What the Army Wants

The Army at last broke secrecy on its most hush-hush subject--its search for new weapons and devices. For the first time in this war, it permitted the National Inventors Council to make public a list of some things the Army needs, invited amateur inventors to put their ingenuity to work on these specific problems.*

One revealing request was for a detector to locate "nonmetallic land mines." This would indicate that the Axis has developed mines, probably made of plastic, that escape detection by magnetic locators.

Other gifts the Army would like for Christmas or sooner: a detector to spot unseen enemy soldiers approaching along jungle trails; a light (probably using infrared rays) that would enable soldiers to see objects at night but be invisible to the enemy; an improved means of signaling the identity of ground troops to friendly planes and vice versa; a simple, harmless process for darkening metals, especially aluminum, so that they will not reflect light; a method of waterproofing vehicles so that engines will not stall when they ford streams; an inexpensive, durable metal for soldiers' dishes; a means of absorbing or eliminating poisonous carbon monoxide (apparently a substantial problem to soldiers .working around motorized equipment and plane hangars); new methods of sabotage for use by "friendly inhabitants within [enemy] occupied areas."

* From some 160,000 ideas submitted to the Council since it was formed in 1940, the armed forces have gleaned more than 40 genuinely helpful inventions, e.g., milkweed floss, which is used as a substitute for kapok in life preservers (TIME, April 12), etc.

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