| Posso allegarti questa ricerca in Inglese di Giuseppe Finizio, ma di fotografie purtroppo non se ne parla.
BIMAR
The little known history of Italian 10x80 binoculars for Kriegsmarine
by
Giuseppe Finizio
Ducati history up to WW II
On 4 July 1926,the three brothers Bruno, Antonio e Marcello Cavalieri Ducati founded in Bologna , northern Italy, the Società Scientifica Radiobrevetti Ducati (SSRD). The first product was a condenser for radio-receivers named “Manens”. In 1928 started the production of variable condensers and in 1932 followed the electrolytic condensers. All these products were based on Adriano Cavalieri Ducati’s patents,who was the manager of Research Division, while his brother Marcello was the Production Manager and Bruno was the General manager (sale,advertisement,management and finance).In 1935 SSR Ducati transferred to Borgo Panigale,a village west of Bologna,in a very modern factory designed with the most advanced organization and work principles.On 16th July it was declared “auxiliary factory” to the war effort. In fact the growth of the Ducati workforce was explosive : 400 in 1934, 1.500 in 1938, 7.000 in 1940, when Italy entered W.W.2, and reached the peak of 11.000 in 1943. In 1939 the Ducati brothers decided to create an Optical Dept to produce the field phototelegraphic devices named Faini-Triulzi for the Italian Army. The Optical Dept could count on Prof Vasco Ronchi, founder and director of the National Institute of Optics located in Arcetri, Florence, and, at least in the beginning, supplies of optical parts from Officine Galileo, also in Florence. The calculation office was entrusted to engineer Giuliano Toraldo di Francia and the research work to engineer Raffaello Bruscaglioni, both famous Italian researchers in optics .
The BIMAR project
On 22 Feb 1942 SSR Ducati requested to the C.S.D. (Supreme Defence Committee chaired by Benito Mussolini himself) to enlarge the factory in Borgo Panigale to cope with Italian and German Armed Forces orders. In fact in the same period Kriegsmarine ordered a batch of 500 10x80 –Geraete mit 20 Grad-Schraegeinblick from the Ducati company, which named them Bimar (=BInocolo MARino or sea binoculars) in its files. These were marine binoculars designed by Zeiss and licensed also to Voigtlaender & Sohn of Braunschweig (ddx ) and later to the Optische Praezisionswerke of Warsaw (eug). On 22 August 1942 Bruno Cavalieri Ducati wrote to the Optical National Institute of Florence asking for professional advice from Prof Vasco Ronchi. In the afternoon of 13 Sept Marcello Cavalieri Ducati held a meeting in Bologna to set up the BIMAR production. All the participants were under the pledge of secrecy. Soon after the Ducati company ordered 500 optical parts for the binoculars from Schott & Gen. The newly formed Ducati Optical Dept made the glass into prisms & lenses. In the meeting of 8 Jan 1943 was established a production calendar:
-March 2
-April 7
-May 15
-June 20
-July 30
-August 45
Total 119
Prof Ronchi lead a mission to the Zeiss factory to present the first binocular sample between 20 and 27 May 1943 (a first mission had visited Zeiss in early 1942). A Capt Klau of the OKM (=Oberkommando der Marine) accompanied them. On 3 June Marcello Cavalieri Ducati complimented Prof Ronchi for “the first BIMAR passed the testing in Jena”. Another 5 Bimars were delivered to the Kriegsmarine on 20 July. After the Italian armistice of 8 Sept 1943 the Ducati firm remained in the territory controlled by the fascists of the Italian Social Republic and the German armed forces which subjugated the Italian industry. Further orders reached the Ducati Company (the Kriegsmarine ordered 1900 10x80 binoculars in all), and the BIMAR production continued unabated. Anyway, from a letter sent from Bruno Cavalieri Ducati to Prof Ronchi dated 20 Jan 1944 we can realize that there were some difficulties in the shipping of the binoculars to Zeiss factory for testing. A batch of Bimars had reached Germany damaged due to enemy bombing and Mr Ducati thought that it was better that the binoculars were tested by an OKM team directly at the factory in Italy and so avoid a long and dangerous trip by truck to Jena. On 1 March 1944 Ducati workers went on strike in protest and on 12 October, 38 B-24 heavy bombers of the USAAF 455th Bombing Group dropped 374 x 500 GP bombs on the Ducati factory in Borgo Panigale and destroyed it. However, the production of BIMARs did not stop since the Optical Dept had been previously moved to the village of Crespellano, further west of Bologna. On 10 March 1945 Bruno Ducati wrote again to Prof Ronchi: ”…we also, besides continuing production of the Bimar, established two laboratories, one in Albizzate and the other in Cavalese to study shooting and projecting of narrow format motion pictures, while in Milan we established a spectacles design dept”. At the end of the war 450 10x80 binoculars were effectively delivered to the Kriegsmarine (we know the serial numbers 00208,00223,00304,00306), but many more were still in storage at Crespellano. The binoculars built during the war were not marked Ducati but mlr, the secret code assigned to this manufacturer by the German Army Ordnance Department .
The 10x80 BIMAR history does not end with the end of the war. The BIMAR production was resumed for a short time in 1946/1947. However, in the first official listing of Ducati optical instruments published in the Notiziario Commerciale Ducati (Ducati Commercial Newsletter), Aug-Sept 1947, the Bimar is no longer present. Other optical instruments included the microcamera SOGNO and a cine-projector. The only binocular known to have been built by Ducati is the BIMAR. Unfortunately, we do not know how many binoculars were built after the war since official Ducati production numbers and statistics are not available (we know only the binoculars numbered 00514). In 1949, after some years of financial and political turmoil which shook the Ducati factory to their foundations, the Ducati brothers lost the financial and managing control of their business and in July 1953 the Optical Dept was shut down with the discharge of the 960 employees. In the following years, after a lot of property changing, Ducati began producing the well-known racing motorbikes.
Bibliography
Unpublished sources
-Archivio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, Rome, Comitato Superiore di Difesa, Files F.16/12
-Papers of Vasco Ronchi, Archivio di Stato, Florence, files VR 34/6,VR 36/2 and VR 37/1
Books
--Aldo Berselli, ”I protagonisti dello sviluppo industriale“ (pp.138-146) and Fabio Gobbo and Claudio Pasini “Una industrializzazione compiuta” (pp.168-175), in “Bologna 1937-1987-Cinquant’anni di vita economica”, Bologna,1987
-Bruno Cavalieri Ducati, ”Storia della Ducati”, Bologna,1991
-Lutz Klinkhammer, ”L’occupazione tedesca in Italia,1943-1945”, Torino, 1993, pp.218-219
-Gastone Mazzanti, ”Obiettivo Bologna-Open the doors: bombs away”, Bologna, 2001, pp.208-215
-Hans Seeger, ”Fernglaeser und Fernrohre in Heer,Luftwaffe und Marine”, Hamburg 2002, pp.350 and 357.
Photographs have been provided by Bard Didrikson, Frank Doherty, and Robert Gregory. We are grateful for their assistance.
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LA REGIA MARINA - Dalle origini al 1946
