Evening star., 1949-09-10
Navy Air Not Dead
If Victory Is to Be Insured

To the Editor Of TheStar:
In the August ~ issue of The Star, Joel
T. Rogers refers to Navy Air as a dead serv-
ice, one which was inevitably temporary.
destined to pass out Of existence with the
advent Of long range planes. Like Mr.
Rogers am an armchair strategist, and
I cannot but take issue with him on his
opinions.
All wars Of the past have been based on
only one thing: The common foot soldier.
The Athenians considered the heavy armed
infantry the backbone Of their army; Alex
ander the Great depended upon his phalanx
Of foot soldiers; Caesar based his operations
on the legion, body Of infantry; Napoleon
used his infantry as the most important part
of his force. This historic dependence upon
the foot soldier is based on the unavoidable
fact that it takes men to capture other men
and to occupy the land of the enemy.
Every weapon of warfare was designed
primarily to help the foot soldier in the
completion of his task; namely, to kill the
foot soldier Of the enemy. Artillery was
designed to knock down the protective walls
behind which enemy soldiers lodged them
selves; tanks were designed to aid the in
fantry in its advance; navies were developed
to move the infantry across the seas to the
field Of battle, to carry to the foot soldiers
the supplies with which to fight and to keep
the sea lanes open in order to insure the
steady flow of men and equipment. In the
past war, ships were used to great advan-
tage in the preparation Of beaches for land
ing, because the hrepower Of great battle
ship is tremendous: still, however, the most
important factor In any battle Is the COM
mon foot soldier.
When airplanes first were used in war
fare, their mission was reconnaissance;
they were then adapted to straflng the
enemy, then to bombing .him; their highest
development to date is for bombing the
centers Of production and transportation to
prevent men and equipment from reaching
the enemy lines. All these functions serve
the same purpose: To aid the infantry in its
task of overcoming the infantry of the
enemy. challenge Mr.. Rogers, or any one
else, to find one weapon which was designed
for any other purpose than to aid the in
fantry. Guns, ships, submarines. planes, all
these weapons either directly aid the foot
soldier or indirectly ad him by slowing
down or stopping the flow of reinforcements
and supplies to the enemy.
Mr.. Rogers said that Navy Air is dead
and that the Navy should not produce any
more carriers. The naval battles Of the Sec
ond World War were fought largely by
planes based on carriers; the British lost
two Of their best ships to the Japanese be-
cause they didn't have sufficient air cover;
the submarine, which Mr.. Rogers seems to
feel is the ship Of the future navy, is best
detected from the air-by planes which
constantly can be on the alert, circling the
area assigned, not by planes which must
fly from Podunk, y. g. A., to the middle Of
the Atlantic on a supmarine-detection mis-
sion
No. Navy Air is not dead, nor will it ever
be dead 10 long as there Is sea lane to be
kept open, . foot soldier to deliver or to
supply; 20 long as the upited States has an
enemy or q potential enemy which has
either surface or subsurface ships, the
United States Navy must have battleships,
carriers and planes with which to combat 1t.
II we wish to avoid fighting the next war
on our own soil, we must have Navy to
deliver and to supply foot soldiers on foreign
soil should we choose to deny the Navy
its air force and its carriers, we might well
deny the United States It's victory in any
Forthcoming war. G. A.
Vallejo, Calf.