SAVED EMPIRE SHIPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 204, 28 August 1943, Page 4

SAVED EMPIRE SHIPS

ENGINEER'S INVENTIONS BEAT MINES AND U-BOATS (0.C.) SYDNEY, August 24. A 60-year-old engineer of Melbourne, Mr. Franklin G. Barnes, who is the inventor of a degaussing device to protect ships from magnetic mines, believes that another under-water weapon he invented is playing an important part in the war against submarines in the Atlantic.

Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt revealed last Sunday that 90 U-boats had been sunk in the past three months. Commenting on his report Mr. Barnes said that from information he had received he believed his weapon was being largely used Within four days of the use of the first magnetic mine by the Ger™ans. Barnes lodged with the War Office in England the specifications for his degaussing device. He said he had not yet received any payment or official recognition. The first semi-official recognition he had received was a cable report from London that the British Ministry Of Information and the Strand Film Unit were producing a documentary film describing the fight against the magnetic mine. The cable added that the film would include the story of Mr. F. G. Barnes who had played an important part in the fight.

Describing his degaussing apparaMr. Barnes said: "It seemed obvious to me that a ship could be regarded as a floating magnet of which it formed the core. All that was necessary was to w-ind a wire around it in reverse polarity and the magnetic mine could not operate. It was also a matter of balancing one force against another 'There was a grim satisfaction in giving it the name degausser, because Gauss, the great electrician who first explored the field of magnetism, was a German."