Incendiary Goose

Dispatches from the war zones have occasionally mentioned a new and highly effective incendiary machine-gun bullet in use by Allied airmen. Last week the Army authorized publication of some details which can be no secret to the Axis by now.

Main fact about the projectile, which is fired from a .50-caliber machine gun, is that it can blow up an enemy aircraft's self-sealing gasoline tank. Earlier in the war the self-sealing tank was good insurance against old-style tracer bullets. By preventing leakage of fuel and formation of explosive vapor, the tank nullified the tracer. But the new bullet explodes in the pierced fuel tank, starts a chemical fire of intense heat and spreads a sheet of flame several feet in diameter.

Workmen at the Remington Arms Co. plant in Bridgeport, Conn, call the incendiary "Blue Goose" (because its nose is colored blue, to differentiate it from other types of ammunition). The bullets are made in a secret area where visitors are barred and all workers must wear a special uniform. Neatest trick yet performed with the projectile: destroying a Japanese cargo vessel. U.S. flyers did that by dropping their belly fuel tanks on the ship's deck, then raking them with blue geese. The ship burned briskly.

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