New Britain herald., 1918-01-03
AIRPLANES BIG NEED
 OVER IN FRANCE
American Major Gives Interesting
 Views Of His Visit

Baltimore, Jan. 3.-"The big need in France is for airplanes and for air planes quick. Everybody over there asks when they are coming and how { many. This country ought to have fleet of fighting planes in the air by spring. This is the opinion of Major | Robert w. Wood, the eminent phy- slclst who was sent abroad in Sep tember by the United States govern n1ent at the invitation of the French govern ment to study scientific prob lems connected with the conduct of the war. Major Wood returned last week and for the present will devote his time to work in this country.
 Tt is not possible to emphasize this fact too strongly" continued Major Wood 'I believe the war will be won in the air and that in the future offen- sive tactics will play as great part as l the work of observation, but am not at liberty to speak of these matters.
 One thing about which much popular misapprehension exists, how ever, is fighting, in the air. People imagine that airplane duels are every day occurrences. AS a, matter of ia ct they are comparatively rare. Planes are more apt to avoid each other than to fight. Most of the smelling is done by anti-aircraft guns and when air fights take place they are usually so high up as to be invisible to observers on the ground.
 T saw an artillery officer who had been on the front for many months and had never seen a fight in the air When I was outside Nancy one inc ot Boche plane come over, it was up in the region where there was still sum- light, and the puffs of smoke from the shells fired by the anti-aircraft guns were turned to rose color by the glow. I counted 12O of them, but the Boche made his getaway
 "The effects of the torpedoes drop ped from the Gothas are eXtraord nary. They will go straight down through seven story building to the basement, where they explode with a time fuse. Any house that has been hit in this manner acts as an explo- sive. At Nancy I saw a house that had been struck, and the fragments of it had wrecked every house in the square on which it stood
 The anti aircraft guns are mar velous in their range and comparative accuracy. At St. Clement I saw a Zeppelin that had been brought down from 16,0O0 feet by an anti-aircraft shell. Of course the Zeppelins moved more slowly and make much better targets than airpIanes. This particu- lar Zeppelin had just been brought down and it was still burning. Most of the crew had been carried away, but I saw a hand sticking out from q jobt
 When asked to tell what were just most unforgetable experiences, Major Wood said that two stood out in his memory-a night bonn bardment by airplanes at Nancy and a day at the British front. He continued: "On our trip to the front we drove in a luxurious limousine down corduroy road with nine-inch howitzers on both sides firing over our heads. After we had gone as far as we could we put on steel helmets and gas masks and walked the rest of the way. We did not strike any gas, but the new gases are pretty bad. They are not gases properly speaking, but liquids, that evaporate slowly and give off fumes."
 Major Wood refused to define the exact nature of the scientific prob
  to solve.
 Tn a general way I may say that some of them consist in devising means of locating batteries and meth ods of signalling," he said. "It is curi- ous, though, that with all our scien- tific devices, carrier pigeons have been found most effective after all in carrying messa ges to and from the front lines.
 T heard a remarkable story about one of these pigeons It had been struck by a shell splinter and it's leg driven up into it's body in such a way that the dispatch was carried with it. Tn spite of being desperately wounded the bird flew all the way home and dropped dead inside the home cote"
 According to Major Wood, America is not the only nation that is burdened with red tape.
 When I was in France I wanted a certain chemical for an important test, and I had to have it immediate ly. A request through official chan nel brought the information that Prof. - had some of what I want | ed, but that it would take a, month to get if, as the request had to be re- ferred to several authorities.
 I'll ask him myself I said I wae assured that it was not en regle and 1 couldn't be done, but I didn't see it that way. I called on the professor 1 myself and left the laboratory with all , he had in my pocket. So it is some ] times possible to cut red tape"
 Another thing struck me in 1 F'rance,' he continued. "The war has not speeded up certain things in l France. They still take two hours for ' lunch. All the laboratories are locked 1 Up between 12 and 2 and if the cus- l todian lets you in between these hours it is under protest. They have bor- ! roWed our poster, There are six men l killed every minute Don't waste that |