The guardian. [volume] (Boston, Mass.) 1901-1960, 1948-01-03
OUR NEXT PEARL HARBoR

great deal is being written about the startling de-
cline in the size and potency of military forces On
vi Day. had the most powerful Army Mayfair Force
team earth Now two years LATER have good but
undermined Navy, small Army with handful of
derrength green divisions and according to the experts
practically nothing in the way Of modern Air Force.
One Of the most thoughtprovokng articles on the pos
sbe significance of this leads off the October issue of the
Atlantic Monthly. Written by Francis and Katherine
Drake it is called Our Next Pearl Harbor?" And its tone
found in this sentences Our land lies naked before
weapon which, in the words Of the Smyth Report, is
pekAtiay destructive beyond the widest nightmares of
lib imagination weapon so ideally suited to sudden un-
announced attack that counrys major cities might be
destroyed overnight by ostensibly friendly power
dAy the and little later the brakes write 1T is
fAt that today the United States virtually helpless
against such attack with atomic weapons) and that
AassAasli& at speed towgads q mill
ry impotence that is a open invitation to disaster"
& good many people seem to think that no power
Eoud dare to the atomic bomb against because Of
he fear of retaation-a factor which undoubtedly pre-
waited the of poison gas in the last The point
these people miss in the brakes opinion that we are
dangerously short of retaatory instruments We could
sckpIe atomic bombs by the thousands but they would
not serve us in unehs had ready means of get
ting them to enemy targets and getting them there at
once According to Major General Echols Russia is
building $4,000 military planes this year We are
building 1900 And is known that Russia is giving
unlimited to preparations of all kinds
with the atomic bomb holding top priority
Just how strong is the once-great u S. Air Forces?
Our best bomber is still the B29 though experts
slider obsolete. while the Air Forces got together
"evcry operatona B29 in the country for demonstra
ton the The total muster prcduesd 1so planes
land of these % didn't get there. General Kenney the
commander Of the demonstrations called his tiny armada
ga futile force And say the brakes the demonstration
was SO unmpressive that onlookers gave name Or
Grafton FLOP! That remember the force that once
numbered 80 900 combat planes and blasted the Japanese
and Germans from the air.
We have some $500 B-29s in dead storage. But II
would take months and perhaps year or more, to pre-
them for combat and to train the necessary ground
and air We had the time IN the last war THANKS Go
british resistance and the primitive weapons then in use
No military commentator thinks will have it if wal
comes again.
Tho brakes believe that national security demands a
dorr Air Striking Force equipped with at least LOU
modern ong-range bombers which Will be kept IN com
hat readiness at all times Secondly they continue we
met have an adequately financed research program which
will assure us world leadership in aircraft development
There is an old saying to the effect that every military
Name 4 obsolete as soon as bults superior is the
drawing boards At present rehearch activities seem
n;tifuy inadequate All we have is few experimental
rototvpes of advanced planes. The Air Forces asked
s30o geo 900 for research and procurementhey were
given $3800o,000.
The brakes deal in detail with the potential des-
trucveness of the atomic bomb They quote the great
physicist Dr. Robert Oppenheimer who said atomic wea-
pons might kill 4O,OOOO0O Americans in single night
The bombs dropped Hiroshima and Nagasak affected
only three or four miles of The scientists think that
future bombs may be able to devasae three four hun
dred square milesan greater than that Of any Amer
lean city And that would not be the end These
giant bombs would release amounts Of unsnelq-
ed radium the effect of which would be unimaginaole
The brakes touch the dangerous theory mat there
will be no atomic war because would be too horrible