AMERICA INVENTS A "ZEPPELIN-DESTROYER."

Oamaru Mail, Volume XL, Issue 12538, 8 May 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

AMERICA INVENTS A "ZEP-PELIN-DESTROYER."

"A great cloud of death is gathering on the German coast. Week by week its jio tential power is increasing, yet the time to strike has not come. A White-haired, hale old man of s-evOity-eight is working quietly until the Uemuiß. War Office shall way: -'Are you. ready, Count Zeppelin 'i' answer, that night the monster air-fleet will rise high above the German coast and float out in the darkness over the sea. Germany'will wait and pray. It ■is her trump-card." Such are the views of Mr Thomas R. Macmechen, the president -of the Aeronautical Society of America, in an interview -accorded to the -Vew. York Sun. Mr Macmechen, we are told, refuses to accept the theory that the Zeppelin is a failure. It has made good, lie says, and will soon prove it to Juigland. by a raid upon London, lie should know whereof lie speaks, for, to toil such a. raid, the company of which he is president- is now building for the British Government a small fleet of dirigibles of a. new type—ZeppclindestToyers—especially designed to ward off the. threatened attack, which. Mr Macmechen' tells us, may be expected about the middle of April. His reasons for ret using to accept the theory—current among laymen—that the Zeppelin is a failure are as follows:

"1. Hie flight and weight-carrying capabilities -of the ZoppeJins under itII but abnormal weather conditions are-1-ioved and as certain and dependable as the navigation of a steamship. A hurrieane will wreck the latter as quickly as the.former. '"2. The wrecks of Zeppelins are printed aiid known. There are less than a dozen all told. The actual flights under all sorts of conditions ran into thousands. These arc not heard of.

• - 3. The attacking Zeppelins will do their destroying with armor-piercing guns rather than with bombs.

"4. TheVakl will not be by three or four, but by. a great number, not Jess than, fifty, possibly by a hundred, accompanied by aeroplanes. "o. Tli- high-angle gun has been proved, even when' used under daylight conditions to be. useless as a de.'enee.

Aeroplane defence is ','isekss by night, which is the. Zeppelin's, best time for operation. \ "6. Germany thus far lijas made, only reconnoitring trips. She .will makes her real raid only when thoroughly ready, and that time is not far .away." JHe tells us that at last England has been roused to the clangers of Zeppelin raid and has come to realise ti,\at the recent aerial attack on Yarmouth was but a try-out. The great majcrin; of Englishmen pooh-poohed that raid, lie says, but he adds:

"Oificiai England is not pooh-poohing now. Official England knows all too well; but she got over the pooh-pooh-ing stage too late. She is grasping at every straw of promise, yot knowing that there is not time to prepare for war in the air and knowing tco that one successful raid will mean another

and still others that bid fair to leave Kr.gland cowering and helpless. "Thrn, with Germany master of the air and with Germany" master of the sea, how long will England maintain her supremacy atop the sc-a ? The Admiralty will not admit that this means the passing of the dreadnought, but they are beginning to fear just that?' In explaining why no real raid ha? yet been made, he remarks : "The first great raid, which the Germans have been planning since the war began and for the success of which thev are depending on the aged Count Zeppelm, will probably not come for some weeks. The. time is not yet right. The first; raid will be followed bv blow upon blow aimed directlv at the throne o': England.

"The reason there has been no great attack on London from the air is because aerial tactics and strategy make stich mi attack folly until there are a cert-am number of these air-ships, enough to leave a wide trail of destruction.

••Enr instance, if Germany had fifty ot these new Zeppelins tliev would strike England to the heart. They could hit London a bodv-blow to-day ami come back again to-morrow. Count Zeppelin will strike when he gets readv. and*not when England wants him to.*" He goes on to say:

• Die Intelligence Department of Great Jjrita.ni knows the preparations that Germany is making. Further confirming details arc coming in nearly every day. One report from Lake CoulUianoe, where tho "observer remained nineteen weeks, told.of a. comolete Zeppelin being turned out from the factory every two weeks, while he was there. " 'Terhaps Germany is ready to strike now, yet I should be surprised if shemace the first raid this month. March is-not a favorable time on account of the winds, ] do not look for the biV an- invasion until after the middle o? April, but I believe it will come soon alter that."

The darkening of London, the use of searchlights, and the employment of the high-angle, anti-aircraft guns a>- 0 , ho says, futile- measures and have been abandoned. . In describing the steps taken by the English authorities to circumvent a raid, he recounts: '•Kirst they darkened the cit-v. Then as if to .attract as much attention a* possible, they installed powerful searchlights at vantage-points all over the Clt - V .\ .^:? twin K <'"«' d have bettor guided a dirigible navigator approachiim- j rl the night. London has since seen th*> fallacy of the searchlights, and thev are not used now.

Still the high-angle guns are in position all over London, on the tops of buildings and other .carefully selected places. The authorities, of the sir department have also relied on big squadrons of aeroplanes to resist a Zeppelin attack on London.

They were to go up over London and attack these Zeppelins directrv over the city. ... What would happen ? .

' London would bombard itself and shoot its own aviators out of the air Shells from the high-angle guns are in cendiary. They would drop back on the city, sot fire to their own buildings, and kill their own private citizens." The military authorities, he says, have now realised that such measures are hopeless and have agreed with him that the only effective defence is to meet the invading fleet off the coast and bnng about, its destruction bv oinplovine: Mr Macniechen's new "Zep-pelin-destroyers," which are thus described :

"This new craft is a. small, rigid dirigible, a type of aircraft never built before in the history of aeronautics. Bring small, it will have a short radius of action, but it will have a sneed of from sixty-to seventy miles an hour.

"These little rigid dirigibles we are building can stay- in the air watching for an. enemy, say seventy-five miles

from their base, lor ill- least ten hours; They can. send, wirelt ss reports back to their base.

'•Kadi of the Zeppelin-destroyers will be equipped with one torpedo-gun, firing a torpedo thai will explode on contact. Our Zi ppolin-dostroyors are but a:ii.) I'oei. long and only 28 feet in diamet.?r. The little defensive dirigibjos imve two engines, one forward of 7590 horse-power and one aft with 125 horse-power. "Kach will carry four men, a navi-

gator, a gunner, and two engineers. The-' torpedo-gun will lire its projectile. lG'.if) feet point blank, true to mark. ".Perhaps the most .radical idea we have i;:!!<;wcd in building the new aircraft- is that, to maintain rigidity; we bave enclosed the gas-compartments in an envelop of wood instead of metal, like the. Zeppelins. We use laminated spruce from Canada. Thin strips of it, are wound in spiral front one end to the other of the cigar-shaped hull, and lliev are locked into a. mahogany vine; at 'the end. The strips cross and recross one another and are of copper, riveted together. There are also fourteen straight girders. This construction is the stria uses t possible for the; weight. '•in.-id;- of it are the fourteen gasbags, each ,in a separate compartment. Outside, the wood structure the whole is covered with a weather-proof alutiiiuised cloth. It shines like a polishedspoon and will be difficult to see in the air on that account. "There is no hanging car. The car is built right into the ma.in structure. The navigator operates the whole craft by simply pressing a set of buttons on a desk in front of him. He can oven take ihe control of the engines out of the hands of th-s engineers." S. H. .Anderson, in the Christian tints describes a recent experience in Paris: —After tea, we had family worship in a humh'.e dwelling of a Paris City Mission Agent in the Faubourg Saint A»itoine, in the Ea.-t End of Piris. As I was about to read Psalm 121. a young Christian soldier. se\eral times wounded ■nil the battlefield, said: "That is mv psalm." and be related how be w asrouting one clay, seated at t!w> foot to a tree near a trench, inwardiy reciting "The Lord, is thy Keeper,'' when a shell from the enemy burst at his foot, threw him about two yards off, broke the p:t>e he was smoking and killed four of his comrades; . .'. When he examined himself he found not ■■■ scratch on him. On another occasion, he and 59 men were ordered to bar a passage for two hours', while reinfore jnieius were 1 coming. He stood his ground- for one hour and three-quarters, when a charge of overvhelming numb?'s of the foe laid all the small French company low. The young evangelist had received two shots in the thigh and er.uhl not stand. The Germans were dr'ven back latrr on, and as one of them killed a wounded comrade of my friend, lying close to him, ho had only time to

call, upon God. . . . and hie received three blows with the butt-end of a rifle and was stamped npoii' with a heavy

liccl. and having lost consciousness. It. was left for dead! Five hours jiflor.

wards lie revived: there \va.s no liviiii soul near him, 57 of the f>!) had been killed, but bis hour had not yet come. He dragged himself towards the Frone.i puns, being directed by their sound. A slipl:' destroyed his kuavj=:i-ok. He

down by the side of a ditch and still trusted "in God. Three Germans' appeared, and the praying soldier said: '•Alas, musi I use my rifle again?" they shouted: "Don.'t lire, we are comrades." My friend replied, "Throw away your guns then!" They did so and drew near, -whereupon he said:

"Tf you are comrades, carry me to my camp, for T can't walk.'' They had Christ's spirit in them : they did so, and surrendered ! That missionary work is not- everywhere at a standstill from causes traceable to the war. i« evident from, the encouraging: report given bv the Bishop of Marda.s in a pastoral letter to the clergv of his diocese. In the Singareni Mission, for example, under native superintendence, more than .a hundred have been baptised within tlie past two years, and now there are other four hundred under instruction for baptism, with a like number, scattered in thirteen villages, "who have asked for instruction in the Christian Fnit'll and are only waiting for teachers." Thus is the Soirit of God at work amid the dark " places of superstition and idolatry.