Evening star., 1941-09-02
u. 5. Coast Defenses
Are Obsolete, Says
Army Staff Officer
Inland Air Bases
Make Forts Useless,
Col. Phillips Asserts
BY the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
Differences within the Army over
projected strengthening of the Ma
tion's coast defenses broke into the
! open yesterday with a declaration
by member of the General Staff
Corps that the bomber has made
the American coast impregnsble to
invasion"
LIT. Col. Thomas r. Phillips, Army
commentator on tactical problems,
asserted in Army Ordnance, semi
official publication, that the whole
business of invasion across the sea
against ample land-based air power
no longer is in the book of possi-
bilities."
Citing the British experience in
trying to invade Norway, Col. Phil
lips continued that the presence
or absence of harbor defenses along
the American coast would be of no
Importance whatsoever against a
sea-borne invasion, as long as we
possess ample landbased air power" :"
Defense Concept Changed.
Last spring Congress appropriated
$92 100000 for an extensive program
of modernization of coast defenses.
1t provided for replacement of vir-
tually every old battery with new
long-range guns.
At the time, Gen. George c.
Marshall, chief of staff, told Con-
gress that the high commands con-
cept of seacoaSt defense require
ments has been changed as a result
of the change in status of the
French fleet and as to the future
possibility of less active English
fleet in the Atlantic"
Col. Phillips, at present stationed
at the headquarters of the Armys
Puerto Rican Department, said the
seacoaSt program was described as
designed to make the country safe
for SO years to come. Then he
asked:
rs this really looking forward, or
are the harbor defenses being pro-
vided to cover the so years which
have just passed."
Doubts Need of Coast Guns.
He went on to say that harbor
defenSeS originally we're constructed
to permit movement of a countrys
naval forces in and out of the
harbor facilities and ships from
enemy gunfire and torpedoes, to
prevent enemy ships from entering
the harbor and to furnish incidental
support to defense against landing
attacks.
IF a hostile fleet cannot remain
on guard outside harbor to prevent
the exit or ingress of our own feet
because of the threat of bombing"
he continued, then no harbor de-
fenses are necessary for that purpose
alone"
On the other hand, he said that
protection of ships and harbor facil-
tiles from naval gun fire and tor
pedoes is still as necessary a func-
ton of harbor defenses as ever.
THE European war has shown
that ships can stay within bombing
range at night long enough to make
raids on short installations, he
said. The French and British both
raided italian shore installations
and escaped with minor dam
age.
Air power has not superseded
coast defenses, but it can perform
some of their functions more ef-
fectively than guns ever did"
. Fort No Longer Needed.
Discussing proposal by Maj Gen.
Johnson Hagood, retired, for new
harbor defenses in the Houston
Beaumont area in Texas to protect
the oil fields from invasion, Col
Phillips asserted that air power not
only has made such an invasion i'm
possible, but new American de-
fenses closing the gaps into the
Caribbean through the Greater and
Lesser Antilles will make this area,
through which the Gulf ports of the
United States must be approached,
a trap which no hostile naval force
or transports ever would dare to
enter"
The West Indies, if fully ex-
plotted to close the Caribbean" Col.
Phillips added, furnish complete
protection for the American Gulf
Coast. Not only are no new harbor
defenses needed but those now in
existence have little further reason
for being maintained. And not only
do American defenses along the
Antilles protect the Gulf Coast, but
they also secure the northern shores
of Venezuela and Colombia, the
Panama Canal and the eastern
coast of Central America and Mex
ico'