AERIAL BOMBS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18888, 31 December 1926, Page 12

AERIAL BOMBS.

LIQUOR WAR IN AMERICA. (TBOM OUH. OWK COKRESPOHDEHT.) SAN FRANCISCO, November 15. The aeroplane and aerial bomb have been added to armoured cars, machine Runs, and other novel weapons used in the Southern Illinois gang warfare between the rival Shelton and Birger liquor factions. Flying low over Shady Rest, a roadhouse operated by Charley. Birger, gang leader, ten miles east of Marion, an unidentified aviator dropped a bomb which failed to explode. Seven or eight gangsters then ran out of the place end began firing at the aeroplane with rifles and machine guns as it circled around again and dropped two more bombs. One was a dud, but the other exploded in the woods a hundred yards from the roadhouse resort.

The gunfire did not, find its mark, but the aviator flew rapidly to the north. The attacking 'plane boro no marks of identification, and the pilot could not be seen clearly from the ground. One witness said he believed a second man was in the cockpit. No damage was done by the explosion, but Birger., who was at his home at Harrisburg at the time, was wrought up oyer the new method of waging war against him in America's new' phase of her crime carnival. "There'll be some popping off here now,'' he told a newspaper correspondent. "They can'tktry that stuff on me. I'll get an aeroplane and I'll use it, too." Gangsters Busy. The air, raid apparently was in reply to an early morning visit by alleged Birger gangsters at West Citv, near Benton, '2O miles north of Marion, where they poured a heavy machine gun and rifle fire into two houses in a neighbourhood frequented by the Sheltonites. One of the houses was occupied by Gus Adams, brother of the 300pound Mayor of the town, Joseph Adams, and the other was the home of Mrs Mary Loughran, an elderly widow. Both homes were described by Birger as Shelton "hangouts," and Mayor Adams, who lives nearby, has admitted that he some time ago enlisted the Shelton's aid to protect himself from Birger, who, he declared, has threatened his life.

Shortly after the shooting, Carl and Bernie Shelton, gang leaders, were arrested on the streets of Benton by six post office inspectors, assisted by the sheriff of Franklin County, a deputy sheriff, and deputy United States marshal. They did not resist. Their arrest disclosed that they and another man, whose name was withheld, had been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury at Springfield a few days previously for alleged complicity in a 15,000-dollar robbery of a 64-year-old post office messenger at Collinsville, Illinois, a suburb East St. Louis, on January 27th, 1924.

The Sheltons owed their arrest largely to Birger, who has openly charged they committed the Collinsville robJ} e {7- Their bonds were set at 60,000 dollars. This use of machine guns is becoming general among criminal leaders in and around Chicago, and is said to be deeply worrvin- the Governmental authorities, who may be compelled to call out the military to check the present crime wave in various parts of the State.