1941-09-20 — Page 4

Saturday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

September 20, 1941

The Power of The

American

Navy

bour where ships can rest: It!

By the man who knows most about it needs defences against air and

BEFORE the present war,

Americans were assured that in gun power and armour their battleships stood first among the world's fleets; that they were adequately supported by cruisers and destroyers; that above those floating gianta hovered an incomparable air force; that no enemy could think of attacking our consts, and would attack our distant in- terests only at extreme peril to himself.

To-day, the riveting hammers of every shipyard in the United States are pounding on warships.

new

Оп

The skies over Pensacola nro dark with fledgling pilots; the training stations hum with thou-

new.sailors. sands of islands fur in the Atlantic, base facilities are building. All to fill gaps in an inadequate naval defence.

Were they mistaken before or lying to us? Neither. It was all' true enough but true for a differ- . ent kind of world.

We need, to-dny, new ships, men, and bases, but, fortunately, the need is quantitative; every- thing that has happened in Europe tends to demonstrate that our naval men have been working on the almost exactly correct lines.

can

Sacrifice For Speed

THEY have been so close

to right that we reasonably count on qualitative superiority against any opposi- tion. Especially with regard to ships.

During peace periods there is a tendency in most navies to sacrifice for speed. It is the quality whose value is most

Secretary of the Navy

COLONEL FRANK KNOX

In an interview With Fletcher Pratt

All these lead to a single. Our officers appreciated the easily perceived in manoeuvres; object--to provide a force that possibility of this form of at whereas sailors never learn how can break through the screen of tack, but their failure to trans- useful armour can be till genu- light vessels at the head of an late the appreciation into pro- inc angry shells come beating on enemy line and there launch a tection for the ships, is the one belt and turret.

torpedo attack.

real miscalculation they made For many years our Navy has

The torpedoes may never sink during the 20 years of peace. been remarkable for its resis- anything, but some of the enemy Setting up defences against it tance to the speed trend, its con- fast boys will not be so sprightly now is one of the major jobs we centration on armour, and on a with a few hundred tons of have under way. system of tactics and strategy water aboard after a torpedo The problem of providing based on the use of armour. hit; and, in that case, they will men for our new fleet is essen- The 15 ships of our battle line have to shoot it out against our tially the same as in the case of and the new ships that will join better-armed, better-armoured ships: How to expand without that line this summer have from ships.

losing quality. two to four more inches of belt As far as one can tell from The basic material is ours for armour than those of any other the naval contacts in the war, the asking; we have set our nation but the Germans.

this theory is perfectly correct. standards for enlistment 80 The Germans have bought In our Navy it has long been high that it is harder to enter protection for their new ships held that the best answer to the Service than a university, by aacrificing gun power; they bombing attack is good, thick something that never has been mount only eight 15in. guns deck arinour, combined with done in any Navy of history, yet against the nine 16in. of our anti-aircraft guns powerful there is no lack of recruits. The North Carolinas, which means enough to keep the bombers up pinch comes in getting trained that each German vessel throws high.

*men, both officers and ratings, something like 16,000lb. of Thus, while other nations the sergeants of the Navy, metal per broadside, while ours were building cruisers with 3in. Clearly we would only be kid- put out 20,700lb.

decks and 4in. sky guns, aura ding ourselves if we diluted

At equal numbers, our battle-

submarine attack, should have shore artillery enough to make enemy surface forces keep a respectful distance,

Air Arm Bases

THE ideal condition with regard to bases is that attained by our big Navy patrol planes. They operate from tenders, which are ships carry. ing fuel, food, ammunition, and reserve crews. Any sheltered bay where a tender steams in becomes forthwith a naval air base, with all facilities.

This is the chief present value of the bases leased from Eng- land; the naval air arm can use them at once, but if we are to undertake the burden of hemis- phere defence, the building up of the West Indies bases requires as much attention and effort as the construction of new ships or the training of new men.

So does the question of bases in the Pacific: Pearl Harbour is probably the best naval base in the world to-day; no point is botter situated, better defend- cd, better equipped, or better .supplied.

But it is inadequately backed

by other base facilities on the

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it is inadequately supported from Alaska in the north, and beyond it we have nothing but the secondary base at Manila, 'which cannot handle battleships, and is itself farther from Hawail than New York is from Athens, Greece.

In fact, the whole question of American base facilities in the Far East, where we have so many vital interests, is in a thoroughly unsatisfactory condi- tion, and is one of the questions that will have to receive our at- tention when the present Eure- pean conflict is over.

We shall not have full secur.

ity until we have enough ships, men, and bases all three-to defend the hemisphere and share with England that leadership in the world which is the most logical outcome of the present world convulsion.

Barbarous Policy Towards Women

(Continued from Page 3.)

ships can both dish it out and were getting in. of plate and down this magnificent corps of and jealousy, jealousy of all poten

Gin. cannon, a

men.

take it better than any others; great as to be fundamental.

difference so specialists with less capable even against numerical odds No armour as thick as that they stand a good chance in an borne by our battleships and expanding the schools and cut- heavy cruisers has yet been ting down the time require-

all-out battle.

been

1

Torpedo Fire

be.

We have met the problem by

⚫ penetrated by an aeroplane ments. A year ago the Service bomb. Nor is it very likely to had 3,000 men-an extraordin

arily large number by the way -under training for ratings. Now it has 4,500; and the new

THE question of dealing

with a faster enemy has ' Threat To Crew

on the minds of our

admirals for some time.

It lies behind such structural

IF this were the whole Jacksonville and Ford schools, story of air attack, we just opened, give us capacity to peculiarities of the American could sit back with a smile of train 10,000 at once. Navy na the extraordinary size complacent satisfaction.

In ships and men, then, the and heavy torpedo armament of But ships can be put out of patient is doing as well as could our destroyers, the number of action without having their be expected. But In the third bombers our fleet carriers can armour penetrated; and the great element of sea power- fly off-we lend the world in cases of many ships demonstrate bases we are not so well fixed, this respect; we even lead the that the greatest dangers in In spite of the 50.destroyer triple Axis combination-and aerial attack are not to the swap. the powerful armament of our vessel.but to her crew, who may What we gained in that deal light cruisers, which lead and be cut down like ninepins by the was not bases but the right to accompany planes, and destroy- splinters of relatively “small make, bases, . A naval base is ers into battle:

bombs from dive-hombers, much more than a sheltered har

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separate worlds for men and wo- men. Women must not smoke, Le. be like a man. They must not use lipstick or powder, either, ie, en- hance their feminine ascendancy If, in their unconscious

they hate and fear the women from whom they seduce the children, what does their treatment of chil dren reveal? Surely again fear tial rivals. Now, it is natural that in carly adolescence the sexes should tend to draw apart. Boys form gangs and secret societies with their lenders and devoted fol- lowers. They have no use for girls, who are thought of ns silly and inferior. Girls have a com plementary phase of development. Their, adolescent emotions attach themselves to older girls and school-mistresses.

In this phenomenon both sexes recapitulate in a short time a whole period in the primitive history of mankind for in past ages fear and superstition kept the sexes apart. In normal development of to-day this phase gives place to a more valuable social development In which stable male and female friendships enrich community life. But when this adolescent phase of development is made to drag out into adult life, then we may wit- neas a return to barbarism; the gangster group, the hero, and the blindly devoted followers is the outcome.

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