Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 269, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1913 — TO BLOW up BATTLESHIPS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TO BLOW up BATTLESHIPS

by WIRELESS

/ PROPOSE to revolution- — ize warfare on land and Thiß 18 the confldent, y F|l calm,wholly matter-of-fact prediction made by TyfpiKk 53 Ulivi, the Italian engineer and chemist. In a word, he flatly declares I ’ that he has perfected an 1 apparatus by means of which he can\iroject wireless waves at an eneday’s ships and blow them off the face of the waters! These are not the idle mouthlngs of an irresponsible dreamer. Were they uttered by any one less important perhaps Ifttle heed would be given to them by officialdom abroad, Not so with the talented Italian. All Europe is watching hiß every move, and even now the government of France is considering whether of not it is advisable -to pay the vast sum the wireless expert demands for a monopoly of his Invention. Imagine what it means to be able to blow up a battleship or a cruiser without the firing of a single shot! Warfare will be,revolutionized indeed! A steel-sided leviathan of the deep can do no harm far out at sea if the enemy has nd shlpß, but let it once approach the coast and threaten to lay low some great port—behold! The press of a button in a shore station, the instant crackle of the wireless as it sips through the blue ether and instantly the great thing of steel parts amidships with the roar of a thousand guns and sinks to the ocean’s floor, a broken, distorted mass. No dream, this. It has gone beyond the experimental stage. For weeks past a mysterious yacht, fitted with powerful wireless apparatus, has been hovering off the Norman coast of France. Aboard has been a notable party and —Ulivi. Now the secret is out. They have been blowing up submarine mines by wireless as a preliminary to more drastic experiments. • The yacht is the rakish Lady Henrietta, flying the British flag, but under French ownership. Within her sharp lines is hidden the revolutionizing secret which not only Francd but the government of the United States and all’the powers of Europe have been seeking ever since wireless waves have been a fact and wireless poder a possibility. And this secret is the new invention—as yet in its infancy—for exploding at any desired distance from 600 to 6,000 yards by wirelesk. infra-red solar spectrum waves all explosive substances in contact with metal. Briefly this means that Ulivi says he can detonate the guncotton or the powder contained in a warship’s magazine by meanß of wireless, and the French Government is seeing if it can be done. The infra-red rays of the solar spectrum are those mysterious beams beyond the edge of the red, invisible to the human eye but nevertheless there. For convenience Ulivi calls them “F-rays*”' They are akin to X-rays in that they can penetrate metal, but instead of making objects visible they develop force beyond the barriers whibh can deflect the most powerful projectile, but are as glass to the potent force of the little known rays • beyond the red, whatever unthinkable color they may be. *How < hey work or in what manner t!iiyt has controlled them nobody but he knows. But that they have worked be himself frankly states and the official commission which, went to sea with him solemnly gives assent tillvl did not go about his work under any cloak of secrecy of mystery. With him cm the Lady Henrietta went Gen.

de Castelnau, assistant chief of the general staff of the French army; Commander Ferrie, director of the wireless telegraph station on top of the Eiffel tower, Paris, and Captain Cloitre, representing the French minister of marine. “We have reported to our government,’’ said General de Castelnau seriously, "and everything we have said must be kept a profound state secret” It is no breach of confidence to say, however, that the commission has unanimously reported in favor of France securing the invention without delay, no matter what the price. This consists, stripped of technicalities, of a special projectile emitting return in-fra-red rays which find the exact distance and the exact radio-magnetic capacity of metallic objects. When these are determined with precision the Ulivi “F-ray” is then shot out from its station afloat or ashore and a long distance explosion tabes> place instantly with mathematical accuracy. This is not merely Ulivi’s hope of revolutionize warfare. Experiments made near Villers prove that it can be done even with the unperfected apparatus already put together. So ao: curately has the projector worked that two mines were placed five yards apart at 1,000 yards’ distance and either one exploded at will, the other remaining intact It works as well by land as by sea; it can be applied to dirigible balloons like the German Zeppelins. “And,” declares Ulivi confidently "it wili render a ship freighted with explosive ammunition more dangerous to those aboard her than to their own enemies!” ' Dictated by Commander George W. Williams, U. 8. N. Inspector in Command U. S. Torpedo Station, Newport, R. L If the Italian, Ulivi, has devised something by which be can explode a magazine at a distance by the Hertzian rays then we will surely get something to combat it If projectiles can be deflected by shields surely wireless power can be deflected too. But this new power—if there is such

a power—will not alone be used for war; its use in the arts would be far too important to be overlooked. And if it has been discovered at last I am not at all surprised—nothing would surprise me in this age of miracles! I have not the slightest doubt that at this time Signor Ulivi has been able to construct antennae and specially designed receiving instruments and relays by which he can explode at a considerable distance an especially prepared charge of guncotton or other explosive. In fact, I have seen the thing done here already—the idea is not altogether new. This working apparatus is the Shoemaker torpedo. It is a full-sized torpedo wirelessly controlled. This formidable weapon can be started, stopped, steered and exploded by an operator at a distance, but it requires special receiving apparatus In the torpedo itself. It can perform what is expected of it, but it is not practical for the very good . reason that the operator cannot see far enough to exercise his judgment in the control of the instrument Take a motor boat 2,000 yards away—you can’t tell exactly how she is heading. How much harder then to judge the steering of a distant torpedo! The French navy has already had trials with wireless torpedoes, and what Ulivi has accomplished is probably an extension of these experiments. Now, what mysterious power is it that he has? Or, better, what is Ulivi trying to obtain? Briefly this: Some means of projecting energy through space that will detonate some explosive at ti given place, subject to the control of the operator. As I have said, this is no new idea. Frank R. Stockton has it in his Btory, “The Great War Syndicate,” and H. G. Wells used it in “The War of the Worlds.” The same Bcheme has already been proposed at the bureau of Ordnance of the navy, too. One inventor asserted that he had effected a combination of mechanism that could project the Hertzian waves or other wireless waves generated by electricity and explode a designated charge at a distance.