SOUND-RANGING 65 



nevertheless feels that so far as the war in France is concerned, \ 

 American science contributed far less along original lines than 

 the general public has imagined. This is no slur on American 

 science, for it nobly did its part toward bringing the war to 

 a close, but it did it along lines already laid down by our Allies 

 and it did it all the more effectively for that reason. 



The Allies counted much on American ingenuity in bettering 

 the existing scientific services and in devising new applications 

 of science to accomplish new purposes, but both they and we 

 fully realized the paramount importance of first establishing 

 services as good as their own before attempting either to make 

 radical improvements or to establish new services. At the 

 signing of the armistice experiments were under way in 

 America, many of which were nearing completion, which might 

 have added new and valuable scientific services to the number 

 already functioning in France, but the fact remains that at 

 the cessation of hostilities all that had been done was the estab- 

 lishment of American scientific units which were modeled on 

 those of our allies. The most important of the applications 

 of pure science which were a wholly new product of land war-1 

 fare were: the use of cloud and shell gas, the extremely bril- 

 liant application of chemistry in the construction of gas-masks, 

 airplane photography, the scientific aids to accuracy in gun- 

 nery and bombing from airplanes, sound-ranging, search-light 

 and listening devices for anti-aircraft defense, directional wire- 

 less, and camouflage. Practically all of the absolutely new 

 applications of physical science to warfare on land are con- 

 tained in this rather short list. These, of all the great number 

 of inventions which have been proposed, it has been possible 

 and necessary to establish on an engineering basis and to 

 organize into services for all the armies of the Allies. 



The effect of these few new applications of science on the 

 character of the warfare on the western front was very far* 

 reaching. Airplane photography, for example, not only com- 

 pletely revolutionized military map-making but also profoundly 

 modified the methods of the army Intelligence and made nces- 



