Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/706

 Defending America with Torpedoplanes

Battleships can be torpedoed from the air. Torpedo-carrying aeroplanes can protect us

By Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, U. S. Navy

��THE most startling interjection into warfare of a newly invented thing was the Ericsson "Monitor," Com- paratively few of the people living now re- member the tumultuous joy that ran through the northern states, when the news was flashed that the "Monitor" had defeated the "Mer- near a m p t o n o a d s, on March 9, 1862; and even those of us who are old

��enough to remember that fact, fail to realize what a tremendous menace the iron-clad "Merrimac" was. Leaving the Norfolk Navy Yard on Saturday morning, March 8th, she rammed and sunk the United States ship "Cumberland," which carried more men and guns than she did, and, in a few hours afterward, destroyed the United States ship "Congress," also carrying more men and guns than she did. Had the "Merrimac" continued her career as successfully as she began it, she would have destroyed the navy of the northern states, and brought about the success of the Confederacy. In other words, the "Moni- tor" saved the United States.

The reason why the "Merrimac" and

���Rear Admiral Bradley A. i ; i: ij. S. N., inventor of the torpedoplane, is shown in the oval above. In the event of an attack by an enemy fleet a swarm of torpedoplanes, each carrying the

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