Evening star., 1925-09-06

the aefla! commandment OF Ddtlle-
ships and Shipping Board vessels
moving. so as to set at rest any doubt
of aircraft's ability to destroy and
sink any sea craft which floats on the
water
1T was evident then that the Amer
lean people were awakening to the
necessity for a change and that II
this change were TO be prevented by
the War and Navy Departments. that
they must act at once. What was
the result? Steam was gotten up by
the Navy on the one hand to dis
prove and deprecate the value of air
power and show the value of the
surface vessels and battieships. and
on the part of the Army to fool the
public as 10 the value of anti-aircraft,
cannon and machine guns. Any OPP
erationS by the Air Service to sink
the ships as provided for by the law
of the land were stopped. Now what
have the Army and Navy done to
show that the existing obsolete sys-
TENS should be maintained?
Denounces Propaganda.
First, the great Pacific naval
maneuVers-the main features OF
these were the assembling OF n fleet
of some 14S surface vessels in the
I
coast and entrance into San Fran
cisco harbor and then the trip to
Honolulu. Press representatives and
congressional committees galore
were handled, fed and entertained.
according to the good old Navy's
propaganda system. 1t was heralded
that the Navy had taken the
Hawaiian Islands.
Now, let us see what actually
would have happened had there been
war. Suppose that we had been at
war with a Pacific power and this
fleet OF surface vessels had been in
San Francisco harbor. Instantly the
Pacific powers submarines would
have planted all entrances to the
harbor with mines, would have COW
cred all the approaches with these
death dealing engines.
If the surface vessels ever got
through these. the whole Pacific
Ocean would be districted off into
squares and to each of these dis
tricts submarines would be assigned
for the purpose of tracking the sur
face ships and attacking them.
These ships would be under con-
stant attack of gun fire from sub
marines that can carry any size can
non and use projectiles containing
gas, high explosives or armor pierre
ing, they use under water torpedoes
which not only hit the side of the
ships, but will hit their bottoms. and
can produce gas clouds which will
completely envelop any fleet.
IF any vessels of the fleet sur
vived the submarine attacks, crossed
the sea and came within hundreds of
miles of the hostile coast, they would
be sent to the bottom forthwith. by
aircraft.
Sees Planes Superior.
"If the Pacific maneuver showed
anything conclusively it was that
aircraft acting from land bases can
destroy any surface fleet coming
within its radius of operations This
already had been amply proved by
our bombardment tests in 1921.
LAS far as Honolulu is concerned
it is not a position of decisive infiu-
ence in the control of the Pacific.
Its value consists in being an ex-
cellent submarine base to act against
hostile surface seacraft and subma-
rines. The control position of the
Pacific is our own territory of Alaska
and the Peninsula of Kamchatka, op-
posite. 1t is reported that from $780,
000,0 to $80,000,000 has been spent
just for this Pacific parade of our
longing to the United States, be-
cause, in fact. it is no Navy in the
modern conception of the term.
What would this amount. applied to
development and improvement of air
planes and submarines, have meant? ?
Next to get publicity and make a
noise about what it was doing with
aircraft, this so-called Hawaiian
flight was arranged for. Even if 1t
had been successful to Honolulu,
it would have meant little, either COM
mercially or strategically, compared
to what flight to Europe or Asia
would. Three airplanes We're built to
participate in it. These showed moth
| ing novel in design and were untried
for this kind Of work. One never got
away from the Pacific coast, another
few q few miles out and was forced
to land in the water and one was
lost on account of being out of gaso-
line somewhere on the high seas.
F1ays Patrol Plan.
Patrol vessels were stationed
every 200 miles, distance entirely
too far apart for an experimental
flight OF this kind, with such primi-
tive flying machines as the PN-9s
are. Double or triple this number of
vessels should have been there. In
fact, the whole Pacific Fleet should
have been placed there, instead of
joy-riding around the Antipodes. AS
it was, when these slow-moving air
planes. going about IS miles an hour,
were first sighted from the destroy
ers, the destroyers should have
steamed out full speed in the direc-
ton the airplane was going. This
would not only indicate the proper
course to the plane, but would place
the destroyer closer to 1t in case of
accident. AS the airplanes were only
moving at about 75 miles an hour, a.
destroyer could have been speeded up
to within 80 miles Of that speed.
why, If they expected to run
short of fuel, as indeed they might,
did they not make arrangements for
refueling the airplane while it was
in the air, by another airplane, as we
have repeatedly done? Why did they
carry a crew of five, when the weight
of two men in fuel might have car
ried the ship through?
What happened to this really
good-for-nothing, big, numbering fly
ing boat, when its brave navigators
began to run short of gasoline over a
heavy sea? The probability is that
they held her up as long as they
could. AS they neared the water,
caught by sudden gust, she might
have been thrown into a stall and
gone down straight under the waves.
l hope that some passing fisherman
may have picked them up as our
Lieut.. Wade was picked up in the
North Sea-
Says Islands UnimpOrtant.
"Our Navy did not find him either;
all it did was to smash his plane when
1t was turned over to them by the
fishermen. After all, the Hawaiian
Islands are not a vital area with our
present methods of national defense.
Then the disaster to the Shenan-
LII padnUna the