โ Scribed by R.H.O.
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Floating Power Plant Supplies Antwerp With Emergency Power.--A queer looking, propulsionless barge, incapable of motion and seemingly relegated to home front duty during the war, not only crossed the Atlantic and entered combat but supplied the city of Antwerp, Belgium, with emergency electric power for several months, it was disclosed recently.
Named the "Resistance," the craft was a huge American floating power plant with no "git up and git" of it own but with a General Electric turbine generator set capable of generating enough electric power to supply a city of IOO,OOO. Looking more at home on the Mississippi than on oceanic waterways, the "Resistance" was one of many such floating power plants built to meet temporary power shortages expected in the United States in the early stages of the war.
Nevertheless, when it became necessary to "draft" the propulsionless craft for combat action, Uncle Sam found a way. Under vigilant eyes of a Naval convoy, the "Resistance" was towed by the Army Transportation Corps the entire distance across the Atlantic. Averaging a speed of three knots per hour, the craft took 51 days to make the crossing.
The voyage was logged as comparatively quiet until the convoy reached the Scheldt estuary at which point German U-boats, moving in for a kill, struck a running fight with the "Resistance's" escorting craft. The attackers were destroyed after a full night's engagement.
Arriving off Antwerp, the huge floating power plant was connected directly to lines of the Belgian power system, and for several months thereafter Antwerp received its electric power from the "Resistance." During the period, the Germans poured in 2,6oo V-bombs in an attempt to destroy the port, but the power barge remained unscathed of any serious damage.
Housed in a steel hull half the length of a city block, the power plant was able to generate a maximum of 30,ooo kilowatts of steam turbine power with its General Electric turbine generator set. Steam was supplied to the turbine by two oil fired boilers that consumed a half million gallons of fuel oil in about seven days.
A 2o foot transmission tower built on the deck provided the means of hooking up the plant to Belgian power lines. R. H.O.
Electro-Acoustic Laboratory.--The Electro-Acoustic Laboratory, the first laboratory at Harvard to engage in National Defense Research, has just closed its doors after five years of highly secretive and significant war work for
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