Evening star., 1943-12-26


world will have to win this war as well.
When, by making the maximum use
of their airpower, the Nazis blitzed Po-
land, Norway, the Lowlands and France,
and the Japs conquered an empire
which was believed to be solidly in the
hands of the greatest naval powers in
the world, there were many persons in
the United States and England who
shouted against the old-fashioned gen.
erals and admirals.
They were described as old fogies who
failed to understand that this war was
entirely different from others. There
was a hue and cry that the battleship
was as obsolete as the prehistoric
dinosaurs and that only the nation
which had definite air preponderance
was going to win the war. Artillery
and tanks and the humble infantryman
were relegated to the same category. al
though it was admitted that they might
be useful for moppingup operations.
The spectacular, successes Of the Axis
we're understandable to the old fogies.
None of the opponents of the Axis had
ANYTHING to match the enemy,s forces
either In ordinary troops or in modern
war materials. But as soon as Amer
lean production began to go into high
gear, thus nullifying the enemy's orig
inal advantages, the burden OF the
fighting in North Africa, Italy and in
the South Pacific fell once more on the
of the modern battleships-a much i'm
proved sister of the prewar battlewagon,
inasmuch as 1t has thicker protection,
greater speed, more gun power and many
more antiaircraft batteries - brought
this "dinosaur" back into the picture as
the queen of the seas.
Advantages Quickly Lost.
In every war one of the belligerent
countries has some new method OF fight
ing which gives it a definite initial ad-
vantage. In the last war the Germans
developed the submarine and made the
best use of aviation. The "modernists"
Immediately shook their heads and de-
SPARED of winning the war in the face
of these extraordinary improvements,
which necessitated, they said, COM
plete change Of strategy and tactics.
The British sprang a surprise by in
Producing the tank, while the Germans
countered by introducing the flame
thrower and poison gas. All these were
spectacular developments which were
checkmated by countefmeasures which
in,
But 1t was only when German morale
at the front broke under the ceaseless
hammering of the Allied ground forces
and when the German sailors, remem-
bering the battle of Jutland refused to
face the guns of the combined British
and American Navies, that the enemy
gave up the battle.
In the present war there was an al
most hysterical outcry that the airplane
is the thing. 1t was said that unless
We decided Immediately to give up the
expensive and vulnerable battleship and
replace her by the swift airplane carrier
we could have no hope for victory in the
Pacific. 1t also was said that unless
we produced thousands upon thousands
of planes every week to darken the skies
over Germany we could not hope to
wrench victory from the Nazis.
The plane carriers proved their ex-
treme vulnerability. Critics of the bat
tleship we're silenced by the encounters
between one of our modern battleships
and two swarms of japanese bomber
and torpedo planes in which the Japs
lost all their planes but one. doing little
or no damage.
Japs on Defensive.
We do not know what the Japanese
have in that type of ship. The japanese
feet, which is now fighting purely de-
fensive war, has not yet come out to
meet us. Some naval experts maintain
that we are so many jumps ahead OF
the enemy In the category of warships
that it is unlikely that the Japs ever
will be willing to give us a chance to
fight them in the open seas. Neither
their submarines nor their aviation, be
it land-based or carriers, can do any
serious damage to the 10 modern bat
tlewagons we will have in commission
next year.
Across the Atlantic the American and
British air forces have proved extremely
valuable. But they have won no battle
as yet. In Tunisia our 3-to-1 air su-