My dedication to the Togglier, Togglier Wings!

[AZPhil]

Hello All,
The Togglier was a senior NCO in the Army Air Force who performed the duties of a Bombardier on large scale bombing missions.
During these missions a Bombardier would fly in the lead Bomber in the formation. All the other Bombers would have a Togglier sitting in the Bombardiers seat. His job was to ensure the bombs were armed and he would hit the toggle switch to drop the bombs when the lead Bomber dropped his flares. That signaled all others in the formation to drop their Bomb loads.
My Uncle flew in the Togglier position 3 times in his 24 missions flown with the 8th AF 384th BG.
Now there are Wings for Pilots, Navigators, Bombardiers and even Gunner's.
But there were no official wings given to those who flew as the Togglier.

I have only seen one of these in an advanced collectors collection.
He said he had only seen a few of these in his time collecting and never paid much attention to them.
Until he found one that was gifted to a Vet during a reunion.

I found that set of wings fascinating and knew I needed one to Honor my Uncle's Toggle Time.

So I purchased a reproduction Observers wings and drilled/ Filed out the center of the "O" and found the correct type of toggle switch to use.

Here is the one I saw.

Here is the ones I made.
First had to remove the center of the "O"



Then had to cut and trim the toggle section off the switch and added it to the wings.

This is my first attempt and will try to see if I can solder the back of the switch to the wings to thin them up a bit. Right now it has a retaining nut on the back holding it in place.

Click To Enlarge.

Attachment 1371665


Semper Fi
Phil

[Rakkasan187]

Phil,

That is remarkable craftsmanship... Your Uncle would be very proud...

Great job

Smitty

[Ullergaard]

Great work Phil!
Looks super

Best regards,
Lt. Col
Ullergaard

[CBH]

Nice work Phil, your Uncle would be Proud.

[MAP]

Awesome!!!

[Aldo]

That is amazing ! I've never seen a togglier wing before. Is the toggle supposed to be fixed or actually work ?

[AZPhil]

Thank you Gent's,

The wing I posted above was the first one I had ever seen. I knew as soon as I saw it ,I wanted one and asked the collector who posted them if he was interested in selling, He said not at this time. They were a unofficial custom novelty made to honor the few that had that privilege.

The Toggle works, It just doesn't have the spring and just flops up and down.

Here is a close up of the back of the switch. You can see the shaft is pinned to the housing and is free floating.


You can see I am using a locking nut on the back and I want to solder the switch to the wing's. This would also thin them up a bit. The back of the switch protrudes just a bit to far out the back.

I bought another one to work with. To see if the heat from the soldering will discolor the finish on the front side these.


I wasn't sure what type of metal these were made of, I thought maybe Zinc, But when I started drilling the center of the O out I saw my shavings were brass. So that should make it easy to solder , But I'm worried about the finish. I'm going to Heatsink the front somehow and give it a try.

Semper Fi
Phil

[reneblacky]

Never heard of the flight position Togglier cheers Phil, they'd still have to be qualified Bombardier yes?

[AZPhil]

they'd still have to be qualified Bombardier yes?

No. They were not using the Norden Bomb site. All they had to do was arm the bomb's before they were to be released and watch for the lead Bomber to drop his Bomb's/Flares and they would hit the Bombs away Toggle switch. This was used during carpet bombing missions, where accuracy was not the intension, Just mass destruction of the target area.

They were Armament specialist who were trained for that position.


Here is a copy of the Sortie report for one of my Uncle's Togglier missions.

384th BG Sortie Report: Sortie 1266

As you can see from the crew assignment list , It was an official position.



Semper Fi
Phil

[AZPhil]

I just wanted to add that This mission is late Dec,43' and they were not having the best track record and the 8th AF had lost 77 B-17's that October 14th mission and were suffering some heavy losses., With the losses went trained Bombardier's.
The Togglier allowed putting 1 Trained Bombardier out of 20 Bombers on a mission.

It was a Number's Game at the HQ's

Semper Fi
Phil