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Jupiter, v. 1, issue 1, May 1946
Page 7
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[ILLEGIBLE] ? ED's. note: I might say, before you delve further that this little piece has nothing whatsoever to do with fandom or science fiction, as far as I can see. However, it is well written and interesting. I for one, beleave, that a fanzine should not be made up completely of fan doings etc. I may have arrived at this conclusion, after I read this, but I certainly stick with it. What about it? Should I continue to put in something besides what might ordinarily be in a fanzine? Misprints Are Intentional (It says here) "The number of people on the borderline of insanity in a large country is simply auoaling."---Clarence Darrow War Dep't: Dear Gentlemen: I am inclosing a cliping from the Barnesboro Star, showing where Britain is using "the idea" I wrote you and you answered in letter AG 070 (1-15-4l). In/tice that they are haveing the wires attached to the Anti-aircraft shell (which whirls around where as I though the wires "should be" helt in side untill it exploded in the air, but it is the same idea. I am surprized because you did not tell me you were going to (use it) or tell Britain about it. Please answer. Yours, (Mrs.) Anita Hallencz What the poor lady doesn't know is that substantially the same idea was suggested to the War Department several hundred times in the first few years of the war. Indeed,the CAF-3' who handle such stuff got so used to the wire entanglement idea that when a Brazilian wrote us, in rather broken English, a plan to have batteries of guns fire a crisscross of ack-ack, using the work "racquet" to describe the network effect, they misunderstood him and replied with a letter headed "Wire Net Entanglement Device", much to his confusion. I don't know how many letters people wrote the Government about inventions or ideas for the war. During the time I was in the general files of the AGO, they reached a peak of several hundred a day under classification 070, not countin quasi-inventions which were filed under 095 and the guy's name, 381 National Defense, or some other heading. This doesn't take into consideration the somewhat smaller amount that must have gone to the Navy Department, and such as were received by other offices and not forwarded to us. After the National Inventores' Council was set up the War Department shunted most of its stuff to that agency, or returned letters to the sender with a reply, to keep them from cluttering up our files. In the meantime, we in the file room saw overwhelming evidence of the naivety, paranoia, and general dumbness of thousands of our fellow-citizens. There were innumerable suggestions for body armor for soldiers--armor that would weigh many pounds (in some cases they wanted the foot soldier to push it ahead of him on little wheels like a hand truck) but wouldn8t stop anything heavier than a .22 slug. (The famous metal-bound bibles at least had the virtue of lightness!) One old gentleman becam very indignant at the Army's indifference to his plans, and declared that soldiers were crying for this sort of protection, but the brass hats were too set in their ways to give it proper consideration. He probably sent copies of the protest to Drew Pearson, the President, the Speaker of the House,and tohers, half of which may have been forwarded to us. For some reason the War Department received many plans for surrounding ships with a steel net or solid plates to detonate torpedoes before they reached the ship. Superflous to say, such plans had long ago been considered by the Navy and found impractical. One rather persistent lady had found a means to make wood bulletproof, as I recall, and finally secured a trial at an Army post near her home (many inventores) offered to come to Washington to demonstrate or go into detail about their ideas). The test was unsuccessful, and the officer who handled it reported that she seemed satisfied, but before long she was back nagging us again about the same old thing. (7)
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[ILLEGIBLE] ? ED's. note: I might say, before you delve further that this little piece has nothing whatsoever to do with fandom or science fiction, as far as I can see. However, it is well written and interesting. I for one, beleave, that a fanzine should not be made up completely of fan doings etc. I may have arrived at this conclusion, after I read this, but I certainly stick with it. What about it? Should I continue to put in something besides what might ordinarily be in a fanzine? Misprints Are Intentional (It says here) "The number of people on the borderline of insanity in a large country is simply auoaling."---Clarence Darrow War Dep't: Dear Gentlemen: I am inclosing a cliping from the Barnesboro Star, showing where Britain is using "the idea" I wrote you and you answered in letter AG 070 (1-15-4l). In/tice that they are haveing the wires attached to the Anti-aircraft shell (which whirls around where as I though the wires "should be" helt in side untill it exploded in the air, but it is the same idea. I am surprized because you did not tell me you were going to (use it) or tell Britain about it. Please answer. Yours, (Mrs.) Anita Hallencz What the poor lady doesn't know is that substantially the same idea was suggested to the War Department several hundred times in the first few years of the war. Indeed,the CAF-3' who handle such stuff got so used to the wire entanglement idea that when a Brazilian wrote us, in rather broken English, a plan to have batteries of guns fire a crisscross of ack-ack, using the work "racquet" to describe the network effect, they misunderstood him and replied with a letter headed "Wire Net Entanglement Device", much to his confusion. I don't know how many letters people wrote the Government about inventions or ideas for the war. During the time I was in the general files of the AGO, they reached a peak of several hundred a day under classification 070, not countin quasi-inventions which were filed under 095 and the guy's name, 381 National Defense, or some other heading. This doesn't take into consideration the somewhat smaller amount that must have gone to the Navy Department, and such as were received by other offices and not forwarded to us. After the National Inventores' Council was set up the War Department shunted most of its stuff to that agency, or returned letters to the sender with a reply, to keep them from cluttering up our files. In the meantime, we in the file room saw overwhelming evidence of the naivety, paranoia, and general dumbness of thousands of our fellow-citizens. There were innumerable suggestions for body armor for soldiers--armor that would weigh many pounds (in some cases they wanted the foot soldier to push it ahead of him on little wheels like a hand truck) but wouldn8t stop anything heavier than a .22 slug. (The famous metal-bound bibles at least had the virtue of lightness!) One old gentleman becam very indignant at the Army's indifference to his plans, and declared that soldiers were crying for this sort of protection, but the brass hats were too set in their ways to give it proper consideration. He probably sent copies of the protest to Drew Pearson, the President, the Speaker of the House,and tohers, half of which may have been forwarded to us. For some reason the War Department received many plans for surrounding ships with a steel net or solid plates to detonate torpedoes before they reached the ship. Superflous to say, such plans had long ago been considered by the Navy and found impractical. One rather persistent lady had found a means to make wood bulletproof, as I recall, and finally secured a trial at an Army post near her home (many inventores) offered to come to Washington to demonstrate or go into detail about their ideas). The test was unsuccessful, and the officer who handled it reported that she seemed satisfied, but before long she was back nagging us again about the same old thing. (7)
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