Further Loss of Two Ships

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 56, 11 February 1916, Page 5

Further Loss of Two Ships

AERIAL ACTIVITY

LUSITANIA INCIDENT CLOSED

Change in East Africa Command

General Smuts Succeeds Smith-Dorrien

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

The following list of th e various air raids on England and the Killed and injured in each show how the casualty totals have gradually increased from a dozen to Between 150 and 200: Date. Killed. Injured.

Next to the pleasure afforded the public by the reading of successes achieved by the Navy, there can be no doubt the Air Service appeals next. However important, tactically, may bo the progress made by our khaki-clad warriors, the fact remains that the enthusiasm aroused falls f ar short of even less strategic achievements on the part of the sister services. The capture of a gun or a hill, the destruction of a bridge, the.occupation of a crater as the result of successful mining appears to the lay mind infinitestimal compared to the destruction of an airship, especially a Zeppelin, while the flight of a crowd of aeroplanes immediately stirs the imagination. No one can hear too often of the loss of Zeppelins, and it must be admitted that of late the enemy have suffered severely in this respect. Despite the complaints heard about the inefficiency of the British air service as compared to Germany’s, very valuable work ha s been accomplished. So strenuous a time has been given the Germans that they have been driven to house many of their airships underground. In such cases the roof of the underground shed is usually steelcovered and bomb-proof, and the entrance is a long and gradual slope, which finally reaches the shed itself. But Germany is supposed to be building Zeppelins at the rate of 18 or 20 a year—a rate which should more than enable them to make up for losses. Indeed, it has been questioned whether she can train crows as fast ag. she can turn out airships. She probably solves the problem by the general use of necleus crews; indeed, it has been openly announced that new men are taken over to Britain on each air trip, though there are always old hands with them as well.

One of the principal excellences of the French a,rtillerv is the wonderful manner in which the gunners hide their guns. Everybody knows the virtues of the “seventy-five,” which is so quick,that the gunners can snine with it, and so deadly that it is said a captured German officer complained once that “such a weapon ought not to be allowed in a civilised country!” Yet we learned only yesterday that the Germans were using the captured 75’s for. defence against aircraft! It is quite true that they know the value of them. It has even been claimed that it was the “seventy-fives” that destroyed the enemy’s chances, once so great, of success in the west. Under modern conditions, with aircraft cruisipg about on the watch overhead, the hiding of a battery is as important as the battery itself or the skill with which it is used. And the manner of which the French gunners hide their guu emplacements is beyond all praise. ‘They are so skilful in making use of the lie of the land and in blending their screens with the general character of things around them that one may walk (so the newspaper correspondents say) within a yard or two of the guns without being aware of their neighbourhood until the firing of a shell startles with its unexpected shock. A story is told of one battery of heavy guns which had been a whole year in tlie same spot without being discovered by the enemy’s aircraft or artillery. During all that time only one shell had come near them.

It is interesting to compare the modern Zeppelins with the latest and hugest of aeroplanes. This is neither the Russian Sikharsky, that spans 121 feet from wing-tip to wing-tip, and weighs 3J tons, nor the German aiicraft that are being built upon its model. It is a monster triplane which is being built in America for Britain. It will have a wing span of 133 feet—nearly 45 yards,—and, fully loaded, it will weigh more than ten tons! The

monster is worked by seven motors, six of 160 horse-power each and one x smaller. The six will work in pairs, and drive three screws, two tractors, and a pusher, each of which will probably be nearly 15 feet long. It is claimed that two screws would be enough to keep the vessel sailing on an even keel once she had gained her altitude, and that with only on e she would be able to keep so flat a “gliding angle” that she might cover as much ag 30 miles before touching earth again. The smallest motor will be used to start the others and also to drive a smaller propeller to manoeuvre the craft on the water at low speeds. In the air, she will have a speed of, at any rate, 75 miles an hour, and a range, at that speed, oi nearly 700 miles. She will be able to carry over that distance, besides her fuel and a crew of eight men, guns that no ordinary aeroplane could mount and a ton and a-half of high explosives. Of course her flight range could be extended if she carried less weight. The cost of the monster is to be about £20,000, and in everything except power of swift rising she ought to be a match for any Zeppelin. Unfortunately, power to rise swiftly is most important.

The military authorities have at last discovered a use for newspapers. In Italy they use them to boil the soldier’s billy—not merely crumpled up hard, as they have been sometimes used in this country, but compressed and soaked in inflammable substances. All over Italy old newspapers are being collected, and in Milan, which is said to have taken the lead in the new industry, the new fuel is being manufactured at a great rate. The newspapers are pressed, rolled as tightly as possible into cylinders, and gummed fast. Then they are fastened into bundles and go through a “cooking” process in stearine, naphaline, and paraffin. After this the tubes which are now iron-coloured, are packed in small and then in larger sacks and sent out to the Isonzo or Trentino or one of the other fronts. It-seems a good scheme, at any rate whore fuel is scarce.

January 19 ... ... 4 ... 9 2 April 14 J; ... — ... April 16 ... — ... — May 10 . ... 1 ... — May 17 2 8 May 27 ...' 3 ... — May 31 ... 6 ... — June 4 ... — ... — June 6 ... 24 ... 40 June 15 ... 15 ... 15 August 9 ... 13 ... 12 August 12 ... ... 6 ... 23 36 August 17 ... 10 ... September 7 ... 17 ... 39 September 8 ... 20 ... 86 September 11 ... — ... — September 12 ... — ... —- September 13 ... — ... — October 13 ... ... 56 ... 14 January 23 ... ... 1 ... 6 January 31 ... ... 54 ... 67 This gives a total 457 injured—or 689 of 232 killed in all. and