Description
Book SynopsisIn the weeks after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. militarygunners on naval ships and in antiaircraft unitsrealized it had a problem: We couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. It urgently needed a gunsight that was easy to use and quick to aim. Enter Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid and self-taught expert in polarizing technology, who very swiftly came up with the idea for the optical ring sight (ORS), in which a set of concentric circles glowedlike rings of firefor the gunner.
Rings of Fire tells the gripping story of the unique cast of characters whose diverse talents transformed insight into gunsight. Irascible desert rat, mineral dealer, and cactus grower John Hilton mined the initial lodes of calciteessential for the sight, historically in very short supplyin California; General George Patton wanted to take Hilton to North Africa with him, but mining calcite was deemed more important. A crew of misfitsdraft dodgers, criminals, a cross-section of the underbelly of Americaunder a Mar
