SCIENCE CAN DESTROY ALL LIFE IN WORLD WAR II
Villard, Oswald Garrison
Science Can Destroy All Life In World War III By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD IT WAS a distinguished French general who said that modern wars are never ended with the same weapons with which they...
...It comes from an unimpeachable source, from a man who has done his uttermost to help win for us by his knowledge of aeronautics...
...It is, of course, impossible to tell just how much damage we have done or can do...
...He, too, said that "the nations of the world hold in their hands scientific force capable of blowing all civilization to bits...
...The gulf between our available technical power and our moral understanding has widened disastrously...
...The aim will be total annihilation...
...Maj...
...Within a decade or less they will be ready to visit horror on man in new and almost unimagined forms...
...A Grim Warning Nonetheless, the German scientists are right in warning humanity as to what will happen if we do not do away with the use of the bombing and fighting airplanes...
...The appearance of Germany's new pilotless planes which, despite every effort by the Allied airforces to destroy their hiding places in France or Belgium, or wherever they come from, are now doing great destruction in England, and the raiding of Japan and Korea by our new Super Fortresses, puts an entirely different light upon war on both the Japanese and the Allied front...
...If we are now in a position to do what we have begun to do, to strike at the Japanese mainland and destroy its industrial power by the greatest bombers yet produced operating from bases already in our hands, then there must be fear and trembling among the Japanese militarists today...
...Their pilotless tanks failed utterly in their attacks upon the American forces in the Anzio beachhead and near Cassino...
...It is true that radio-controlled airplanes have been tested by several foreign countries, and we have experimented with them, too, but in each case there was visual direction...
...We shall not know for sometime how serious the new German weapon is, nor how long it can be used without our discovering the places of origin and finding some way to offset the attacks...
...Not long ago Maj...
...As to the former, the sudden terrific developments in the war of the air uphold him...
...Again, it would seem to make unnecessary the plan of Admiral Nimitz to conquer a Chinese harbor for the same purpose of obtaining air bases from which to carry out our plan of blowing Japanese industry to bits...
...It is the testimony of eyewitnesses that they come at a terrific speed, and that if they strike the ground they explode from five to 15 seconds after landing or hitting a target...
...This event recalls a statement published by Germany officially last Summer that humanity should be warned that science was on the point of making such terrible discoveries as to how to destroy human beings and property at a distance that, if developments were not checked by disarmament, one portion of the world would soon be in a position to destroy all the rest...
...It is not necessary to accept as yet the German assertion that "the new weapon just used against England is the beginning of vengeance" for the "barbaric" Allied destruction of the Nazi homeland...
...It is a terrible abyss which may swallow everything that the human race has prized...
...Therefore I say that we simply c innot afford to be lazy or cynical about peace plans if we want to survive-—if we want our children to survive...
...Comment upon this is unnecessary...
...Undoubtedly the combined scientific forces of England and the United States will apply themselves to producing the antidote...
...What has just happened in England and Japan bears him out in fullest detail...
...de Seversky continued thus: "The destructive power of electronics, the lethal resources of modern chemistry, have scarcely been tapped...
...What the Germans have done is to devise a means of launching the planes, perhaps automatically, perhaps from catapults, and then giving them exact direction despite air conditions...
...Alexander P. de Seversky, the author of Victory Through Air Power, wrote an article entitled "Why We Must Stop Wars...
...Science Can Destroy All Life In World War III By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD IT WAS a distinguished French general who said that modern wars are never ended with the same weapons with which they started, or the same generals who commanded at the beginning...
...But that it is something to reckon with at present appears from the fact that the whole South of England is now admitted to be under very severe bombardment by planes without crews...
...But our moral sense has not kept pace with this almost incalculable growth of physical prowess...
...The Raid On Japan As for the Super Fortresses, there we can be certain that we have reached a turning point in the war with Japan...
...We must wait a few days to see whether this new venture of the Germans is in line with this German scientific statement or not...
...This new weapon may similarly prove to be a flash in the pan...
...The splitting of the atom, already achieved in the laboratory, will release colossal energy to further enhance wholesale annihilation...
...The defense does catch up with the offense...
...War will become a gigantic clash of mighty technological monsters, striking from the heart of one nation directly at the heart of another, perhaps half way around the world, with a fury and destructiveness that will make all past conflicts—including World War II—seem trivial by contrast...
...For that offsets the advantages they are seeking to obtain by their new drive into China—the elimination of existing airfields from which we could strike with the Fortresses, and the pushing back of Chinese control of Southern China so as to make impossible the establishment of new airfields near enough to the coast to raid Tokyo...
...As to the latter statement we Americans may yet prove that he was wrong—the English have changed their generals...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 27
