One of the heartbreaking truths about World War 1 was that millions of innocent men needlessly died because civilian and military leaders were slow in changing their war strategies and effectively employing new technologies. Thus, the war typified a fight between an inefficient nineteenth century warfare which witnessed lot of casualties on both sides, and a twentieth century technology-driven battle in which many decisive technologies were tested. As for America, the trend of industrialism and mass production of machineries and war equipments had begun fifty years prior to the onset of the war during the American Civil War. With President Woodrow Wilson deciding to take part in the war in April 2017 towards making the world a safe place for democracy in the light of German submarines started sinking American ships in the Atlantic Ocean the situations took a new turn. New technology began to make the war more complex and let winning the war tough for both sides. Submarines, airplanes, improved machine guns introduced by the Americans, chemical warfare by employing poisonous gases and underwater explosives took the world by storm and changed the path of human civilization forever. The First World War is always known for reckless fighting by both sides to kill, maim, gas and starve millions since the new technology came in handy to fight and cause large scale destruction.
World War 1gave the opportunity for many of the technological innovations to be tested by both the fighting sides so as to improve the ability of the inventions to kill and destroy the enemy infrastructures. On entering the war in 1917, the United States’ major challenge was facing the submarine attack of the Germans in the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. American destroyers proved to be the major enemies of the submarines in the Ocean. Even as the German technology in sabotaging ships through surprise torpedo attack was paramount in the sea, the Americans soon caught up with developing their own versions of underwater attack. Torpedoes which attacked enemies without any warning were the most dreaded war equipments during both the World Wars. An eyewitness on board a British passenger ship sailing towards America recounts his thrilling encounter with a German torpedo attack. After a devastating torpedo attack, a friendly steward, who was earlier moved from the trenches to a safe job since he lost his two brothers in the war earlier, went missing in the sea for good thus leaving the hapless mother with no surviving sons. Again, even as the eye witness escaped along with others in a rescue boat, he saw the ship that weighed more than 15,000 tons diving into the water helplessly like a toy boat before his very eyes. The Germans sunk around 5,000 ships weighing more than 13 million tons during the War using their destroyers popularly known as U Boats. The Americans employed a total of 92 ships that included 7 submarines and 47 destroyers to carry on the counter attack in the sea. In all, America and its allies deployed around 10,000 ships, 100,000 mines and thousands of planes to counter the U Boat threat of the Germans.
Fighting in the air has been a deadly practice performed by the enemies at war during the war, thanks to the conveniently designed airplanes. Airplanes during World War 1 were designed with light weight materials like wood, canvas and wire. Mostly, airplanes were employed for the purpose of observing enemy troops. Since the airplane technology made it easier for both sides to monitor the progress of troops of each other, war strategies were gradually diverted to shooting down the planes of one another. Artilleries were used to shoot down planes from the ground whereas pistols, rifles and machine guns did the job perfectly from other planes flying in the air. Initially, the Germans started arming their planes with machine guns to shoot down their enemy planes, while the same dreadful strategy was later adopted by the allies as well. However, the German bomber planes were often involved in dropping bombs on many British and French cities. While fighting in the air, pilots often got trapped helplessly in the burning planes for they were not provided with parachutes by their higher ups. The higher ups were of the opinion that the pilots would try to escape at the sign of imminent danger had they been provided with parachutes in the first place. Race driver and World War 1ace Eddie Rickenbacker, who witnessed a fatal collision of American planes that took the lives of two pilots he knew well, recounts that the simple parachute technology would have saved many precious lives during the air fighting. However, men posted in American observation balloons used parachutes when the German aircraft set ablaze the gas bags.
While fighting on the ground, tanks of the allies effectively encountered the deadlocks in the trenches. British tanks often relied upon caterpillar tracks designed by the Americans for transporting the armored vehicles installed with light cannon and machine guns. The combined British and American technology enabled the tanks of the allied forces to move forward on dry and firm ground notwithstanding the mechanical problems and susceptibility to the enemy artillery. The tanks did a great job of crushing the cross trenches and barbed wire thereby terrifying the German soldiers. World War 1 also forced American vehicle manufacturers to increase their productivity besides advancing the tracked and wheeled motor technologies. For instance, in 1918, American truck companies manufactured 227,000 trucks, which was a ten-fold increase in mere six years. John Walter Christie, famous American inventor and engineer, designed his own effective suspension systems for the tanks and tractors used in the war. Christie’s innovative tank design with bogies in the middle enabled the tanks to move on wheels with a higher speed. The track bands of Christie’s tanks also required less than 15 minutes to replace while breaking a track. America’s huge manufacturing potential and the nation’s immense natural resources coupled with mass production strategies and standardization procedures helped to meet the needs of the war front.
One of the most important technological milestones reached by America during World War 1 was the upgrading of the machine. It was an improvement upon the weapon earlier developed by Hiram Maxim, an American-born inventor. The German’s had earlier recognized the gun’s potential and manufactured it in large numbers during the beginning of the war in 1914. Lewis gun, an automatic machine gun was another famous machine gun designed by the Americans that was popularly used during the war. This gun, used for the first time in World War 1, continued to remain in service with several armed forces including the British Empire. Lewis gun appeared distinct with a broad tubular cooling cover surrounding the barrel with a top-mounted magazine. A major highlight of Lewis gun was its cooling system which was much efficient compared to earlier war gun designs. This increased the popularity of the Lewis gun that was manufactured in large numbers in Belgium. Lewis gun also had the distinction of being fired for the first time from an airplane in 1912. Because of its low weight, the gun was widely used by the allies for air fighting. Another war weapon of American origin that was popularly used in the war was the M1917 rifle. It was a multipurpose gun that was able to accomplish firing of bullets directly and firing of grenades apart from being used as a spike while fighting directly with the enemy soldiers.
Absorbent cotton, which currently finds wide application in the manufacturing of sanitary pads and surgical cotton, was accidentally developed by the American technology during the war. Ironically, the invention came in handy to help the injured soldiers in the war front. Even before America entered the war, a small firm in America had invented a cotton based absorbent material called Cellucotton. At the time the war broke out, while two of the senior officials of the company were touring Europe they came upon a material which had absorbent properties five times higher than ordinary cotton. It was also only half as expensive when produced in mass. They took the material to the US where they trademarked the same. Later, using the material they produced surgical dressing for the use of nurses serving wounded soldiers in the war.
New technology promoted by America thus significantly influenced the warfare during the World War 1. America’s entry into the war helped the allies successfully counter the German submarine attack in the Atlantic Ocean. American technology also helped its war partners in successfully waging war with the enemies both in the air and on land. Germans who seemed to have matchless technologies to cause devastation during the war was terrified by the American war technologies that contributed to large scale destruction of infrastructures and human lives before coming to an end with the signing of the treaty of Versailles.
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