombs which were used in Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle s raid on Japan, 18 Apr 42. See (1) Ltr, Brig Gen T. H. Marshall to Hist Off, 24 Jan 54. Marshall at that time was a captain working on the incendiary bomb program at Edgewood. (2) Seth Q. Kline, Robert E. Patchel, and Charles T. Mitchell, Development of Quick-Opening Cluster Adapters M4, Ms, M4 M7, and M8 for Incendiary Bombs. TDMR 1015, 16 Apr 45. 

For the greater number of CWS items, boxes of one sort or another were devised and specified. In some cases the specifications were changed over and over again in the attempt to attain the best possible protection in the face of a variety of hazards. The 500-pound aimable cluster, Ml9, an adapter holding thirty-eight M69 incendiary bombs, was one such ex-... 

The M47 bombs were toggled together, six to a oo-pound bomb station by the T19 cluster adapter, developed by the Chemical Section of the XXI Bomber Command. Twentieth AF Special Rpt on Incendiary Attacks, p. 6. 

Four-pound magnesium bombs and other small incendiaries were not dropped individually, but in clusters which were held together by devices called adapters. 

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