Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1916 — LIGHT RAYS NEW AID IN WARFARE [ARTICLE]

LIGHT RAYS NEW AID IN WARFARE

Englishman Invents Remarkable Engine of War Called "Light-o-Mine.” — IS USED IN FRENCH ATTACKS -Mines Laid In Captured Trenches Are Set Off by Ray of Light When Reoccupied by the * Enemy. - Paris. —Light as an adjunct .and aid of modern warfare is the newest ally of the allies, summoned to aid in the campaign against the central powers by 11. Grindell Matthews, an Englishman. Grindell Matthews* engine of war is called a "light-o-mine,” and comprises an electro-clockwork arrangement that is attached to a series of bombs and which is set oft by a ray of light. The new form of trench lighting, the raiding tactics first carried out by the Britisli and now being engaged in to a great extent by the Russian troops on the French front and by the poilus themselves, avails Itself largely of the use of this “light-o-mine.”

The apparatus itself is about a y ard long and four inches square. It consists ,of a lens at one end, open and resembling a pocket flash lamp. Inside is u dry battery, a sensitized plate and a clockwork, and from that lead wires. When a raid is made on an enemy trench, this apparatus is carried, and with it a line of trench bombs. Now a line of trench bombs consists merely of 20 or 50 or 100 or 200 yards of ordinary iron piping, a little larger, for instance, than gas piping. The piping is cut in suitable lengths—say 10 or 15 feet long each. From each of the ends protrude two bits of wire, the positive and the negative, for the current to be transmitted to detonate the bombs. The piping is packed tightly with alternate chambers of T N T, as the allies’ standard high explosive trinitrotoluol is called, and shrapnel, bits of iron nails and slugs of metal. ♦

Mines Are Planted. The raiding party carrying this equipment and preceded by a wave of grenade throwers, raids the enemy trench after a short but intense bombardment. They bayonet or blow up with grenades the survivors in the trench, then hastily lay this mine of piping, all connected up with the wires, In the bottom of the trench, covering it over with a few spadefuls of earth. The end of the long pipe-line of bombs is attached by wires to the “light-o-mine” apparatus. and this is hidden in the enemy trench, leaving the bull’s-eye lens exposed and pointing back at some object in the Franco-British lines. About this time the German batteries in the rear have been advised that an enemy detachment is occupying a front trench section at that point and a few shells begin to drop in. That is the signal for the raiders to clear out and return to their own positions. Cautiously the enepiy reconnoiters forward when he hears nothing and no shots are fired from the lost trench. Finally he approaches and finds it deserted. The first thing he does Js to clamber over the parapet and look for wires leading across the No Man’s Land to the raiding party’s positions, and finding none, has no suspicion that a mine has been placed in his trench. Troops are sent forward to reoccupy the trench, and just when it is comfortably held by the Germans again, a star shell is sent up from the Fran-co-British position in a line following that toward which the lens of the “light-o-mine” is pointed. The light serves to set off the long line of piping, full of T N T and shrapnel, and the Germans are blown out of the trench. It would not be feasible to detonate the mines by wireless on the principle used by John Hayes Hammond, Jr„ in guiding his manless boat, as in the first place it would thus be necessary to place aerials above the German trenches after a mine were laid and the enemy would notice the uprights

at once. In the second place the activity of the wireless apparatus of both allled-and German machines overhead. signaling directions tq batteries, would “Jam" the connection necessary to fire the mine by activity. Italian Works Fake. Some years ago an Italian naval officer named Vakittl announced that he had Invented a contrivance for detonating explosives at some distance off by wireless rays. Tests were made as Ostia, (harbor of Route,) and on one occasion he apparently exploded a mine buried on the far side of one of the hills surrounding the harbor. He flashed the rays from an ItalMn warship. Investigation indicated, however, that he used fake mines, prepared automatically so they would explode after a certain time had elapsed. Grinnell Matthews’ proposition is quite different, however, the actual starting of the contrivance for setting off the bomb being begun by the effect of the ray of light entering the eye of the lens, and thence being carried out by the electric battery and the clockwork. The mines can be set off In daylight, ordinary light having no effect on the-16ns. Only if the lens were directed squarely at the sun would it produce the required effect.