The tunnel thru the air : $b or, Looking back from 1940Gann, William D. (William Delbert)
Religion
The tunnel thru the air : $b or, Looking back from 1940
Gann, William D. (William Delbert)
Imaginary wars and battles -- Fiction; Science fiction
"Getting back to what we need to defeat the enemy, man has always found
a way to do things. The genius of America has never been defeated. We
only have to go back over the histories of wars in which America has
engaged to find evidence that in emergency they have always found a
way out, because they were led by the divine power of Almighty God.
In time of war, man has dug tunnels under the earth in order that he
could pass safely, concealing and protecting himself. During the great
World War, Germany was the first to succeed with the submarine, passing
secretly under the water, doing great damage and at the same time,
suffering very little damage to her submarines. While the submarine was
what caused her to lose the war, it came very near enabling her to win
it. Man has dug tunnels thru mountains and under rivers when it was
impossible almost to go over them or get thru any other way. In New
York City, in 1927, one of the greatest engineering feats up to that
time was completed, when a tunnel for vehicular traffic was opened from
New York City under the Hudson River to the State of New Jersey.
"What we now need and need more than anything else is a Tunnel thru the
Air. With such a tunnel and noiseless, invisible planes so that we can
pass thru the air without being interfered with or harmed and without
being seen or heard, our victory is assured. To make a Tunnel thru the
Air is not at all impossible. It is just as easy as to put a tunnel
under the earth or drive a submarine under the water. While the air is
invisible, it is one of the strongest forces that we have. If the water
can be separated or a submarine can push it each way and travel under
it, if dirt can be removed and a man put a tunnel under a river or a
mountain, we can find a way to put a Tunnel thru the Air so others can
not see us, hear or enter unless we so desire.
"One of my first plans will be to put a Tunnel thru the Air. With a
Tunnel thru the Air from New York City to London and Germany, our
airplanes may safely pass thru without being seen or heard and the
enemy will be unable to attack them, placing us in position to leave
the tunnel at any time and return to it for safety.
"We need a Tunnel thru the Air from the Great Lakes to New Orleans and
the Gulf of Mexico so that our planes may pass safely thru this tunnel,
take observations of the enemy's position without being seen or heard,
and when necessary leave this tunnel, attack the enemy, return to the
tunnel again for protection. We can also have a Tunnel thru the Air so
that when the enemy's planes enter this tunnel and do not understand
it, they will be unable to get out of it and we may keep them there in
prison as long as we wish, capture or destroy them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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