The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1945-08-15
u. S. AHEAD OF NAILS

The idea. that German technicai pro-
gress was far ahead of the. work done by
American technical men is definitely refut-
ed by the report of Colonel William R.
Lovelace, hero medical expert of the Army,
who has just returned from Germany
Col. Lovelace says that German scien-
lists were instructed by high Nazi officials
to burn their records, but, instead, sealed
them in metal boxes which were buried.
These were dug up by his staff and German
experts, he reports, readily supplied infor-
nation and even offered their plans of re-
search in connection with aviation.
The Colonel says that the United States
majority of subjects, although some of the
Nazi experiments and inventions were well
worthwhile. He was particularly pleased
with the ELECTION seat" developed by the
Germans to catapult filters from planes
when they were unable to bail out at high
speeds.
This great contribution" to aviation
went into action when fighter pilot showed
back his canopy and pressed button. A
charge of cordite expelled him in an alum
mum chair, clearing the tail of the plane
and permitting the airman to release the
chair, open his parachute and float down to
earth. Our aviation experts are now work
ing on similar election seat taking adj
vantage of the German experiments which
were rot perfected without fatalities.
Col. Lovelace says that the Germans
were amazed that our Psi fighter planes
could maintain superior ratio of kills over
their jet-propelled aircraft and attributed
this to our anti-blackout costume which en-
abled cur airmen to outmaneuvre the fast
err enemy aircraft. he says that the Nazis,
who have no black-out suit, were preparing
to copy our 'B-suit," when the war ended.
The medical officer also reports that
our oxygen equipment was far superior to
that of the Nazis and that German scientists
were surprised by the knowledge our air
men had of using oxygen and the physiol-
ogy of flight in general. Some of them
thought that the American boys knew more
than many German flight surgeons.
Col. Lovelace says that the Germans
first employed air for evacuating sick and
wounded men in the Spanish Civil War, but
were far behind us in this important life
saving measure. They used only one type
of aircraft, whereas the Army Air Force
equipped all cargo planes and some bombers
with litter installations. Since Pearl Harbor,
we have evacuated l,170,000 sick and
wounded men by air and can put 100000
ambulance beds in the Sky at once.
Another point of superiority reported
by Col. Lovelace relates to the surgical and
medical care of our filters, which was far
above that given German airmen. He was
surprised at the German deficiency in
equipment, in view of their panstaking re-
search. and pleased by the collective Ger
man reports describing the great value of
our devices when captured.
In conclusion, the Colonel says that the
fundamental research of the Nazis was as
good as ours, especially in the optical ex-
periments. Moreover, German doctors and
scientists carried out wind speed tests on
themselves up to more than five hundred
miles an hour.
A note of cruelty appears in connection
with experiments conducted by the Nazis
upon political and war prisoners in order to
find out how long it took person to die
when pushed into barrel of ice water
No American prisoners were involved in
these experiments carried on near Munich,
but they numbered about twenty-five and
resulted in the death of probably half-a-
dozen prisoners. The Nazi scientists took
data on respiration, temperature, blood
pressure and compiled the results in pamph-
lets marked by the name of the man on
whom the experiment was conducted