Evening star., 1925-09-06

OfSt OIncIai report Ia cc'iCAhiy VI 'AAS
done this Summer? After borrowing
| some airplanes from the Army that
were entirely Inadequate TO the Wofk
in hand, they went on Nle MacNIlIan
trip to the Arctic. More propagahd
| AS far as can be learned from ols,
tance. they had cat and a )g nght an
the way up and back, betweA1 MacMil-
| Ian, the pilots and the Navy Depart,
ment, and Of course got nowh fe ana
| did nothing. Is there an airnrn VINO
fdoes not know that with the niue
| jitneys they took up there the" pole
could not be reached? Another eA,
ample, says the Navy Department. oi
| the incapacity Of aircraft.
AT last the great anti-aircraft tesEh
| took place. A battleship goes out into
the sea. She takes the airship Shen-
| andoah and has her tow target at
33 miles an hour at known altitude,
| in broad daylight and on certain
| course. Some officers have told me
that the dirigible was heading into
| the wind of an intensity of many miles
an hour and that therefore the target
really was almost standing still in the
air. The Navy shoots at II all day
long in this position and hits it few
| times and publishes to the people OF
! the United States the wonderful re-
suits obtained to impress them with
| the fact that battleships can be pro-
| tected by anti-aircraft guns, which is
| absolutely and entirely false. What
/ is our Navy for? Presumably 1t is TO
control lines of sea communication on
the high seas. What is it actually?
1t is entirely and completely out
pointed by Great Britain in the At
lantic. What can it do across the
| Pacific as at present organized? Moth
| ipp-opaipSt an inSllar ASiatic power
whom you all know.
| "The Navy has about 81 500. 600 200
invested in Navy yards. The upkeep
and depreciation of these amounts TO
about $50, ,000. 900 a year. How many
! of these are useless and how many
are of any profit? Probably not many;
Suppose we took $50 900 900 of this and
applied 1t to the development of air
craft and submarines under competent
airmen and submarine men? What
could we do with 1t?
Cites Cost of Ships.
Every time a battleship is built
the ship itself, when 1t is completed,
may cost from $4,000 900 TO S7O,00O,-
o0O 1t has to be protected by sub
marines, destroyers, cruisers and air
| craft, the total cost of which is
around or over 500. 100000, so that
every time a battleship is built the
expenditure of S100, 900 900 Is neces-
| sary I believe a battleship today is
a useless element in the national de-
| fensive armament or the Unlted
States. Suppose we had even one-half
of the cost of a battleship to use in
the development of our aircraft ana
| submarines. These are only few
of the things which must be brought
up before the people and the coming
Congress.
THE Navy, to maintain its position,
| keeps asking for more aircraft, which
it cannot use legally, because the
legal defense of the land Is fntrusted
to armies. In spite Of the legal re-
strictions, however, but to keep con-
troll of aviation and not let 1t get
away, the Navy Department contin-
ually gets more money from Congress
by it's Washington lobby, so as to
keep the political support of the air
craft manufacturers and, possibly,
some others interested in them.
This year the Navy's estimate for
the aircraft amounts to S37 ,56o'24S.
They only have one aircraft carrier,
the Langley, which can go about half
as fast as a battleship and which is
an obsolete collier. 1t can hold 80
small airplanes. They are building
two aircraft carriers which can hold
so to 20 planes. These are practi-
cally obsolete before they are COM
''Where is the $4,000, 900 for air
craft going? 1t is going into land
aircraft, which have nothing to do
with the Navy'S operations on the
seas and which will be used as
political lever for the maintenance OF
their existing system.
Navy Asks More Than Army.
"The War Department. that now is
intrusted by law with the aerial de-
fense over the land areas of the
United States and its possessions, in
cluding the protection of navy yards,
ask for 24,582, 900. Consider how
foolish this is. The Navy. an organi-
zation charged with going to sea and
which must operate from surface
vessels, which, as a matter OF fact,
are practically obsolete now and
which will afford no real protection
to the country in case of an air at
tack, asking for two-thirds more than
the Army does, which acts from land
bases and is specifically charged with
the defense of the land areas. The
amount allotted to the Navy for new
aircraft is three times as much as
the Army.
NOW let us turn to the War De-
done nothing this Summer to develop
air power and has undertaken to
prove by tests that anti-aircraft guns
can protect cities, which is known
everywhere to be false. They have
fixed up a scheme to give constructive
hits when the guns firing do not hit
the targets at all. The firing has
been at targets towed at constant
altitude. over courses which have
been flown hundreds of times, at
greatly reduced speeds and never in
! excess of Is miles an hour. Even
this was only because the wind was
helping the plane along and under
weather conditions that have been
ideal. In spite of all this prepara-
ton, the results have been laugh
able.
/ Says Reports Exaggerated.
"As an example of one of these
performances, the War Department
has taken the lid OF for publicity in
the second corps area-that means