FLOATING FLAME THROWERS
IMPROVISED IN COMBAT, flame-throwing units dropped from the air were quickly effective in driving Communists from underground bunkers, caves and connecting tunnels in Korea. Maj. Clair L. George of the Second Infantry Division designed the airlift attachment when it proved impossible for foot soldiers to pack the heavy, bulky weapon into rugged mountain passes and retreats. An additional advantage of the airborne flame throwers is that they can be brought to bear against the target more quickly.
Read the rest of this entry »
That wide tank on the left looks like it would break in half at the slightest bump and it looks like that truck on the left would have a pretty hard time pulling that huge armored trailer.
Inventors Offer Thousands of Ideas to Help Beat the Axis
WAR inventions are flooding the National Inventors Council and the U. S. Patent Office. At the Council’s headquarters in Washington, D. C, 45,000 suggestions have been received during the last year. And 3,000 of them have been adopted—one out of 15, an amazingly high proportion that pays tribute to American inventive ability. Results have well justified the effort of sorting valuable new ideas from equally well-meant schemes that prove unsuitable for various reasons.
Read the rest of this entry »
Uncle Sam CRACKS DOWN ON SPIES … To Guard the Secrets of His War Machines
TRUE SPY STORIES, FILTERING THROUGH THE MASK OF SILENCE MAINTAINED BY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, REVEAL A NETWORK OF ESPIONAGE DESIGNED TO FERRET OUT THE SECRETS OF OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE FOR FOREIGN POWERS
By Thomas M. Johnson
SCIENTIFIC spies for foreign powers are picking Uncle Sam’s pockets. As war tension heightens abroad, more and more of them invade our shores. They sneak across the oceans from Europe, where last year $50,000,000 was spent on secret service, or from Asia, where Japan alone spent
$12,000,000. These spies are no fools, fantastically disguised, whispering, scowling. They are intelligent men and women, using clever tricks to steal from this wide-open country the countless military appliances and inventions that American ingenuity produces. With our own weapons, pilfered from us, foreign powers are arming for the next war. For that purpose, the scientific spies lurk unsuspected in our midst.
Read the rest of this entry »
WHAT’S WRONG With Uncle Sam’s Navy?
A naval officer frankly discloses just how badly American defense has suffered through inadequate building program.
by Lieut. John Edwin Hogg, U.S.N.R.
(Note: The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and should not be construed as reflecting the official views or opinions of the Navy Department.)
AS THESE lines are written the American navy is in the worst condition of decrepitude and impotence that has ever marked its history.
Pacifist domination and sheer neglect has left us with a navy so skeletonized and anaemic as to threaten our national security. Among some none-too-friendly neighbor nations armed to the teeth and in a world seething with social, political, and economic unrest, we find ourselves with a run-down battle fleet that is only 65 per cent of the estimated strength necessary for national defense. Moreover, this precariously weakened “first line of national defense” is only 85 per cent manned!
Read the rest of this entry »
This looks like it’s ripped straight from a Bond movie. Well, either that or GI Joe. I love the inflatable camouflage rocks.
Rubber Fortresses for A-Bomb Defense
Here’s how the Air Force’s new air-building can hide the radar sentries guarding America against attack.
By Frank Tinsley
CAN we avert an atomic Pearl Harbor? Yes, we can—with rubber bubbles!
For a string of giant rubber bubbles, housing radar sentries, hidden in the icy peaks of America’s northernmost mountains, could be our first line of defense against any A-bomb attack. The secret of these amazing rubber fortresses is the new Radome, a revolutionary shelter of rubber and glass textile, developed by the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory Inc. for the Air Force research center at Red Bank, N. J.
Read the rest of this entry »
Can We Meet the Robot’s Threat?
How Automatic Weapons Are Changing Warfare
Crewless planes . . . mechanical brains that think faster than man . . . remote-controlled bombs with new, superpower explosives . . . vengeance-wreaking automatons designed for mass murder… guns that can’t miss … instruments that see through clouds and darkness —these new terrors imperil the peace of the future.
By ALDEN P. ARMAGNAC
Drawings by B. G. SEIELSTAD
WILL death-dealing automatons, sooner or later, imperil the lives of everyone? Long-secret war weapons, now brought into the open, raise the startling question. They see through clouds and the darkness of night, when human eyes are blind. Faster than a man can think, their mechanical brains perform intricate calculations and aim guns against swiftly moving targets. They blast objectives with a ton or more of high explosives from more than 150 miles away.
Read the rest of this entry »
This is how we end up with killer bees.
How Science Made a Better Bee
Amazing new discoveries bring improvement to nature’s masterpiece, enabling the busy little insect to do a better job for war.
By ALFRED H. SINKS
Photographs by WILLIAM MORRIS and ROBERT F SMITH
THE tiny honeybee—far more important to both war industry and our food supply than most people realize—is getting a lot of attention nowadays. Though nature has produced few animals as remarkable as these industrious little insects, entomologists and geneticists have found the means to improve on its handiwork. They are actually producing bees that work harder and so produce more honey—bees that are more industrious and energetic, healthier, and better able to protect their bee cities against natural enemies. Truly amazing are some of the results of this partnership of science and nature, and its future achievements may be greater still.
Read the rest of this entry »
Battles in Code for World War Secrets
by THOMAS M. JOHNSON
Amazing secret battles of spies and cipher experts, involving the use of codes and cryptograms on which hung the lives of millions of men in the trenches, played a vital part in determining the course of the World War. Kept secret for years in confidential archives, some of the startling exploits of American cryptographers are brought to light here.
“The enemy has our secret code!”
The dread tidings were whispered through the corridors of Washington; War Department, State Department, even the White House. They brought a cold chill of fear. Could it be that at the climax of the greatest fighting effort in our history, the Germans were reading our leaders’ most confidential messages, knew their inmost thoughts and plans? We must stop that, at once.
Read the rest of this entry »
