1940-10-19 — Page 10

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Count the "TELEGRAPHS" everywhere

October 19, 1940.

TWO THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

CAN AMERICA HELP?

By Rear Admiral Yates Stirling U.S.N. (Ret.)"

United Press Naval Critic

What may be called the naval base frontier of United States sea power in the Pacific to-day extends roughly from Dutch Harbour, Unalas- ka Island, Alaska, to Oahu Island in the Hawaiian group and thence to Pago Pago on the island of Tutuila in Samoa-a distance of approximately 4,260 miles.

Ban

· Honolulu

"Finning.

CLA BUYAŠTUL IF

Mawulf If

Tahiti

The United States is in a better position than any other nation in the world to have

The fleet base at Dutch Har- The routo, roughly, passes Midway, Wake, Guam, Manila bour is under construction. The through the above mentioned route used by Pacific airways, a base at Pearl Harbour, Oahu, islands, the New Hebrides. total of 6,130 miles. Hawall, is completed and is be- Islands, the Solomon Islands, also British, through Torres ing used by the fleet. There is straits at the north end of Aus- no base for the fleet in Pago tralia, across the Arafuria Sea, If we can obtain air bases superior air force, The Pacific is a wide ocean and difficulty to Pago, Samoa. That harbour is up through Banda straite west from Great Britain, let us con- too small for anything but sub of the islands of Ceram, owned sider another air route to Manila, control, by even the fastest sur- by Holland, thence' through the which will not pass through air face warships.. Airplanes will marines and seaplanes.

cut down the time of passage be- Molukka passage into the Philip controlled by Japan. The first Should it be necessary to send pine Archipelago to Manila, a air base on this route from Oahu tween locations almost to one- the flect to the orient, a number total distance of 6,730 miles. would be at Canton Island, 1,680 twentieth of a warship's time. of routes would be available.

miles, then Pago Pago, 720 This route is more than 2,000 miles, then to an island in the three days to go a distance of It requires a fleet more than The feet might advance by miles longer than that via new Hebrides, 1,230 miles, 1,200 miles that can be covered the northern route from Seattle, Guam, but would be practically

The route to Manila from the by a seaplane in four hours. It via Dutch Harbour and Attu immune to Japanese interfer- new Hebridos then will lead to seems plain that the Pacific Islands to Manila. From Seattle ence. The fleet on this route new Guinea, 1,200 miles, to the ocean, especially in its eastern via Tuch Harbour to Manila would pass through or near island of Ceram, 1,200 miles, to part will be happy hunting

owned would be 6,690 miles. Stopping islands

by friendly Manila, 1.200 miles. The total ground for these vast, weapons at Attu Island, the distance nations and could be supplied distance by this route would be of destruction, and na our vital would be slightly longer.

with fuel and other necessities 7,230 miles, or 2,370 miles far- Interests over anywhere en route. The fleet ther than the

will be in the Such an advance would carry would require 18 steaming days through Guam.

direct route Pacific, we cannot allow the the fleet close to Japan's bases outside of the days required for

graes to grow under our feet. in her main islands and through refueling or repairing of fleet the Japanese Island Groups, units. Nanpo Shoto and Nansei Shoto and Formosa, where Japan has This vast area of islands, al- numerous advance bases for her most all of them owned by Great warships.

Britain and Holland, are most important for air bases to enable This would not be a healthy squadrons of our aca planes, voyage, if we were at war, for either to accompany the fleet or our fleet would be encumbered to fly from the United States to with a large train of supply and the orient to take part in a naval repair ships. During a large war in that area with the fleet. part of the voyage it would be subject to attack by Japanese submarines, and air forces. It by might even be attacked Japan's main, fleet and air forces at a time and location most dis- advantageous to our fleet.

:

Great Britain has offered the United States British Islands for bases in the Atlantic to defend our Hemisphere from European dictators. We might also consider obtaining island There in a middle route into bases from Great Britain in the the orient from the Hawaiian Pacific Ocean to give mobility to Islands via Guam to Manila, our air forces, should the United This distance is about 5,000 States be drawn into war in the miles and would carry the fleet Far East. through the Marshall, Caroline and Marianas. Islands owned by from the 140th meridian of The area of the south Pacific Japan.

longitude to Australia and Asia

These islands are a formidable.some day will be controlled

barrier. We know that some of almost entirely by air forces, these islands such as Jaluit,

Warships will be useful but Ponape and Saipan.are prepared the enormous speed of airplanes naval positions for submarines and the destruction they can and вед planes. This route would be safe if Guam were a most necessary one in fighting a accomplish makes that weapon a first class base for the fleet.

war in the vast area of the Far

*East.

A northern route for airplanes There is a proposed southern to reach the orient via Sitka, route much longer, but beyond Kodiak and Attu, to attack the striking power of the Japa- Japanesé bases is yet difficult, if nese Navy except by submarines not impossible. From Attu, our and long-range airplanes. This farthest western' air base, it is route leads from Oahu via the 2,400 flying miles to the Inland

Islands owned by Great Britain, would be most unsafe to use the

►

2 IS SINGAPORE

IMPREGNABLE?

One of the chief defences of Singapore is the fact that it has no enemy within several thousand miles. That fact does not allow the scale of its defences to be reduced in any way, but it does mean that a completely unexpected attack-a bolt from the blue--is highly im- probable, if not impossible. And it also means that the difficulties of an attacker are very great.

Attacks on defended bases European garrison. For that pur have in the past often been de- pose, too, elaborate sanitary and ad- livered from across an ocean; necessary to provide for the health of 1-malaria arrangements Have been many examples in the seven- the men, and the transformation of teenth and eighteenth centuries a tropical swamp into a healthy gar- in the American continent will risen station has been a very re-

markable achievement. occur to all.

But military expeditions to-day COMBINED EXERCISES are very much less self-supporting than they were in the days of Ver- Every year, for some years past, or Wolfe. Whether naval or elaborate combined `exercises have

of supply, and to maintain such a all three services have taken part. service over a distance of 3,000 miles In these, the garrison at its exist-

military they need a constant service taken place at Singapore in which

comendous taxon resources ing strength has represented the. of even a first-class maritime power. Amy; the Air Forces stationed at, LARGE calibre guNS

There

have been defences at

Singapore for a century past; but it was only when, in 1923, the esta

blishment there of a modern naval base was undertaken that it became necessary to raise the scale of the defences to that of a first-class for- tress, able to hold its own in the face of attacks of any magnitude,

This entailed the installation, it understood, of guns of the heaviest

Phoenix Billice Groups posible oven for heavily armoured

FUNNY SIDE UP

By Abner Dean

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BED DEPT

Dien, Shit by Datel Prados Bradashi, Jos,

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capable of making it im-

ships-of-war 10 approach close enough to support by their gunfre any attempt at the capture of the Island,

No detalls of these guns, of course, have been made public, but they

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occasions have

have often been described in Singapore on some articles, in both British and Ameri- been reinforced from India, or from can periodicals, by writers who pro- even farther away, for the period of fess to have some inside informa- the exercises of the Navy, the ships tion about them. Most of them des- of both the East Indies and China cribe the biggest guns as being of Fleets have taken part, some of them large calibre.

usually playing the part of an enemy Other guns of varying calibres are attacking the colony. said to be mounted at various places,

last year and during the In August and there no doubt that, whatever first two months of the war, Singa- their actual calibre, Singapore in as porc, like the feat of the world, was strongly defended as any island for hard at work bringing its defences treas in the world.

up to a state of complete rondiness. The defences have been developed Additional defence works were gradually over n period of years during which the nova aften erected, various activities were un

dertaken along the water front, and yard has been under construction. lochi yolunteer services were em- They include not only guns covering bodied and exercised in their war- the seaward approaches, but also on time duties of minesweeping, local adequate garrison of both military patrols, and the like.

activity slackened off at the end of October, when it appeared THE R.A.F. STRENGTH that there was little probability ot Besides the highly developed that part of the world. But they moment of the war spreading to civil air port close to Singapore city, were reamed, when tension ap- there is the Royal Air Force base

air, units.

1

on the north side of the island, facing peared to be increasing in the Far

Enst the Johore Strait, not far from the A communique Issued on

July naval base itself.

informed the Inhabitants at Singa- Four years ago it was stated, that pore that further defence works, were the Service population at Singapore being put in hand and that it would' Including the men of the naval base, be necessary for several of the shark- air force and the garrison numbered, preot bathing centres on the south with their dependants, some 12,000, coast of the island an amenity very It is

is probably considerably larger welcome to Europeans living in the now.

tropics-would have to be replaced The Increase of the

the garrison has, by barbed wire entanglements, which of course, necessitated the provision would preclude their -use by...- tho of barracks to house it. The chief public for bothing. of these are the Glimon barracks, There must, of course,

urse, have been near the elly over-looking Keppei I many more preparations than those Harbour, and the Changi Barracks of which public notice, was thus at the castern end of the island, a given, and it may be taken now for These are of modern design and granted that the defences of Singa- provide “overy comfort such as is pore minke It ne, nearly Impregna. necosary to make life in a tropical ble to attack on any fortress; in the inland tolerable, oven, possible, for n world:

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