‘BLINDING LIGHT BOMBS’

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 November 1934, Page 8

‘BLINDING LIGHT BOMBS’

PARALYSING THE EYE. PARIS, October 4. Military and air authorities in France are conducting experiments with “blinding light” bombs, and examining the possibilities of “firing” from projectors a flash of such intensity that will paralyse the eye for several minutes. M. Edmond de Christmas, a French engineer, ‘is one of the inventors of the “blinding light projector.” He said that, although the “light firing instrument” could be put to considerable commercial use, the French authorities had requested him and his associates not to put the projector on the market.

It is claimed that the projector would prove a valuable anti-aircraft weapon. The apparatus consists of a metal projector from the centre of which emerges a gun. This gun fires cartridges containing a powder similar in its combustibility to magnesium. Unlike magnesium, this powder, the constitution of which the inven-,

tor refuses to disclose, produces no smoke when it explodes. “We obtained the magnesium substitute from Germany,” M. de Christmas said, “but when Herr Hitler came to power its export was forbidden. We now obtain it from the United States. “We are able to fire a cartridge so as to produce a blinding flash of 3,000,000 candlepower, lasting the 100th part of a. second. If the eyes of an airman flying above the city were struck by such a flash of light he would be blinded for two or three minutes.” The inventor maintained that if batteries of such projectors were placed at strategic points in large cities, they would afford sufficient protection against air raids. ,