H2S and the navigator

Abstract

At the beginning of the Second World War, accurate navigation at night over enemy territory was only possible on moonlit nights. On other nights, when flying through and over cloud and bad visibility, navigation was much more of a hit and miss affair, and a case of hoping that the bombs had been dropped on an enemy target. However, with the arrival of H2S, the navigator's job was made much easier, and he could then obtain a much more accurate position, in conjunction with conventional dead-reckoning navigation techniques. The paper describes the impact that H2S had on navigation on night sorties over enemy territory.