DEATH-DEALING RAYS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 136, 10 June 1924, Page 3

DEATH-DEALING RAYS

AN AUCKLANDER'S CLAIM.

■'.'■■ -' ' ■ (BI TELEGRAPH—SPECIAL TO THE POST.)

AUCKLAND, This Day. The claim to the invention of deathdealing rays for war purposes is not confined to Mr. Grindell Matthews, arid other people in England and elsewhere who have been mentioned in the cable ne\vs as having put ' themselves forward in rivalry._ An Auckland - resident who served in the Great War also asserts his right to the distinction. Mr. Harry Fyfe, of Park road, an employee, of the Union Steam Ship Company" >on the wharves, states that in 1917" he demonstrated on the field in France with an appliance of his own devising the possibility of projecting destructive heat rays. At tbe time Mr. Fyfe was in the New Zealand* Artillery, stationed''in the neighbourhood of Ypres, under the command of Colonel MacKenzie. His original idea was that the rays could be utilised. advantageously for" fusing the barbed wire entanglements of the Germans which were a terrible hindrance to the attacks of the Allied forces, but he claims that he can bring witnesses from among his surviving comrades arid some of the officers of the New Zealand Forces to the fact that he killed dogs and cattle which came within the ran<*e of his rays. Mr. Fyfe adds that on becoming aware of the effect of the rays upon living creatures and metals he reported the main facts to the War Office, and. asked that Department to supply him with particular lenses which he required to give full effect to his idea. The war authorities, in reply, asked for further details as to the nature and application of his invention, which, however, on finding that he would receive no-pers-onal return, for his invention, he''did not feel disposed to disclose. He was given some weeks' leave of absence from the front for the purpose of ■ developing his scheme, and was allowed to visit the establishment of an optician firm in London. Eventually, as the British authorities" would not- promise him any advantage from his. discovery, he was advised to take no further steps in the matter until he returned to civil life. After the end of the war he did nothing until he saw in the cable news the re■porta of Mr. Grindell - Matthews's enterprise. As, however, the fact of his representations in 191? must be on record at the War Office, he now intends to press his claims to whatever recognition may await whoever proves to have been the real originator of the proposal