Eruption

The Army disclosed this week that bombs had again fallen on Hawaii—but these were U.S. bombs, dropped not to take but to save lives.

Late last month Mauna Loa grumbled, heaved. The volcano erupted suddenly in great fiery fountains of lava. They spurted 600 ft. in the air, lighting the clouds above blacked-out Hawaii, rolled in a torrent of molten rock down the slopes to the city and harbor of Hilo 30 miles away.

Closer & closer the burning river ap proached, eating through forests, moving on the city. Mauna Loa had not been so angry since 1881. But warplanes slipped their bombs into the tubes of lava, collapsed them, stifled the flow. Eleven miles from the city’s center, the river of lava smoked to a halt.