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QUALITY BEER
THE CHINA MAIL, JUNE 14, 1941
JAVA READY TO SABOTAGE ALL
ITS OIL WELLS
THE ENTIRE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY OF
THE NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES IS RESTING KNIGHTS (OF THE AIR)
ON A KEG OF DYNAMITE TO-DAY.
Engineers themselves have planted it, and they are ready to explode it if the islands are invaded and the oil fields cannot be defended. They leave you in no doubt of this. Neither have they left anything to chance. Demolition will be as swift, sure and knowledgeable as the stroke of a surgeon's scalpel.
an
in
Netherlands India is the only untenable, the destruction signal major oil-producing area in the will go back to waiting engineers. Orient. The fields, located in They will be given exactly to set the machinery Borneo, Ceram, Sumatra and Java, hour would be a natural, and probably motion. Until recently, the army the first, objective of an invader.planned to give them from three He might reach It.
to six hours' grace. Defences now But engineers here are certain are so greatly strengthened that been reduced; that he won't have any ol when the margin has
experts said. he does.
$500,000,000 Investment
In The Fields
In the fields, action is imme- diate, intense.
One man goes for the refinery. Nobody wants the pools them-
The boilers there are dry. He selves to be irretrievably lost. Certainly, the Netherlands Indies lights the jets, puts them at full government doesn't. Oil is a valu-pressure. In less than 45 minutes. able natural resource. Neither do oil and gasoline in the "stills" will the private American and British have exploded and the plant will companies which produce and be a mass of flames.
By that time, fuel will be gush- refine
in Their investment. exploration, drilling and equin-ing from punctured storage tanks, The tanks go sky-high outside. ment is estimated at $500,000,000.
with the first wandering spark.
it.
Besides, army opinion is that most of the fields can be defend. the ed, or at least re-taken in long run,
is to Therefore, the prob'em cripple them without forever des- troying them, to leave no oil for the immediate use of an enemy, and to sabotage the whole indus- try SO completely that years would elapse before production could be resumed.
Pipe lines and conduits that carry the crude oil to refineries or distant harbours will be shat- and tered, both by explosives manual labour.
The wells themselves present several different problems.
Here is a field with "flowing wells." where the oil is close to the surface, and pushed out by natural gas pressures. Dynamite won't work here. The explosions would merely rip away the earth- In short, to paralyse the golden covering, letting the oil flow more egg-laying goose without actually freely. It might start a fire which killing it.
would burn to the last drop of oil, The army has ordered the saho-the last puff of gas. There is very
But methods and de-little tage plan.
modern equipment in the in
vil tai's, which
different Indies for fighting a major flelds, have been left in the hands fire. What there is, oil men sald, of engineers themselves. The plans will not be left for an enemy to have all been approved. The army use.
vary
has
the authority ¡signal for demolition.
to give
the
Roads Are Few
A Double Weapon
IN ARMOUR
A new bullet-proof armour for pilots, re- sembling a mediaeva) coat of mail, has been developed in labora- tories of the Breeze Corporation at Eliza- beth, New Jersey, U.S.A.
It protects a pilot from his head to below his knees against machine-gun attack from the rear.
The armour which fits to the shape of the body, widens at the sides to give the pilot elbow-room and fits over his head like a monk's cowl. The weight is about 120lb.
-Reuter.
SURGEON
HERO
OF RAID
A surgeon and a dock gateman who risked their lives to save others dur- ing air raids have been the George
So in that particular field two awarded weapons are ready cement to Medal. A survey of the Java fields seal the wells, and tools to smash
The surgeon, Dr. Harry Rum- shows the outlines of the picture, the machinery. in case of war in the Indies.
Elsewhere, in fields where the bold Bathurst Norman, is resident
and the pools are deeper Only a few roads connect
without assistant physician at St. Thomas's various oil areas with the coast-natural pressure, the problem is Hospital, London.
There it will only be a With Peter line or key cities. In many places easier.
Bromley Maling, and Herbert they are cut through impenetrable question of destroying the pump-medical student,
Edwin Frewer, assistant clerk of jungle. If those roads are choked ing engines.
an invading army would have to. Important element in the whole works, who are also both. award- hack and haul its way forward, sabotage programme is replacable ed the George Meda, he helped to rescue two of the staff trapped Avenues of big trees lining the machinery. highways have been deeply notch- Most of it comes to-day from when the hospital was bombed. ed. The notches, are filled with the United States. There are no rocks now. They will be filled heavy industries anywhere in, the engines with dynamite if the "zero hour"Far East manufacturing
оп a of for petroleum production The trees, hundreds them, will be. dropped across the large scale. The only big iron- roads, Bridges will be dynamited. and-steel industry is in Australia.
Consequently expert opinion is❘
comes.
Gas was escaping, masonry falling incessantly; and ́acida In the dispensary, had caught firer
Frewer led the rescue party and by Maling, At strategic points, towering that it would take a number of Dr. Norman, assisted wooden platforms have been years before machine-making fac- burrowed into the debris to give built. They are filled with rock.tories could be built, let alone the morphia injections to the injured The structure can be tipped over machines themselves. by hand. Any one of them would drop a huge pile of debris on the road.
The terrain nearby with machine-gun nests.
is pitted
If Attack Comes
Suppose the attack starts
men.
Harold Rogers, dock gaterrian, They bellave an Invaderl
of Wallasey, Cheshire, rescued might get the oil-site. He might, three women and a child trapped In some months' time, remove in wreckage fired by Incendiary the cement seals, restora -the.
bombs. main gatės, get the oil flowing again. (Without pumps. the deeper pools would be bayond his reach.)
But they claim he couldn't re- even Nearby oil fields get an imme-fine it, probably couldn't ilate warning and orders to stand collect the metal to erect a storage by. Constant radio communica- tank.
He twice crawled through burning debris amid spraying - Awater. A few minutes after he had got them out the staircase under which the women: had been sheltering collapsed in a blazing mass.
The
tion is. opened... Demolition Replacable machinery is con- machinery-guarded to-day by sidered the key, without which The M.BE is awarded to two.. special military garrisons-will be the doors to East Indian oil cannot women telephonists, Ethel Betty locked into position. The garrisons be opened. In most cases, the Martin and Margaret Mary Hay, go on the alert for parachute machinery. but not the actual oil who, when an auxiliary fire sta troopers and fifth columnists. beneath the ground, will be tion was set on fire, remained at
Meanwhile destruction crews' destroyed.
their posts until the room became,
et ready. They are all Americans "Because," of experts sav, untenable, then established,” on r Europeans. Each
articular task, knows has a "even if we lost it, we expect to their own,” Initiative, communica-
where he fits he whole
exactly get it back."
INQUEST
cheme. These men' the only DOUBLE SHOOTING
nes in each field who know the
plan. Even in a neighbouring field,
he engineers have not been in-
formed of the programme next Be The Inquest an Mrs. Mackinnon
loor
few
with her husband.
wounde
tion from a neighbouring kiosk.:
RER.D.C. DONATION