Cross section of Belgian Type of Fortress. The forts at Liege were of this type and long withstood the battering of the

rman guns.

Construction of Modern Torpedo, Showing All Important Parts, Including Engine, Propellers, Steering Gear, etc.

sufficient to sink the modern armor-clad battleship unless it struck under exceptionally favorable circumstances. A large percentage of the destructive power was expended on the outside of the hull. Commander Davis of the United States navy invented the torpedo that carries its power undiminished into the interior of the vessel.

CAN CUT TORPEDO NETS

The new torpedoes are provided with special steel cutters by which they cut through the strongest steel torpedo net. The torpedo has within it an eight-inch gun, capable of exploding a shell with a muzzle velocity of about 1,000 feet a second. The projectile carries a bursting charge of a high explosive, and this charge is detonated by a delayed-action fuse. When the torpedo strikes its target, the gun is fired and the shell strikes the outside plating of the ship. Then the fuse in the shell's base explodes the charge in the shell, immediately after the impact.

With a small fleet of these under-water fighting vesselssay of two or three-an invading or blockading fleet of not more than twenty men-of-war can be destroyed within an hour by an otherwise unprotected harbor or port.

Germany has a few of these latest style submarines, and if it can rush the construction of the thirty-one now being built, it will have a flotilla that will protect its harbor towns against invasion.

QUICK VENGEANCE FELL ON U-BOAT COMMANDERS

Not a single German U-boat commander known to have committed atrocities on the sea after America entered the war succeeded in living more than two months after his barbarities became known, according to Colonel George A. Chester, formerly an engineer officer in the army. For thirteen months he was connected with the Bureau of Naval Intelligence.

Colonel Chester states that the speedy punishment of the U-boat commanders was due to the work of the Naval Intelligence Service.

"It is not a secret any longer," he said. "So closely and accurately were such German officers followed by the Naval

Intelligence Service that their whereabouts always was known in spite of the use of false names and other devices contrived by the German Admiralty.

"Every effort to hide their identity failed, so complete was the system and information of the bureau. Their vessels were followed constantly by a swarm of Allied destroyers and their destruction was a certainty. None of them escaped longer than two months."

SUBMERGED MINES-HOW THEY ARE LAID AND THEIR WORKING

The sinking of the light cruiser Pathfinder of the British navy by a German mine in the North Sea early in the war called special attention to the deadly character of the mines of the present day.

A modern mine-laying ship puts to sea with a row of contact mines on rails along her side, ready for dropping into the sea. The rails project over the stern. The essential parts of a special type of mine of recent design consist of (1) the mine proper, comprising the explosive charge and detonating apparatus in a spherical case; (2) a square-shaped anchor chamber, connected with the mine by a length of cable; (3) a plummet-weight used in placing the mine in position, connected with the anchor chamber by a rope. Thus the mine appears on the deck of the mine-laying ship before being lowered over the stern.

Before the mine goes over, a windlass inside the plummetsinker is revolved by hand until the length of cable between the plummet and the anchor-chamber has been reeled off equivalent to the depth below the surface at which the explosive mine is to float.

Then the entire apparatus is hove overboard. The plummet and anchor-chamber sink, while the spherical mine proper is kept on the surface for the moment by means of a buoyant air-chamber within. A windlass in the anchor-chamber now pays out the cable between it and the mine as the anchorchamber sinks. On the plummet touching bottom, the tension in the cable between it and the anchor-chamber is lessened, and the windlass mentioned stops. The anchor-chamber thereupon sinks to the bottom, dragging down the spherical mine until that is at the selected depth ready for its deadly work.

Aerial Attacks on Cities-Some of the Achievements of the Airmen in the Great War-Deeds of Heroism and Daring-Zeppelins in Action-Their Construction and Operation.

D

URING the first ten weeks of the war German airmen flew over Paris several times and dropped bombs that did some damage. Aeroplanes, not Zeppelins, were used in these attempts to terrorize the capital and other cities of France.

The early visits of Zeppelin airships to Antwerp have been described in a previous chapter. These were continued up to the time of the fall of Antwerp. While comparatively few lives were lost through the explosion of the bombs dropped, the recurring attacks served to keep the inhabitants, if not the Belgian troops, in a state of constant excitement and fear. When the city fell into German hands, a similar condition arose in England, where it was feared that Antwerp might be made the base for German airship attacks on London and other cities of Great Britain; and all possible precautions were taken against such attacks. The members of the Royal Flying Corps were kept constantly on the alert; powerful searchlights swept the sky over London and the English coast every night and artillery was kept in readiness to repel an aerial invasion. Such was the condition in the third week of October.

BRITISH ATTACK ON DUSSELDORF

A new type of British aeroplane was developed during the war, capable of rising from the ground at a very sharp angle and of developing a speed of 150 miles an hour. And in their

operations in France and Belgium the British army aviators proved themselves highly efficient and earned unstinted praise from Field Marshal Sir John French, in command of the British forces on the continent. One of their notable exploits was an attack, October 8, on the Zeppelin sheds at Dusseldorf and Cologne, in German territory. The attack was made by Lieut. R. S. G. Marix, of the Naval Flying Corps, in a monoplane, and Squadron Commander Spencer Grey, with Lieut. S. V. Lippe, in a biplane. Flying from Antwerp at a height of 5,000 feet, to escape the almost continuous German fire, Lieut. Marix succeeded in locating the Zeppelin hangars at Dusseldorf. Then descending to a height of only 1,000 feet he released two bombs when directly over them, damaging both hangars and aircraft. A German bullet passed through Lieut. Marix's cap and the wings of his aeroplane were pierced in a dozen places, but he succeeded in returning to the burning city of Antwerp, which he was ordered to leave the same evening.

During the same raid Commander Spencer Grey flew to Cologne. He was unable to locate the Zeppelin hangars but dropped two bombs into the railway station, which was badly damaged.

A night or two later a German Zeppelin flew over Ghent and dropped a bomb near the South station. On October 11 two German aviators dropped a score of bombs on different quarters of Paris, killing three civilians and injuring fourteen others. The property damage, however, was slight and the effectiveness of bomb-dropping as a means of destroying a city or fortifications remained to be proved to the military mind. It was noted that a large proportion of the bombs dropped by German aviators failed to explode.

HEROIC ACTS BY AIRMEN

Stories of heroism displayed by aviators on both sides of the great conflict have abounded. One story of the devotion of German airmen, told to a correspondent by several German officers, he succeeded in verifying, but was unable to learn the name of the particular hero of the occurrence. This story was as follows:

"In one of the battles around Rheims it became necessary