San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-09-05
BLAMES AERIAL
DISASTERS ON
OFFICIALS .
Fighting Colonel, Waiting
Arrest, Excoriates
Superiors.
CONTINUED From Page One.)

career, sent to the most out-of-the-way
places to prevent their telling the
truth, and deprived of any chance oil
advancement unless they subscribe 10
the dictates of their notifying bu'
reaucratic superiors. These either
distort facts or openly tell falsehoods
about aviation to the people and to
the Congress"
Colonel Mitchell denounced the
propaganda agencies maintained by the
war and navy departments, which, he
said, either distort the facts or
Openly tell falsehoods about aviation
to the people and to Congress"
FLOUTS U. s. NAVY.
In commenting on the navy, he de-
elared, 1T isn't a navy. at all. in
the modern sense of what a navy
should be, but merely a collection of
vessels, belonging to the United
States"
He flouted the recently completed
Pacific maneuvers, in which lit was
heralded that the navy had taken the
Hawaiian Islands"
Colonel Mitchell declared that had
this nation been with war with Pa
cific power, the Pacific fleet would
have been bottled up in San Fran
cisco harbor by enemy mines. What
ships avoided the mines, he said,
would probably have fallen prey to
enemy submarines, and "if any YES
sells of the fleet survived the subma-
rine attacks, crossed the sea and
come within hundreds of miles of
the hostile coast, they would be sent
TO the bottom of the sea, forthwith,
by aircraft"
PUBLICITY SCHEME CHARGED.
"If the Pacific maneuvers showed
anything, conclusively," declared
Colonel Mitchell, 1T was that aircraft
acting from land bases, can destroy
any surface fleet coming within its
radius of operations. This has al
ready been amply proved by our
bombardment tests in 1921"
The Hawaiian flight was arranged
to get publicity and make noise
about what the navy was doing with
aircraft, the Colonel declared. Even
if it had been made successfully to
Honolulu, it would have meant little,
either commercially or stratecically,
compared TO what flight to Europe
or Asia would, he said.
The flight ships showed nothing
new in design and were untried for
this kind of work, declared Colonel
Mitchell, and the patrol ships, 200
miles apart. afforded scant protection
at that distance, he said.
SAYS SHIPS PRIMITIVE"
He termed the Pho ships. the kind
now lost nthe Pacific. primitive
ships Double or triple this number
of ships should have been stationed
J ia the patrol, he declared. He asked
why the destroyers did not follow the
airplanes, which were only capable
of making 20 miles an hour, and so
unwieldy that the dcstroyers could
have stayed within sight of them
nearly all the time, even with the
number Of ships at their disposal.
He also asked why provisions were
not made for refueling the ships from
the air, if they expected to run short
Of fuel, which they surely knew they
would.
What happened to this dior.
nothing, big, numbering flying boat,
when its brave naviGators began to
run short of gas, over heavy sea-"
Colonel Mitchell nsks in his state
ment. "The probability is that they
held her up as long ms they could.
As they neared the water, caught by n
sudden gust, she may have been
thrown into a stall and spun down
and gone straight under the waves.
We hope that some passing fisherman
may have picked them up, as our
Lieutenant Wade was picked up in
the North Sea. Our navy did not