Evening star., 1940-06-02
Discusses Reasons for
Poor Defenses
By ODen L. Scott.

fiscal year and that its peacetime pro-
portions may rise to ten billions before
there is leveling off. War, of course,
would involve much greater totals.
Blame for the sad state of Americas
present defenses-suddenly discovered in
the midst of national danger-appears
likely to go unplaced. The reason is that
any scratching of the surface shows that
blame divided between Republicans and
Democrats, between the President and
Congress. between the generals and the
admirals.
Yet, in the light of what is going on in
the world, it is an amazing story of de-
fenselessness in modern weapons that
confronts this Nation. The sudden ef-
fort to make it appear that vast num-
bers OF airplanes will be turned out over
night with pilots to operate them and
ground crews to service them; the sud-
den talk of billions for modern arms and
other billions for mechanized equipment
does not gloss over the fact that today
and for months and even years to come
this Nation will be unprepared to en-
force the commitments it has made.
There Is the prospect that the United
States, like England, may be unable to
stand effectively behind it's pledges to
defend outlying interests.
The reason for this is found in some
interesting and officially provided figures.
For example:
There is not, in the Army today, a sim
gle airplane that could stand on an equal
footing with the planes of GERMANY
Total combat planes in the Army are
barely 800. In spite of all of the talk in
big figures about airplanes to be ground
out wholesale, the Army is going to get
only 40 modern warplanes a month in
the period just ahead. The Navy hopes
that it can get 300 planes in the next
year. Germany today is grinding out
nearly 1000 modern planes each month
and expects soon tc have that figure up
to 5000. The German planes carry
armor that renders useless the guns that
American planes have been equipped to
carry. The Germans mount cannon
whereas this country's fighting planes
have been mounting machine guns.
The story of airplanes is typical of the
story Of other branches of the Army. It
is only in the Navy that this country is
thoroughly equipped and prepared Yet.
even in the Navy, there has been failure
to learn defense lessons that really were
taught 20 years ago and could have been
Needed
The reason for this state of affairs? In
important part it is found in Congress-
The present Congress, just before Ger
many started to overrun Holland and
Belgium, turned down funds for purchase
OF airplanes for the Navy and refused
the Army funds for an air base in
Alaska. Congress earlier had voted to
prohibit use OF any relief labor for any
national defense project. Congress
slashed funds that could be used to eouip
industry to produce armament and cut
deeply into funds for the Army Air Corps
All OF these things were done in order
that congressman could find 1925 900, 900
with which to continue subsidy payments
TO farmers without increasing taxes or
raising the national debt limit. The
record likewise shows that President
Roosevelt had to use the greatest care
in recommending national defense ex-
pendltures because of the tendency in
Congress to attribute to him desire to
get into war.
But that isn't the whole story. An
other part OF it is found in the Presi-
dents dependence for advice upon the
top-ranking generals and admiraIs in the
Army and Navy, without going down the
line to discover what somewhat Junior
officers might have to say. This. of
course, Is the way a military machine
works but that working under modern
conditions can be hazardous.
In Germany there was a revolution in
military command under Hitler. Old
ideas were thrown out and new ones SUBJ
stltuted. Old commanders gave way to
younger men with newer ideas. In Eng
land and France and the United States
the old guard stayed in command with
results that now are apparent.
The story is told by younger American
officers OF recent ranking officers in the
American Army who abhored machinery
ana everything about mechanization of
an army, and of admirals who continued
to scoff at airplanes and what they could
do to the modern warship. The result
is an American Army far behind in
mechanization and an American Navy
that-like the British Navy-is an easv
target for an enemy with an effective air
fleet.
Older heads Of American armed sery-
ices scoffed when Gen. William Mitchell,
back in the 1905 tried to tell what the
airplane would do to old methods of war
fare and to the older designs of battle
ships. The Germans took Gen. Mitchell's
ideas to heart and are demonstrating
what it was that this American officer
had in mind when he argued that the
airplane would revolutionize fighting on
land and on sea.
AS things now stand this country has
an investment of four or five billion dol
lars in warships that are not designed to
meet modern air attack, but that could
have been so designed if the American
Navy had been willing to learn the lesson
that Gen. Mitchell taught. The country
today is building about $500 O0o, 900
worth of new warships which still have
not been designed in the light of poten-
tialities of air attack.
There still is the question whether the
billions that are to be poured out at this