Sadly, this seems pretty tame by comparison with what is considered normal today.

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Washington’s Brassy Influence Peddlers

Retired generals and admirals cozy up to their old buddies to swing billions of dollars in defense contracts!

By FRANK DEGNAN

LAST JULY, three of the largest defense contractors in the nation readied plans to entertain Air Force Lt. General Bernard S. Schriever, head of the Air Research and Development Command. Party invitations described the affair as cocktails and dinner with an off-the-record chat by General Schriever about his plans and problems.
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Made in Germany

Right under the noses of their unsuspecting Nazi guards, GI-PW’s turned out these ingenious devices.

By Louis Hochman

THE American Gl is an ingenious fellow. Given the right tools, he can produce anything he sets his skill to. Take away his tools and leave him with only a penknife, old razor blades, and some broken glass and he’ll still produce anything he sets his heart on. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s up with the flying girder on the second page? Is Superman trying to save New York?

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PEACE – OR ELSE!

HUMANITY is faced with the greatest decision it has ever had to make. The atomic bomb, in three gigantic, flashes, has transformed our planet into a world which has only one choice left. Earth has become a world of Either/Or.

Either—we are firmly determined that there shall be no war, and spend as much energy, thought and money on the problem of preventing it as we now spend in preparing for it. In that case—and if we succeed—the future promises a period of incredible achievements, of unlimited progress, of infinite riches of knowledge and material riches, of immediate preliminaries to humanity’s spread through the solar system as a first step to a spread through the galaxy. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Most Important 30 Minutes of Your Life

By Lester David

AT 12:30 p. m. an atomic bomb is going . to explode in your city! Radar has spotted an enemy airplane and disclosed its course, speed and the arc on which it is traveling.

It’s noon now and you have 30 minutes— 1800 crucial seconds—to prepare for the bomb. What will you do?

You and your family can survive if you take the proper precautions at the proper time. Atomic scientists, civilian defense authorities, army officials and Red Cross disaster chiefs agree on this. Read the rest of this entry »

I guess the kamikazes weren’t such a surprise then.

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Jap Pilots Ride to DEATH on Flying Bombs

By Ray Holt

The current conflict between Japan and China has brought out an amazing revelation of the methods by which Japanese pilots assure air bombs reaching their target by putting a man inside to steer them. Why? Read the reasons in this article, and you’ll have a better understanding of Japanese psychology toward the machines of war.

IMAGINE yourself strapped within a hollow chamber inside a huge air bomb, surrounded on all sides by high explosives. In front of you is an airplane type rudder which steers the tail unit of the bomb. Windows in the nose enable you to see ahead. You’re loaded into the bomb, which is placed in its nest under the fuselage of a bombing plane. The bomber takes off, soars above a target—say, an ammunition dump of the enemy. Up above you, the pilot of the plane pulls a lever. Read the rest of this entry »

Zig-Zagging Target Tests Gunners’ Skill

THE Field Artillery, U. S. Army, has long experienced difficulty in obtaining practice against fast-moving targets. To meet this need, the Artillery Corps has recently perfected a target which can be towed behind a rapidly-moving automobile and yet zig-zag across the landscape like a drunken jackrabbit.
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Best Mechanics will Win if U.S. Fights Japan

War clouds brewing in the Pacific point to the day when America may become involved in battle with Japan. Nobody is eager for such a war, but if it ever comes the result will be decided by war machines built by American and Japanese mechanics—two fundamentally different types of genius. Read this keen analysis from the pen of a noted naval expert.

by LIEUT. JOHN EDWIN HOGG
U. S. Naval Reserve

AS THESE lines are written international diplomats are gathered together at Geneva. They are assembled at the world’s first general disarmament conference, ostensibly to work out a plan for preventing armed conflicts between nations. The God of War looks down from a neighboring planet upon a world bristling with every possible device for killing the greatest number of people with the least effort. And in Shanghai war rages between Japanese and Chinese troops. Read the rest of this entry »

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Let’s Use Helicopter Cavalry

Swooping in suddenly, helitroopers on powerful “sky horses” could wreak havoc with enemy troops.

By Frank Tinsley

SCATTERED along the western slope of the Asiatic coastal range, the copter troopers and their mounts cluster in little groups as the rising sun climbs behind them. The jump-off moment is fast approaching. Within minutes, the sun will burst blindingly above them to cover their westward assault.

The first elements of the blitz landing—submarine-borne marines —had hit the enemy coast only three days ago, seized the controlling crests and passes of the coastal hills in bloody fighting, well covered by massive flights of water-borne jet fighters. Read the rest of this entry »

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OUR FORTS ON WHEELS

By RENE BACHE

TAKE an ordinary touring car. Sheathe it with armor-plate. Build a citadel on top of it, with a revolving turret and a machine-gun inside. You have then a fort on wheels.

This is an idea on which the War Department has been working for some time past. We soon shall have whole squadrons of such armored cars. Doubtless we shall send them in numbers to the fighting line in France.

It costs $2,000 for the alterations. The vehicle, when used for war purposes, is expected to have a speed of from forty to fifty miles an hour.
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Death Rays from Silent Sounds

THE day of death rays in warfare was foreshadowed in an experiment conducted recently at Johns Hopkins University in which a beam of ultra-frequency sound waves instantly converted glass into a thin white powder, oil into thin vapor, and wood into a burst of flame.

These amazing new sounds, with frequencies as high as 300,000 vibrations per second, inaudible to the human ear, were created with a standard radio oscillator of the vacuum tube type, as illustrated in an accompanying drawing. Read the rest of this entry »

This is awesome. Someone needs to put this in a video game along with a moped mortar.

SCOOTER CANNON combines scooting with shooting. French gun is a short-barreled, 75mm re-coilless job. It carries six ammo shells in place of saddle bags.

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IS THE PILOT OBSOLETE?

Missiles and rockets guided by “machines that think” are already in the air. Do our fantastic plans for tomorrow doom all piloted aifcraft?

By R. C. Sebold,
Vice President of Engineering, Convair, As told to B. W. Von Block

THE war of the future? Giant intercontinental missiles hurtle through space at 10,000 miles an hour —untouched by human hands. Pushbuttons send a screen of supersonic interceptor missiles streaking skyward to blast the attackers to bits with atomic warheads. . .

This is what you read in Sunday supplements. Tomorrow, say the aeronautical crystal gazers, the only humans left in the skies will be passengers. Not only fighters and bombers will be controlled by electronic brains, but so will commercial passenger and cargo transports. The pilot, these pundits claim, just isn’t stylish anymore.
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