IF U.S. COMES IN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 280, 26 November 1941, Page 4

IF U.S. COMES IN

EIRE NAVAL BASES AMERICAN NECESSITY LEASE-LEND RECOMPENSE (By COL. FREDERICK PALMER) WASHINGTON, September 30. There is a general agreement in the outlook of military and naval opinion that the main value of a revision of the Neutrality Act points to the utilisation of naval and air bases in Eire. The Red Sea and Persian Gulf inlets for aid to the British Army in the Middle East and across Iran to Russia are already a non-belliger-ent zone for us. They were so declared by President Roosevelt after the British took Eritrea and Ethiopia in North-east Africa away from the Italians.

Not until Japan begins active hostilities on the side of the Axis will the Pacific and the Asian Seas around the British stronghold of Singapore become a belligerent zone. World-wide policy has still to take into consideration that Japan may yet take the risk which makes one of all this vast area.

The real raging belligerent zone is around Eire, from the Irish Sea and the English Channel to her west coast. German bombers from the French coast fly past Bantry Bay in Eire's southern tip to join in the attacks by German submarines upon the convoys which converge in the acute danger zone for Britain's home life-line off the west coast of Ireland.

Tremendous Value of Harbours After our entry into World War 1., Queenstown. Ireland, now the Cobh of Eire, was the principal bake for our destroyers in fighting the submarine menace. We also had use of all the bases on the French coast which are now Nazi bases. Then the importance of Queenstown as an Irish base was in the fact that it commanded the approach past Queenstown to the Bristol and English Channels, where convoys converged. Now the main movement is to the north of Ireland, away from the close thrusts of the Nazis from the French coast. Then only navat bases were wanted when the submarine was the only enemy of shipping. In the present situation no naval expert and no airman questions the tremendous value of the harbours on the indented coasts of southern and western Eire as nature's own gift as bases. They would provide ports nearer the danger zone for destroyers. From them fighter planes could command the path of German planes on the way to bomb convoys and cut off those on their homeward flight which had got through on their outward flight. It is in the logic of tne destiny of our step by step forward policy that the next and most decisive step should be to make bases in Eire available. To understand this, look back to the time of the lease of the British Island bases. Then Britain was taking account of the planes, tanks and material she had remaining after the Dunkerque disaster. She was under the bombing siege and the threat of invasion, ana in grave danger of losing the Battle of the Atlantic.

The transcendent need was Britain's home security, which called for priority in fortifying the New foundland base to keep tne northern sea lane open in order to deliver the goods to her. This was prevision looking ahead to the eventual occupation of Iceland.

How well this prevision has materialised in results are realised in a succession of patriotic thrills when out off the Newfoundland coast in one of our patrol bombers and in our extensive new naval air base and other works in Newfoundland. In what is about the world's worst area of flying weather our air patrols aid our naval patrols in effective readiness to "shoot on sight" which should make the shipping under our flag secure in the western North Atlantic.

When the Germans are so much occupied in Russia it hardly suits their present policy overtly to provide us with many targets to shoot at as far as Iceland. But if we advance our patrols beyond Iceland into the acute danger zone there will be plenty of targets for us to shoot at, and we are bound to be plentifully shot at in return.

Then we shall want Eire as a virgin field for our bases. These we may have only with her consent, which, in turn, will commit Eire as an ally against Germany. De Valera's Shrewd Hand Premier Eamon de Valera has played a close and skilful hand to hold Eire in the role of an impartial neutral. His little country of only 3,000,000 people lacks adequate planes, anti-aircraft guns, and arm 3 of all kinds for defence from invasion or air attack.

Unable to make many of her own she cannot buy them in any quantity from Britain or from us when Britain cannot make enough for herself or we enough to answer Britain's calls. But the day may come when Eire, too, will participate in the benefits of Lease-Lend aid as we build bases and supply her with material for her own protection and ours in common.

The memory of the wrongs of centuries she endured from British domination, which are fast in the minds of many Irishmen, may lose weight once she knows that with America back of her she is in no danger of losing any of the freedom she has won in case of a British victory. If we should take that next decisive step Premier de Valera is in a good trading position.—Auckland Star and N.A.N.A.