The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-06-02


 But the w-fashioned form of convoy, as described in detail In this column May ist, already is in use and will be intensified,
 This Is convoy by airplane pas trol, using airplane carriers and nearby islands for bases. The destruction of the Bismarck show cd how effective this airplane convoy could be.
 AirplaneS flying above tho wa. ter can sight the submarine be. low tho water miles away, where's As Q surface vessel cannot sight O submarine more than Q mile or 50 away. Therefore you can ex- pect to see Q network of United States airplanes criss crossing back and forth across the North Atlantic, assisted in part by sur- face warships, but extending oil the way to Ireland.
 THE PACIFIC FLEET
 With this settled, the most ina- portant strategic problem being discussed in baekstage Navy circles Is that of bringing the mighty Pacific. fleet from that ocean Into the Atlantic to pre- vent Nazi seizure of the mid- Atlantic Islands and to be ready for other major eventualities.
 Every detail in connection with such . shift has been dls- cussed. And while there have been some hot behind-the- scenes arguments, the one thing upon which the admirals all agree Is that the fleet must be kept together. To split it Into small units and send some of them to the Atlantic, in their opinion, would be disastrous. Battleships must have their ace c0mpanying cruisers, destroyers, etc., and they cannot be di- vided.
 Naturally, the idea of the fleet withdrawing from the Pacific Is enough to raise the hair on the heads of most people on the West Coast. However, the Navy has worked out a plan whereby 1t Is confident that the West Coast would be in no real danger.
 This plan Is extremely im- portant, because 1t illustrates the new type of warfare made possible by the long distance bomber. Also 1t gives the key to R0Osevelcs convoy plans. Fi- nally 1t illustrates what the Nazls could do to the United States If the plan were reversed in the Atlantic.
 Key to the plan is Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands. The ad- mirals are reasonably confident that long distance patrol planes ranging out from Hawaii in the mid-Paciflc and from the Aleu- tians in the north Pacific would be sufficient to spot any Japanese ship approaching American wa- ters. And air torpedoes of the type which crippled the Bismarck could do the rest. Tn fact, the entire Bismarck incident has been Q striking demonstration that long distance bombers plus islard bases have revolutionized warfare in both oceans.
 AZORES AND CANARIES
 Now if you transpose the map of the Pacific. onto the map of the Atlantic, you will also get an idea of why Roosevelt bore down so heavily on the importance of the Azores, the Canary and Cape Verde Islands in his flreside chat. For the Azores are the Hawaii of the mid-Atlantic, while the Ca- naries and Cape Verdes might be compared to the Aleutians-in re- verse position.
 Whoever holds these stepping stones across the Atlantic can |. sweep that ocean with naval pa- trol planes and bombers, just as the U. S. fleet can Sweep the Pa cific from Hawaii and the Aleutians.
 If we hold these Atlantic is- lands, then we hold she gate way to the Atlantic. Tf Hitler holds them. he controls the first step toward BrazlI--and the rest of Che way Is easy. These were some of the things Roosevelt studied on the large-scale maps