Evening star., 1943-10-27
Navy Louded
As Offensive Force
BY Maj. George Fielding Eliot.

This is Navy Day.
1t is a day OF particular significance
for Americans. Our country has been
greatly favored by Providence, in hav-
ing been set apart from the other ma
tions of the world. alone in hemisphere
which for more than century has con-
tanned no possible rival, no enemy of
strength comparable to our own. While
we grew and prospered, the nations Of
the Old World were busy with their
own affairs. Gradually, however we
came to take a greater and greater part
in those affairs, and the happenings
beyond the seas came to be of greater
ana greater consequence to US.
AS this change gradually took place,
SO gradually but steadily has grown the
necessity for our maintaining command
Of those seas which divide us on the
east from Europe and on the west from
Asia. Under the pressure of these
growing necessities, the sea power of
America has risen in steady progress
sion and our Navy has been full worthy
Of the great Nation which has created
1t and Of which 1t is the principal
guardian.
Many Of us have thought of the Navy
as a sort of movable wall, standing be-
tween our shores and possible sources
Of danger. The reality is quite differ
ent, and the men who have made and
commanded our Navy have always un-
derstood it. They know-none better
that defensive war is the forerunner Of
defeat. l have heard admirals deplore
the very existence Of the popular phrase,
THE Navy, our first line of defense"
The NaVy-such a great and powerful
Navy as ours-iS not line Of defense
at all, or any kind Of line. 1t is
tremendous instrument Of offensive war;
fare.
That does not mean that our pur-
pose in maintaining a Navy is aggres-
sive. I do not think this has ever been
the case. No, the American people
have maintained a Navy, and increased
its fighting power over a long period
OF years, in order to insure that when
war did come to them they should have
the inestimable privilege of fighting
that war on the enemys territory and
not their own; of lighting their battle
fields by the flames of the enemy's
burning cities, and net their own, and
OF maintaining meanwhile intact the
tremendous poWerhouse of American
energy in order that the war might be
brought to swift and victorious con-
clusion.
That is the great benefit which the
people of this country are deriving to-
day from their possession of the most
powerful Navy in the world
There have been those who have
Whlned that American boys are being
sent to die on foreign battlefelds 1t is
true, OF course, but would those COM
planners prefer that the battlefields
should be here at home? There are
still those who pirate of 'impregna BILE
defense but has not this war taught
them-if all previous experience of war;
fare has not done so-that peaceful
though your purposes. if you are COM
PEELED TO fight then the cheapest and
easiest and quickest road to victory is
an overwhelming offensive against the
vltals of your enemy so that he has
neither time nor opportunity to strike
at your own vitals?
We have been able to launch such
offenslves across the oceans only be-
cause we possessed a Navy which was
capable of keeping the control of those
oceans and because We were allied with
another free people whose great sea-
power has worked hand in hand with
our own. We have been able to keep
the enemy from our shores because
our Navy has not only been strong, but
has been of such finely tempered spirit
that not even the cruel losses of the
treacherous attack at Pearl Harbor
could restrain it from taking the offen-
sive in the Pacific. We have been able
to pour across the seas our mighty
strength in fighting men and fighting
tools because our Navy and the navy
Of our British allies have been able to
guard our conveys against every device
which the enemy could bring to bear
against them.
Sea power has always been a weapon
OF free peoples. Again and again, from
the days of Salamis to those of the
Spanish Armada and down through the
centuries with Drake and Nelson. Paul
Jones and Decatur to the terrible World
Wars of this century, sea power has
been the shield Of liberty. 1t has rarely
been possessed. still more rarely under
stood by the Napoeons and Hitlers The
Would-be conqueror turns naturally to
the conquest and looting Of his neigh
bors territory. His advance is checked
by the sea. AS long as the sea continues
to be ruled by peoples whose banners
make tyranny tremble" there can never
be conquest of the world bv anv
predatory criminal state. however
powerful such state may be by land.
1t is in this hope that We Americans
may look forward to the days to come,
when this war shall have been won and
when. with our British allies, we shall
control the seas of the world. 1t is not
that we shall have occasion to rejoice
in our possession of an invincible Navy.
That Navy will prove. when victory is
won, its further and constant worth as
a guardian of the fruits of victory and
as an indestructible pillar of just and
lasting peace among all peoples
Copyrisht, 1943, New York Tribune, Incl
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