Smokescreen
Traffic slowed, necks craned upward one sunny afternoon last week as the airship Los Angeles, convoyed by a half-dozen planes, poked her way across mid-Manhattan. Presently the biggest of the planes began to fly in a mile-circle around the dirigible, spewing a lengthening white plume of vapor behind her. The trail of smoke dripped downward until it hung like a great white curtain completely concealing the airship. Paramount Sound News men, who staged the stunt, ground their cameras busily. As the Los Angeles climbed above the smoke screen and headed for home, the white vapor continued to drift lower and lower until mild panic occurred in the streets. A man riding atop a Fifth Avenue bus began to gasp and cough. He shouted "Sulphur!" and led a stampede of passengers down the stairs. Motorists complained to police that particles of the smoke had burned tiny holes in the tops of their automobiles. Scared pedestrians felt stinging sensations in their faces & hands, found their clothing dotted with acid burns.
The smokescreen was made, as usual, with titanium tetrachloride. It is carried in liquid form, in tanks specially installed in the airplane. When the pilot operates a valve, air is forced into the tank by the speed of the plane in flight, the pressure expelling the Ti CL4 through a nozzle at the rear. On contact with the atmosphere, the liquid is changed to a cloudlike vapor. Under "unusual" atmospheric conditions, it is said, the tetrachloride joins with moisture in the air to form hydroscopic smoke particles containing hydrochloric acid which may damage leather or rubber compositions, bright dyes, cloth fabric other than wool. Chemical warfare experts of the Army stated that soldiers habitually handle Ti CL4 without injury to hands or uniforms.
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