WHERE TO FIND TOWNS TO BOMB?

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 13, 29 December 1928, Page 7

WHERE TO FIND TOWNS TO BOMB?

AIRMEN’S FUTURE PROBLEM.

ARTIFICIAL INVISIBILITY. The pilot of an airplane flying over the town of Bobblingcn, near Stuttgart (Germany), some weeks ago was astonished to se a group of factories and houses, on which he was gazing, suddenly vanish from view, wrapped in a dense cloud of white “smoke.” It was an experiment carried out by engineers and German Air Ministry ' officials, who were testing a wonderful new device for the protection of towns from air attack. The device, which is the invention of Dr. Beddeman, the German gas expert, enables a city to render itself invisible within a few seconds, by the mere pressing of an electric button. Vessels, to the number of 10, each containing 24 gallons of a secret chemical substance, had been placed on the ground, at ' intervals of 70 yards, round the buildings. At the approach of the airplane, Dr. Beddeman touched a button, and clouds of dense fogs were belched forth by the containers. Within six seconds clouds 300 feet high lay stretched over an area' of 500 square yards. “It is claimed that the “Magic Curtain,” as the device has been named, will be of greater protection to cities against air attacks than the strongest barrage from anti-aircraft guns (says the London “Daily Express”). The great German seaport of Cuxhaven has already begun the construction of a powerful plant, at which sufficient of Dr. Beddeman’s gas will be stored to veil the city in case of war.