The Little World

And I, at 7, agreed with them.

This was in 1955 – just after the suspension of the Korean War, and just at the start of the Cold War – at least the start in our local area. In truth, it had been going on since 1945 but the locals did not realise it.

The toy was a gift for Christmas one year. It worked well, and was quite a simple idea.

You cocked the leaf spring under the superstructure of the battleship and then assembled the parts above it. The little zinc-alloy bomb was clipped into the underside of the airplane and you cruised over the ship until you reckoned it was time to push the button and drop it. If you hit the trigger piece at the top of the ship it flew apart.

Note that the bomb was listed as an atom bomb, and the airplane as a B-29. A reasonable depiction of it in silver plastic, and if you missed the connection there was the lettering on the top.

The battleship in this instance seems to have Japanese markings but the one I owned was just a plain grey. It was a generic battleship but held more to the MISSOURI than the YAMATO. I’ve no idea where the set was made, but I’m guessing the USA.

It was not as easy to do as one might think, particularly when someone pointed out that the bomber had to be moving fast and high. Eventually you got good at it and then varied the skill with toss-bombing or dive-bombing.

In retrospect I think it would have been more PC if the plane was a Douglas SBD Dauntless and the ship was a Japanese aircraft carrier or if a building had been substituted for the ship. I’d have opted for the replica of the Kremlin at the time, but I have mellowed since.