GERMAN SECRET WEAPONS

Grey River Argus, 20 June 1945, Page 5

GERMAN SECRET WEAPONS

LONDON, June 15. The story of Britain’s “secret” force of five thousand men who raced forward in Germany and prevented the destruction of the enemy V secrets is now revealed, stated' a correspondent of the British United Press at Field-Marshal Montgomery’s headquarters. As a result • of the force’s operations, Germany has not a single military secret left and there are only a few industrial secrets not yet rooted out. The force prevented the destruction of secret weapon factories and seized German scientists. With a full knowledge of their secrets, the Allies have already questioned more than one thousand scientists and eight hundred highly technical experts. .The force, which was mad'e up of Army, Navy, Air Force, British and American scientists, operated with the most advanced troops. On one occasion men of the force seized an aircraft factory while the directors were holding a board meeting to discuss how to evacuate the plant. Here are some of the weapons and equipment the Germans developed in the past two years: Infra-red equipment by which ships could be picked up from twenty miles away. An in-fra-red searchlight for anti-tank work at night, using an invisible beam showing up a tank on a small screen in front of the operator. A flying bomb fitted with scythes instead of warheads to cut Allied’ bombers in- two. They would have been piloted by German fanatics who would have baled out when the job was done. They were actually coming off the production line in one factory. Wireless-controlled flying bombs operated by a five-mile wire, along which electric impulses, sent from following aeroplanes, would have prevented the enemy jamming. Rocket aeroplanes controlled by fice-mile wires attached to the .ground for attacking bombing formations.

Other German inventions included “Ingolene,” which is described as the “propellant of the future.” It gave the latest U-boats an underwater speed of twenty-five knots. Another surprise was a battery of rocket torpedoes directed by sound to protect U-boats against attacks. The Germans also had a long-range torpedo which they fired from the Le Havre area to the Arromanches beaches during the Normandy days, accounting for at least two Allied ships. Germany passed on many of these secrets to Japan, states the correspondent, but the discoveries by the British force enabled the Allies to plan effective counter-measures.