Evening star., 1940-02-18
THIS WEEK MAGAZINE
CAN Our PLANES PROTECT Us?
Continued from poes four
Continued from poss four

travel before reaching their objec-
tives. Listening posts, situated along
our seacoast, can warn inland cities,
such. as Pittsburgh. in ample time.
But Boston, Hartford, Bridgeport,
New York, Jersey City. Philadelphia
and a score of other Atlantic coast
industrial centers, have far smaller
margin of safety. The same thing is
true of the industrial cities on our
West Coast. Listening devices placed
on off-shore ships. of course, can
partially overcome this great handi-
cap. but they will always be far less
efficient than land-based posts.
The constantly increasing speed
and range of the bombers make this
geographical weakness of SO many
of our great cities matter Of high
Importance. Bombers attacking at
$50 miles an hour move one-half as
fast as the speed of sound - one-half
as fast as the bullet from an army
pistol. Incredible as it may seem. these
future bombers will cover 100 miles
in from fifteen to twenty minutes.
That leaves precious little time for
the defending pursuit planes to take
off and meet the attackers or for an
tiaircraft defenses to be manned.
Let's consider for a moment the
district Immediately around Greater
New York. In this area almost fifty
per cent of the critical war materials
of the United States Army and Navy
are manufactured. And eighteen elec-
t,ic plants furnish ninety per cent Of
the tosoer for these factories. as '0eN as
for tie 1900. 900 people Who lise in
this concentrated district.
Every alert general staff in the
world knows the exact location OF
these power plants. And they know
what their bombers of the future may
be able to do to them in one great air
raid. Granted that this may seem
fanciful to us now, but let us specu-
late as to what damage these long
range future bombers might do to us
provided they were not stopped before
they could get off their nests, or were
not intercepted, or shot down by
pursuit planes or antiaircraft guns.
New York. with its power plants
out of commission. would become
shambles in twenty-four hours. 1t
would be helpless paralytic. fum-
bling about in a perpetual black-out.
No water tap would work: almost no
wheels would turn: few trains would
move. Many children and invalids
would almost surely die of thirst and
hunger before they could beevacuated.
And much of our war industries would
dry up at their source.
And the New York area is only one
of our highly important industrial
and population centers.
Ill ltlC BICdt II i0AiSAC SASSaAAaA6 "a o'AA
Detroit to Pittsburgh and Boston
lie ninety per cent of our war indus
tries. If foreign powers continue to
increase their air-offensive possibili-
ties at the rate they are increasing
today - and if we do not keep pace
with them - at some not far-distant
date the great triangle that is the
crucible of our defense may be at the
mercy of long-range bombers. Slow
moving and unprepared as we are to-
day, our condition would be utterly
hopeless if our war industries we're
shattered, our great cities rendered
helpless and our civil morale shaken.
Our powerful Navy might keep off
actual land invaders but the Navy's
own shore bases would be subject to
air bombardment, and unless the
bombers were driven off, these bases
might actually be destroyed. Save
only actual defeat at sea, this is the