Daily Post - 20.08.1943, Blaðsíða 4

4 •
DAILYPOST
Jap Pianes it Sbatterini Power Of
wmao^wtped Bloch-Busfers Bevealed
In New Guinea, the Allied
have completed the destruction
of the enemy machines as-
sembled on the airfields in the
Wiwack area. Two hundred
and fifteen out of a total of
225 enemy aircraft have been
wiped out.
Yesterday, General MacArt-
hur’s bombers returned to the
attack on the aircraft concen-
trated at the great Japanese op-
erational air base of Wiwack.
They completed the wrok be-
gun on Tuesday, and practi-
cally destroyed the remaining
50 or so machines, shooting
down 28 out of 30 attacking
fighters to boot.
The airfields have practi-
cally been bombed to annihila-
tion says one correspondent’s
message, and the whole area is
just a junk heap of twisted,
wrecked and blazing aircraft.
The Japanese challenge to the
Allied control of the New
Guinea skies, has ended in the
greatest disaster for the ene-
my.
Chaos Reigning
In Nilan
The U.S. Army gave chemists
a clue to the shattering power
of block-buster bombs dropped
on Germany in the past few
months. The clue is hexamine,
one of the ingredients in the
explosive with which block-
busters are packed for quick
and shattering destruction.
Use of the new explosive
was announced to newsmen
last week at the award of an
Army & Navy “E” pennant to
a Du Pont plant at Perth Am-
boy, N.J., where hexamine is
made. The other ingredients of
the explosive are secret, but
the Army described its pro-
perties: it explodes faster and
more violently than TNT. Ap-
parently it has been used so
far only in bombs, for which it
is ideal.
No new product, hexamine
(full name: hexamethylnetétra-
mine) has been recognized by
chemists for years as having
explosive possibilities. It is a
white granular substance that
looks and feels like sugar, is
( chemically compounded from
ammonia gas and formalde-
hyde (which in turn is pro-
duced from wood alcohol).
In making hexamine for the
new explosive, key trick was
to turn out the chemical in a
special grade. The size of the
granules had to be changed
from earlier manufacture;
moisture content and other
properties also had to be
changed and closely governed
in manufacture.
Du Pont’s process, now used
in all hexamine plants, com-
bines liquid formaldehyde and
liquid ammonia to form hexa-
mine by a secret method. The
solution is then passed into an
evaporator, where it is boiled
down into crystaline form.
This substance is dried, ground
and shipped in powder form to
explosives plants. Said a Du
Pont worker: “We never see
the finished product. But Hitler
does—plenty.’
Unlike TNT, which calls for
ammonia, sulfuric and nitric
acids and toluene, hexamine
requires no critical materials.
Its basic raw ingredients are
coke, air and water. Total pro-
duction in U.S. in 1941 was
4,000,000 lb. New factories
built since then have multi-
plied that output many times.
But before war came, hexa-
mine was a minor industrial
product. Its chief uses then
were in the manufacture of
plastics and as an ingredient
in an antiseptic for the urinary
tract.
Roosevelt, Churchill
Conference Continnesj
♦ ■
Quebec. — The Rbosevelt- ! Ottawa early next week.
Churchill conferences in Que-
bec continued and it was dis-
Swiss reports continue to de-
scribe the devastation and
chaos reigning in the worst
bombed Italian cities, particul-
arly Milan. The telephone ser-
vice between Italy and Switz-
erland is still suspended.
Swiss messages report peace
■demonstrations in many of the
large cities such as Milan,
Rome, Florence and Genoa. An-
other message from the same
source tells of the evacuation
of the Italian towns near the
Swiss border, and reports that
the issue of frontier passes has
been stopped.
Careless Taik
Gosts Lives
closed they would be con-
cludedv early next week when
Mr. Roosevelt goes to Ottawa
on an official wartime visit to
the Canadian Capital.
President Roosevelt and
Prime Minister Churchill were
luncheon guests today of Ca-
nadian Governor General,
Lord Athlone. It was announc-
ed that Mr. Roosevelt has ac-
cepted an invitation from the
| Canadina Government to visit
British Foreign Secretary
Anthony Edén arrived in Que-
bec this afternoon to attend
the Allied Staff conferences.
Eden was accompanied on his
clipper flight from England by
the permanent Under-Secre-
tary of the Foreign Office, Sir
Alexander Cadogan, and Brit-
ish Information Chief, Brendan
Bracken. Eden will hold a ser-
ies of conferences with U.S.
Secretary of State Cordell
Hull.
Air Offensive
Against Oermany
Continoes
The Allied air offensive ag-
ainst Germany was kept up
during the night with numer-
ous attacks on airfields and
railway communications in
Northern France, and shipping
off the coast. At least eight lo-
comotives were shot up, and an
E-boat off Ostend was attacked
and left sinking.
Reconnaissance photographs
taken after the Fortress raids
on Schweinfurt and Regens-
burg in Southern Germany on
' Tuesday reveal that heavy
damage has been done. At
Schweinfurt, the large machine
shops received many direct
hits, and many buildings were
severely damaged. The railway
station and rolling stock was
also badly knocked about. At
Regensburg all the bombs fell
among the great concentration
of buildings of the Messer-
schmitt factory. The picture
show that the main workshops
have been hit.
In spite of the smoke screen
the Germans put up to cover
the target,’ the R.A.F. crews
found and identified the build-
ings which they then proceed-
ed to bomb in the dazzling
brilliancy of a full moon, with
almost daylight accuracy.
More than 1,500 tons of bombs
were sent crashing on the com-
paratively small target area,
and the fires which resulted,
could be seen from the Danish
border. The crews felt highly
confident that the raid had
been most successful.
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