Republican farmer., 1918-05-10
Man WHO VISITED
PARIS DESCRIBES
BURSTING BOMBS
Paris Shopkeepers just Be-
ginning to Bedizen Allur-
ing Windows.
SHELLS FIRED BY
AIR COMPRESSION
Explosions Every Fifteen
Minutes Kept Heavens
Like Smoke Pots.


begun to bedizen their al1uring win
dows when the dull boom Of a burst
ing bomb, synchroniZing with the
shrii1 scream Of the fire engines Civ
ing the air raid alert" caused a
nasty withdrawal of these Partisan
attractions. Then followed the quick
closing of shutters and a general
scramble of all-employers, shop
managers, all the way down to the
tiny cash girls-to the cellars, there
to await for the "Al1 clear" signal,
And they waited all day long and
the signal did not come. So when
night fell they came out of their bur-
| rows and found their way home as
best they could, for the omnibuses
were off.
Every Is minutes all day long some
| thing came from out of the heavens
| and burst with crackle or a boom
| according to the distance from the
| anxious listener.
The First Scare.
AT first everyone accepted the
| theory of a daytime air raid. Then
doubts arose, and late in the after
noon an ugly rumor spread that the
| Germans had broken through and
were beginning a real bombardment
of Paris. An uneasy feeling ensued,
and during the evening the stations
| leading south, west and northwest
were crowded with timid and unin=
formed people trying to get away
from the city.
| Meantime, among officials and
army people-French, English and
American speculation arose as to
what the projectiles were. Some Eek
| peFts" explained to me that the shells
were expelled from a gun back of the
lines nested in layers of three-the
outer shell, acting as an aerial gun,
firing in fight, the other two during
the flight propelling the third and
last one on the remainder of the long
| mile journey.
Another theory, discussed and
| quickly discarded, was that the shell
was fired by air compression, that a
propeller at the butt and carried the
whole forward like torpedo from a
| U-boat, and that when the propeller
ceased to revolve the shell fell and
| exploded in the city.
Late in the evening I was dining in
the Ave Montague with representa-
tive members Of both branches of the
service and their expert opinion crys-
talized and agreed upon the proba-
bility that the shells arrived in Paris
directly from the gun or guns as the
simple and direct result Of the original
muzzle velocity aided by the height
of the trajectory estimated
asf rom 16 to 20 miIes-beyond the
ascertained conditions of the atmos-
pheric stratum of the earth. Away
up there the air resistance to the shell
speed would be almost nil.
But if the object of the Boche was
to disorganize the business affairs Of
Paris-particularly the war indus
tries-he quite completely succeeded
for one day. Only the unknown mys-
titles one into inaction. When Paris
knew, the second morning, that the
ity Beautiful and Brave was actually
being shelled at regular intervals by
one or two moral-effect guns from the
German lines, it promptly nullif1ed the
effect on it's moral and went about its
affairs in it's normal everyday fash
iona quiet, reasonable, common
|
effort at frightfulness.
The Brave Children.
: My host on Friday night told me
of his little girl, who had gone to
school that morning before the first
shell dropped from the clear skies
All the children had been shepherded
into the cellar; in there they were
kept for seven hours waiting for the
'all clar" signal. Neither she nor the
others complained, except that they
could not play games. That was all
the effect it had on them.
Apparently the gun was kept at
the same elevation all day long Ac-
curacy is impossible at that distance,
and I suppose that two shells aimed
in precisely the same way would
reach the earth on the same line of
direction perhaps two miles apart.
But from the way the shells arrived,
it would seem that those directing the
fire were trying to drop them on a
line about three miles at right angles
to the point of the gun. "
As to the gun itself-the opinion
gems to be that it was, or is, of or
FINALLY large caibre, reduced by an
, ddOlClOndl inner lIHlHSJ 10 give Ire
mendous resistance to the force Of
the firing explosive; that it was en-
bedded in the earth, so that Mother
Earth herself should take up prac-
tically all of the recoil, thereby add
ing to the initial velocity.-(By the
International News Bureau, Inc, Bos-
ton.