BOMBARDMENT OF PARIS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16850, 15 May 1918, Page 7

BOMBARDMENT OF PARIS

GERMAN LONG-RANGE GUN.

CITY NOT PERTURBED. \ Paris was frankly puzzled when the bombardment of the city by a German longrange gun -was commenced. At 7.25 on a Saturday morning several dull reports were heard in quick succession, but these caused no apprehension, as it was generally understood from the warnings previously issued that they proceeded from the intentional explosion of quantities of grenades which had been damaged in the catastrophe at La 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 onwards, however, other explosions continued to be heard at regular intervals of a quarter of an hour, and these the authorities soon determined could have no possible connection witn the destruction of grenades at La Courneuve. At 9.15, therefore, fire engines were sent 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 bolted for the nearest underground shelters, of which there are now several 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 the streets. Loud explosions of bombs or other projectiles were heard at regular intervals of 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 any description. Said to Be Austrian Gun.

It was a lovely spring morning, with bright sunshine and a warm, light, westerly wind, and before long joyous parties of young people emerged from the cellars and began promenading the boulevards in true Parisian fashion. Every quarter of an hour for six hours the report of a falling bomb or shell was heard with the regularity of clockwork from 8.20 till 2.30. A little procession 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 after four o'clock the population were electrified to read an official communique stating that the explosions of the morning were due to the fact that the Germans had been bombarding Paris with a long-range cannon, which had fired teninch shells upon the capital and suburbs every quarter of an hour, and that there had been a dozen people killed and fifteen injured. The .Temps only added to the universal astonishment by adding to the official statement that the nearest point of the enemy lines is more than sixty miles from Paris.

The gun is believed to be an Austrian gun of 240 millimetres calibre, and every shell discharged must cost £80. Twentyfour shells were sent into Paris, at a rate of one every 20 minutes, and the day's bombardment therefore cost £1920. The mystery may be explained in two ways, i says the Journal, either by the employment of a secret mechanical device or by the use of an explosive of an expansive power hitherto unknown. The mechanical device might be any one of various kinds. One can imagine a shell in some way dividing in two in the course of its journey, and at a given moment releasing a new projectile or even a projectile with ,a popeller, enabling it to continue its journey when it is no longer driven bv 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. Canon Invented in France. The Echo de Paris /'recalls that a French professor last year submitted to the French Inventions Department an impracticable invention which he had just completed, based on an idea conceived by a Russian. It was intended to increase the range of guns three or even four times by the use of a special fuse, which was to surround the shell during the whole of its flight with a layer of warm air, thus reducing the resistance 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 kilometers— miles. 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 L'lnformation, the cannon wp.s invented in France. The paper adds: "A friend of ours, who is a technician, tells us that the projectile is grooved into its steel envelope, or cover, on all, or nearly all, its length. Further, it contains a second shell, which at 24 miles from its starting point shoots out,- and by means of propellers, the arrangement of which we know, may travel another 50 miles till it is spent. Of course, such a gun is soon Mpra out.