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The Seaforth News, 1943-09-30, Page 7THURSDAY, SEPTEMQER 30, 1943 THE S 7AFORTH NEWS Life -Saving Air Force 'rafts and Tu.s for ow Made in C nada AIR TiGHT in every seem, for lives depend on it. War worker above "stitching down" a seam with cement which is rolled until it holds securely. GAS from these bottles, tightly fastened to the life raft, inflate this equip- ment to fullsize is 00 seconds when the raft hits the water, OAR LOCKS and fortifying pieces are constructed by cement- ing ply after ply of 'identical "bits and pieces" together. This Goodyear employee must see to it that every ply is perfectly adhered to the neat one to insure enduring strength at sea - Bullet -Self -Sealing Gas Tanks, Life Rafts, Save Thousands of Lives Sturdy three-ply construction result of long research and experiment HE element of risk has been inch tears in its sides—in' other j. almost. taken out of what words, the double-barrelled an - once meant certain death for men swer to an airman's greatest who fly by the development of fears, untimely loss of fuel, and two weapons of defense, bullet- fire. seal gasoline tanks and life rafts, both of which are now in full pro- duction in one of the Goodyear Rubber Company's Canadian plants. Since these two articles am - peered on their somewhat exclu- sive market, it has become only a natter of mild interest to an .air- man that his gasoline tank was punctures] by twenty bullets in that last dogfight, or that his friend crashed into the sea and Wasn't picked up for days. The general reaction is a laconic, Zat so?" The magic tanks, now being. made, are a Goodyear specialty. For, two years, engineers experi- mented with many different con- structions 'and substances, with dismal results. The Germans were no More auceossful, Their first bullet -seal tank was two inches thick, made of horsehide and horsehair mixed with rubber. Finally, after crates of dis- cards had been collected, Good- year came up with the answer: a multi -ply tank, less than half an inch thick which would seal itself even if bullets ripped five - At the Goodyear plant, girls put a tank together in layers, over an exact plaster form. •The 'composition of the various layers is a military secret, though we can tell you that Goodyear uses synthetic rubber in the construct- ing and also sheets o£ the crude rubber which you haven't been getting for tires. This latter rub- ber will expand on contact with gasoline and breech the bullet holes. The outer Layer is tough fabric. "We've got a tank that really does a job," said the foreman, "but it's the toughest thing I've ever made in my 20 years in the rubber business. These things have to be within an eighth of an inch to apecifcations so they can be thrown into the wing of a plane and fastened down without delay. Imagine moulding rubber that closet" Goodyear had a long start on the life rafts. For about ten years, the company made them as a. sideline because the market was so small. But today, when patrol planes range hundreds of miles to .gee, when bombers, must LiGHT enough for girl workers in the Goodyear plant to lift around handily, these "buoyant" tubes are still strong enough to hold up half a tonof rescued air- men indefinitely. TANKS of plastic, lined with special synthetic and soft rubber compounds seal up the holo automatically when a bul- let pierces the gas tank of a plane, Illustration shows plaster form on which the tank is made receiving its final touching up. A new form is required for each tank. cross water to reach their targets and -dogfights take place over the blue Pacific, the Mediterranean and the grey North Sea, the manufacture of a strong life raft which can be inflated almost im- mediately is a prime requisite. Those in production weigh less than 40 pounds complete, and will hold up to a thousand pounds. Inn seven seconds, the raft will float; in nine seconds it will bear the weight of a man and in 60 seconds it's fully in- flated. Painted bright yellow and shaped on the principal of a surf- board, the rafts are designed to hold two men for as yet an un- determined Length of time. "We don't kiioiv just how long these things will last," grinned the foreman. "One of them was written up in a book called 'The Raft'. It hadn't been out of the packing case for sometitne, but it lasted 3 men for 34 days. The one Rickenbacker used was four years old. Let's just say they'll last long enough — and then some." Inside the all -rubber craft is a maze of pockets, seats, flaps and doojiggers. One zippeted pocket in the nose holds a repair kit, which is something in itself. For bullet holes, cone-shaped screws are included -when the boys get time they can twist the screw down to its base, put a patch over the whole thing and pop the screw through into the .inside. With it comes a bottle of cement and a brush, a screw driver, scis- sors and .pliers. • The oars and a plunger pump, reminiscent of a bicycle pump, are 'buttoned under another flap. Included In a bailing pocket is a police'Whistle a boy scout knife and some blocking cord. In other words, fliers forced down at sea are given the best possible'chanee for survival that Canada's manu- facturing ingenuity can devise, Instruction In Decorum By Hilary St, George Saunders in "Britain." EIghteen months ago I was return- ing from Iceland in an American - built Lockheed Hudson of Coastal Command. The wind against which we were flying was, so the naviga- tor said, blowing on occasion at 07 miles an hour; visibility was, per- haps, 200 yards, I tried not to show' that I was frightened, but after about an hour I heard the pilot say to the naviga- tor: "The old man is a bit ropy this morning., At forty-five l was much the old- est on board, and I felt a trifle hurt, because I was not at all that scared, and anyhow, I thought I was putting on a goodish act, I murmured some- thing about feeling quite all right, thank you. The pilot, perceiving the misund- erstanding, seemed struck with hor- ror. °'I didn't mean you," he earn- estly assured me. "It"s only Jimmy the rear gunner. He threw a birth- day party last night." "Is he very old?" I inquired. "Lord, yes; he's twenty lour," The pilot himself was twenty, the navigator twenty-one, the wireless operator nineteen. Even the hoary old man in the rear turret had not been born when the R.A.F. came into being. It is par excellence the youthful service, It is manned by youth -the average age of the pilots who won the Battle of Britain was a year in the early twenties. Bomber pilots are almost old at thirty; those of Coastal Com- mand at thirty live. The ages of the crews are much the same. These young men now see visions because their seniors - Brancker, Trenchard, and the rest — once dreamed dreams and the dreams came true. They translated them in- to the visions once painted in fire by Fighter Command on the skies above the southern marches of England, and now kindled by Bomber' Com- mand in the heart of many German cities. It is a somber vision upon which these young men must gaze, for they are not Nazis bred to destruction, re- joicing in blood and flames and ag- ony. Theirs is at once a gentler and a sterner race. Do you remember the composi- tion of the crew of that Beaufort bomber which, at dawn on April 0, 1941, attacked the Gneisenou where she day in Brest protected by the fire of 270 anti-aircraft guns? It was a Cambridge graduate, a Canadian from Toronto, a farmer, "up from Somerset," and a doctor's. chauffeur who sped the torpedo into the battle -cruiser, then crashed on her deck and died. The temperaments of pilots and. crews differ as much as do their trades in ''Civvy street," but if a generalization be permitted, I think they can be divided into three groups corresponding roughly to the three main commands—Fighter, Bomber and Coastal. Fighter pilots such as Bader, Fin- ucane, Hilary and a thousand more are essentially individualists. Once vectored on to the target, they fight alone—keen-eyed hunters, for their prey is armed and swift and they Must see him before he sees' them. This loneliness at great heights and speeds engenders, 1 think, a car - lain corresponding loneliness of spir- it which preserves for fighter pilots; members of a team though they are, a strong sense of their own individ- uality. Clio luso the mess of a Fighter sta- tion at night, silence is unknown, There is always the sound of voices or the radio or both. Unlike the other Services, "shop" is not taboo in mess in the RAF and much of the talk is hardly comprehensible to an outsid- er, Then, of course, there is the horse- play which is general in messes of all three Commands, and the parties which men who never know what the morrow may bring throw at the slightest opportunity; and why not? Who is more entitled to a good party than a member of a service engaged in daily action against the enemy? In the last war the Royal Air Force was sometimes reproached with being noisy, obstreperous and undignified. The answer to that in- sult has been given for all time •by Sir Walter Raleigh, "The Latin poet," he writes in the introduction to the history of the Royal Air Force in the last war, "said that it is decor- ous to die for one's country. In that decorum the Service is perfectly in- structed." In bomber messes, too, the radio is rarely silent, but her by con- trast, the atmosphere is different. There is an air .of solidity, almost of Victorian worth, about bomber pi- lots. The chief enemy of Coastal Com- mand pilots is the monotony of their endless flight over the "bounding and abounding waves." Again I must record my own small experience on a flight to Iceland. When we were 200 miles out, the rear gunner suddenly shouted: "Air- craft on the starboard quarter: can't see what she is." At that distance from land she. could only have been one of our own, a Catalina, Sunderland, Well- ington, or a Whitely, or else a Focke Wulf—Much faster than our Hudson and far more heavily armored. It was immediately apparent that the crew were unanimous in praying that it would be a Focke-Wif. Their eyes shone, their preparations for action were made with the deliber- ate movements of a person who. knows exactly what he is doing and who is so expert that the time it takes him to do it need not enter in- to his calculations. I watched the wireless operator leave his instruments, open one of the side windows, and thrust through it the muzzle of a machine-gun. Then caem the voice of the rear gunner once more: "It's a Whitely, skipper," It was only then, when I realized there was no danger, that I knew how thankful I was. But the crew of that Hudson were east down to the depths, and no one spoke again for an hour. 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