The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1940-05-16

- VA AAANANA . AANJtNh e~Nh-
ountries.
ton Of war against Germany.
So the German leader has rea-
son for expecting that now is
a propitious moment for making
a supreme bid for victory.
Assuming that his calculations
are correct-and that is a logical
assumption. in view OF the pop
ular support for non-interven-
uon-there is also another con-
sideration. Except for airplanes.
trucks, machine tools and a few
other limited articles-and we
are supplying those now to the
best of our ability-it would be
at least a year after entry before
the U. S. could provide effective
aid to the allies. Well before
then, according to military mems
gauging of his strategy, he ex-
poets to have a triumph in the
bag.
President Roosevelt is ex-
tremely bearish on the virtue Of
new-fangled weapons Of warfare
like the airplane. He recognizes
that it has established itself as
an auxiliary, but he lines up
with the orthodox military
school in his belief that it is
a subsidiary arm rather than a
mainstay. Substitute the word
"airplane" for submarine" in
the following excerpt from
magazine article he wrote in
1914, and you have his present
ideas on the subject:
THE submarine has come to
stay. 1t has taken its place, not
as the sole weapon in naval off
ense or defense, but as an adj
junct to other weapons. That
it is useful for coast defense,
for commerce destroying, for
scouting purposes, and as a part
of the protection to and attack
ing power Of a battleship, Is
established.
THAT it alone is capable of
defending a coast against in
vasion is claimed only by the
type of people in this country
to whom national defense means
preventing an enemy from land
ing an armed force on our At
lantic or Pacific seaboard a
Chinese wall Of defense that re-
quires necessarily the abandon
ment of Alaska, Of the Canal,
of Hawaii and our other de-
tendencies overseas, the stop
ping of our exports and imports
and the inability to protect
against aggression our citizens
abroad and our well-considered
international policies"
The underwater attack was a
comparatively new menace when
Roosevelt, then assistant secre-
tary Of the navy, expressed this
viewpoint, but he maintained
then-as he does now with re-
spect to aerial attack-that
military science will develop
commensurate means of resist
ance and correction. Here is
another excerpt bearing on that
point:
Before I became associated
with naval affairs in an official
way, I had a theory that knew
much about naval strategy and
warfare. But have come very
quickly to recognize that I did
not: That war on the sea is a
greatly complicated science, de-
veloping step by step through
the faithful work Of men who
are trained through years of
study and experience.
1T is, therefore, of interest
that the very great majority Of
naval officers both here and
abroad do not believe that the
submarine has supplanted the
battleship, even though the char
acteristics of the latter may
greatly change. They hold that,
as it is improved step by step,
the submarine win take its
place as one, but only one, of
the many instruments of offense
and defense on the seas; that
1t will fit into its well-appointed
place, and that history, with the
devising of another weapon, will
repeat itself" AS F. D. RS
most trusted naval and military
advisers have recently told con-
gressional investigators, that is
their attitude toward the plane
and his