"Human Torpedoes''

A naval torpedo is a little submarine, driven by compressed air and steered by a gyroscopic brain. The brain can only keep the torpedo on its course, cannot swerve it to strike a ship whose captain has seen the white plume of the torpedo's compressed air wake and swerved his course to avoid the deadly charge. Last week the Imperial Japanese Navy, tired of wasting torpedoes which miss their mark and cost more than $5,000 each, sent out a quiet request for volunteers to man a new type of "human torpedo."

In Japan's next war, according to the Tokyo correspondent of the London Daily Herald which scored a beat on the story last week, Japanese torpedoes of the new type will each contain a volunteer. He will steer the torpedo intelligently to its mark and magnificently blow up with it "as did the Japanese human bomb at Shanghai."

Beyond a doubt the example of fanatic patriotism set by the three Japanese heroes of the Shanghai "human bomb" last year encouraged last week's "human torpedoes." Every Japanese knows the deathless story and it is kept green in the advertisements of "WAKAMOTO--Best

Tonic for Health." Reads this masterly ad, captioning a sketch of the three heroes and their exploit (see cut):

THREE HUMAN BOMBS "The highest and noblest monument of war was erected near Shanghai by the Three Human Bombs at Miaohangchen. At dawn on March 22, 1932, in a general attack on Miaohangchen a certain Japa nese Division, which marched from Woosung, encountered great obstacles through the stubborn resistance of the Chinese troops, which, firmly entrenched, defied the fierce onset of the Imperial Army. The Chinese soldiers raised strong defense works there during a month. A way had to be cut through these deadly obstacles for the Imperial troops. Three heroes of a Japanese sappers' corps, named Takeji Eshita, Jo Kitakawa and Inosuke Sakue, fastened to themselves a firing bomb three metres long and jumped into the wire entanglements. The bomb exploded with a loud detonation, smashing the three heroes and the barbed wire to pieces. These heroes died a desperate death, opening a way for the infantrymen to make a dash, which eventually resulted in the occupation of the enemy's camp. Their heroism makes even demons cry."

British aircraftmen rained live bombs last week on a "human target," an armor-plated motorboat trickily steered by its inventor Aircraftman Shaw, once famed as Col. T. E. (Revolt in the Desert) Lawrence.

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