BRITAIN’S DEFENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18624, 4 August 1922, Page 5

BRITAIN’S DEFENCE

EXTENSION OF AIR FORGE. EXPENDITURE OF £2,000,000 ARMY AND NAVY ECONOMIES. Free* Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, August 1. The Daily Express understands that the Imperial Defence Committee proposes additional expenditure of £2,000,000 on an extension of the Air Force by at least 20 squadrons, the money to be provided by means of further economies in the Navy and Army. It is suggested that a skeleton air organisation can thus be provided capable of immediate extension in case of need.—A. and N.Z. Cable. AIR RAID MENACE. ADMIRAL KERR’S VIEWS. ONE AND A-HALF POWER STANDARD NECESSARY. LONDON, August 1. Admiral Mark Kerr, interviewed, declared that in the air Great Britain must have at least one and a-half Power stan. dard. Within three hours of the declaration of war by a Continental country against Britain, the enemy aeroplanes would be over London. Britain’s only defence consisted in the ability to make constant raids on the enemy’s airbases. Future raids would be almost beyond imagination. in their frightfulness. One nation had an acid, three drops of which would kill a man. Then there was poisongas and high explosive bombs. London was bonnd to suffer the most, but the whole of Britain would be within airbombing range, and bombs would be rained over every city where munitions were being made.—A. and N.Z. Cable. APPALLING WARS COMING. MENACE OF POISON GASES. AN ALARMING PREDICTION. LONDON, August 1. The experimental bombing of the Agamemnon seems to have complicated the heated question of air superiority over surface craft, and further fuel is added to the controversy bv the alarming statements made by Mr Edison in an interview published' in a Paris paper. The famous American inventor stated: I do not believe that the aeroplane would have any chance _of playing a part at sea except against merchant ships, but I believe that capital ships are obsolete. Neither I nor any of my acquaintances have discovered any pro- ■ toction against the aeronlane, even in its present state of development. No means exist to prevent an aeroplane flotilla from flying over London tomorrow and spreading over London’s population great quantities of gas, which would asphyxiate evervone in a relatively short time. Fifty aeroplanes would be sufficient for this purpose. Mr Edison’s reference is to Lewisite, the deadliest poison-gas produced, which is the invention lof German and Japanese scientists. Mr Edison declares that war will ultimately be suppressed by the invention of some machine so absolutely; terrifying J ln its possibilities that mankind will renounce warfare for evermore. “I believe,” he continued, “that the world is on the eve of new and appalling wars, which will threaten civilisation. . Submarines will decide the next naval War.’” —A. and N.Z. Cable.

IMPORTANT EXPERIMENTS. WIRELESS-CONTROLLED AEROPLANES. LONDON. August 2, {Received August 3, at 5.5 p.m.) The Air Ministry expert, interviewed, pointed out that just as the Agamemnon, with no one aboard, was steered by means of wireless operated from a torpedo-boat, important experiments are being carried, out in Britain with a view to the application of the same method to bombcarrying aeroplanes. In France recently an unoccupied plane flew 300 miles unaided by any human agency except a wireless operator at the base. It is believed in the near future that war planes will be simply flying bombs, directed at and made to discharge bombs over any distant objective with exactitude by means of wireless. There is nothing to stop such a machine a direct hit by a land gun. Such machines could be produced most cheaply, as they would not need to be carefully built or tested. It is believed that the next naval war will be torpedoes ramming vessels controlled and steered by wireless from an aeroplane thousands' of feet above.—A. and N.Z. Cable. THE AGAMEMNON’S TRIALS. AN EXPERT’S VIEWS. LONDON. August 2. (Received August 3, at 5.5 p.m.) Mr Graham White, interviewed, said that the Ageraemnon trials had proved that the nation with the largest air fence would control the ocean traffic in the next war. The surface of the ocean would still need guarding, but not by super-Dread-noughts or super-Hoods.—A. and N.Z. Cable.