The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1909-10-21


Air means the inevitable destruction
of such cities.
No forts can defend them, because
forts, like battlesbips, are impotent
and powerless against an adversary
novering more than mile above
them. and pouring its volleys of de-
struction upon them with the help of
gravitation, while those on the
ground must overcome the force of
gravity with their return fire
Soldiers will be useless in such
contests because their determination
will be as easy by an enemy in the
air as pouring sand from shovel
upon swarming ant hill. Any Army
of today would be moved down by
the rapid firing guns from air ships
With as much ease as few vOlleys
from modern machine guns would
have decmated the Macedonian
Pnalanxes of Alexander or the
Roman Legions of Caesar. AS USE
less as those once resistless fighting
| forces of the Ancients would be to
lay, Will be our regiments and
oattalions when they stand helpless
beneath hail of death dealing ex-
plosives rained upon them from an
aerial feet. For we may be sure
there will be aerial fleets.
We have been talking of England
and London.
How about the United States and
New York?
As yet we are lndulglng the same
somnolent complacency that char
acterized England so long as she
imagined that the English Channel
constituted an impossible barrier
against her enemies on the continent.
We have the Atlantic Ocean.
How much good VIII that do us?
In few years, airships that will
Gloss the Atlantic In three days, any
one of them carrying enough bombs
and torpedoes to utterly destroy
New York. will exist by hundreds
whole fleets of them. What if they
crossed the ocean on such an GRAND
never to return. Does any one
question that a cali for crew to
manage a warsnip of the air for such
an GRAND would have instant re-
Spouse. Trained aerial Soldiers and
Navigators would clamor for the dis
tinction tho it meant certain death.
The impotence of every existing
military and naval defense for the
protection of city from Aerial
stack being demonstrated the ques-
ton arises:
Can an aerial feet defend as well
as attack a city and in that way pre-
vent it's destruction?
The answer must be no, for one
simple reason, if for none other.
Nothing could prevent an invading
fleet of airships from reaching point
above a city marked for attack. In
the night or above the clouds, they
could gather above the city and the
first prem0nition of danger would be
rain of explosive bombs and torpe-
does from the Heavens.
A defending feet of airships might
hurry to attack the invaders, but the
battle in the air above it would mean
the certain destruction of the city
below.
San Francisco was destroyed by
| fires, which started from the cracking
of chimneys by the earthquake and
the scattering of fires which had been
built by early risers to cook their
breakfasts. BY comparison what
would be The effect upon our wooden
cities of pouring down upon them
the deadly hail of fire that would be
turned loose in the air by battle in
the clouds above the city
Picture to the imagination what
would happen in New York;
The first intimation of attack would
be searchlight blazing out In the
heavens and turned downwards to
direct the aim of the rapid firing
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