1945: Flying a Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer, Patrol Bombing Squadron 109 launched two Bat missiles against enemy shipping in Balikpapan Harbor, Borneo. This was the first combat employment of the only automatic homing missile used in World War II. The ASM-N-2 Bat was a United States Navy World War II radar-guided glide bomb which was used in combat beginning in April 1944. It was developed and overseen by a unit within the National Bureau of Standards (which unit later became a part of the Army Research Laboratory) with assistance from the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Bell Telephone Laboratories. It is considered to be the first fully automated guided missile used in combat. The Army Air Forces was also developing such weapons in Project Aphrodite, using both glide bombs and radio and television controlled weapons.
