BOMBARDMENT OF PARIS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 113, 17 May 1918, Page 6

BOMBARDMENT OF PARIS

JGERMAN long range gun,

CITY NOT PERTURBED

~Paris was frankly puzzled when the fcombardment of the city by a German long-range gun was commenced. At 7.25 on a Saturday morning several dull reports were heard in quick succession, bat these caused no apprehension, as it ■was. generally understood from the .warnings previously issued that they proceeded from the intentional explosion of quantitites of grenades which lad -been damaged in the catastrophe at 3Ja Courneuve and which the authorities decided it wise to destroy as the best means of avoiding possible disaster in the future. From eight o'clock onawards, however, other explosions continued to be heard at regular intervals of a quarter of an hour, and these the authorities soon determined could have 316 "possible connection with the destruction of grenades at JLa Courneuve. At 9.15, therefore, fire engines were cent out to sound the usual siren alarm to notify the inhabitants that another air raid was impending. Some curious scenes were witnessed in all parts of Paris. The alarm- had been given at the moment when thousands of working people, shop assistants. and typists were in the act of leaving the railway stations for their place of business, and, warned by previous experience, the vast majority immediately boiled for the nearest underground shelters, of which there are now thousands in the city. The tradespeople. .who had barely opened their doors, instantly pulled down their iron shutters. Trains on the Metro were brought to a standstill; and". everywhere omnibuses and- tramcars stopped dead in streets. Load explosions of bombs or other projectiles were heard at regular intervals £»/ a quarter of an hour. After the first hour or so numbers of people began to reappear in the streets, and the balconies and windows on the boulevards were lined with faces, all turned eagerly towards the sky in search of the assailants. To the universal mystification there was no sign, of an aeroplane of an.y description. SAID TO BE AUSTRIAN GUN. It was a lovely spring morning, v-ith bright sunshine and a warm, iight. westerly wind, and bel>re long joyous parties of young people emerged fi&ju .the cellars and began promenading the -boulevards in true .Parisian fashion Every quarter of an hour for six lours -the .report of a falling bomb iir ihell ■was heard with the Te«;ularitv of c o< k- - work, from 8.20 till 2.50. A* little pro- - cession of young people paraded the - boulevards shouting "Vive la semain anglaise" in. recognition of the unexpected . holiday . which had arrived. "When the Temps -appeared soon ."•tei ' four o'clock the population were el:?-..-

trifled to read an official . omm Jii'oa

stating that the explosions '-f the mo i?"ing were due to the fact that the .Cctznans had been, bombarding Paris v. ith a long-range cannon, which n-d flvirl ten-inch shells upon the capital ai-i ;-u----burbs every quarter of an b<.u •, :niJ that there had been a linziti ;-tu..ie kill ed arid 15 injured.. The Temps only added to the universal astonishment by' adding to the official statement ihat the nearest point of the enemy lines it

fhan 60 miles fmm Paris • The gun is believed to be an Austrian _gun of 240 millimetres calibre, and every shell discharged must cost £2O "Twenty-four shells were sent into Parisat a rate of one every 20 .minutes, and the day's bombardment therefore cost £1920- * The mystery may be explain. Ed in two ways, says the Journal, eith er by the employment of a secret mech anical device or by the use of an explosive of an expansive powe rhitherto unknown. The mechanical device might be any one of various kind.*. One' can imagine a shell in some way dividing in two in the course of its journey, and at a grave moment relea? ing a new projectile or even a projectile with a propeller, enabling it to continue its journey when it is no longer driven by the projecting force from the gun - Again, it is possible to conceive an altogether original ballistic method, - such as a machine using simply centrifugal force. The employment of an explosive infinitely more powerful than , any yet in use is quite possible, for we - / are far from having found the maximum of explosive force which it is possible to reach.

CANNON 1 ECVEaPIED IN FRANCE

The : Echo do Paris -recalls that a French professor last year submitted to the French Inventions Department an impracticable invention which he haa just completed, based' on an idea conceived by a Russian. It was intended to increase the range of guns three oeven four times by the use of a special fuse, which was to surround the shell dnring the whole of its flight .with a hwer of warm air, thus reducing the -. - tesintance of the air. Thus a 240-milli- " metre shell, with an initial velocity of from 900 to 950 metres a second, would be able, it was claimed, to throw the -shell nearly 100 fcilometres-M>2i mile? The professor, whose invention was at that time rejected, is now reported to have obtained the promise of an Interview with M._ Clemenceau. According to iJinfovmation. thr can non was invented in France. The paper add?: "A friend of ours, who ir i> -' technician, tells us that the pvojectiir* . is grooved into its seel envelope, or "" cover, on all, or nearly att, its length. - Further, it contains a second' shell, which 'at 24 miles from its starting 33 shoots out, and by means of propellor?, - the arrangement of which we know, ■„ may travel another 60 miles till it it . spent. Of course, snch a gun is soon worn out.