WIRELES SECRET STOLEN

Hokitika Guardian, 27 May 1920, Page 3

WIRELES SECRET STOLEN

AERODROAIE AIYSTER Y

LONDON, March 16

Considerable anxiety lias been caused in Government circles bv tlie mystei ions disappearance from Parley (Surrey) Aerodrome on Saturday of a valuable and secret apparatus connected with aerial wireless telegraphy.

The apparatus is the invention of an officer in the Royal Air Force, and it is claimed that its adoption would solve hitherto insuperable problems in connection with the sending and receiving of wireless messages from aircrall. H is the only mechanism of its kind in existence, and experiments will) it have already proved its great utility ami value. Special precautions weie taken to guard it, and, so far as is known, comparatively few people were aware ol its existence. On Saturday, further experiments were to have been made ; but the apparatus had disappeared from the room in which it was kept. There is every reason to fear that it has been I, v or on behalf of. the agent of a

foreign country. .Mr Winston Churchill and various naval and military officials, as well as the Air Ministry, were at once informed of the loss, and,certain measures were promptly taken in anticipation of an attempt being made to smuggle the missing apparatus to the Continent No doubt it will he possible in time to replace the apparatus, and in any ease the thief will not be able to make any use of it in this country. The theory is, however, that it was stolen in the interests of a foreign Power.