AMERICA’S ARMED STRENGTH

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 14254, 31 December 1946, Page 4

AMERICA’S ARMED STRENGTH

REGAINING LOST

POWER

Meeting New Aggression

Scientists And Technicians * Hard At Work

Should the United States in the near future again be forced into war it would take quite a long time for the nation to muster enough strength to take the offensive, in the opinion of veteran officers of the country’s armed forces. But, these officers emphasise, the armed power of America is increasing! Strength lost'between the end'of the war, and early last summer is being regained. The United States Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, and the Secretary of War, Mr Patterson, among officials who have % * expressed themselves on this subject in recent months, each have stated that it would take the United States six months to regain the naval and military power it had when Japan surrendered. Other informed, authorities say it would take longer One na.val officer, whose information is authoritative, estimates that it would take “several years” for the Navy to become as strong as it was when Japan surrendered. He said it could regain three-fourths of this strength within a year, because if could capitalise on its millions of recently demobilised veterans and its still useful laid-up ships, but that much more time would be needed to organise the remaining 25 per cent, of its potential combat strength. Military leaders seem fully aware that other nations may develpp new weapons before America does, and they stress the importance of military intelligence. Lieutenant-Gen-eral Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Director of the Central Intelligence Group, finds the Army, Navy and U.S. State Department increasingly co-operative in creating the overall intelligence agency, and he says many qualified experts have joined his organisation.

Volunteer Personnel

Both the Navy and the Marino Corps feel secure in one factor: all their personnel are volunteers. Their strength in August was: 042,170, Navy; and 112,500 Marine Corps. At the end of the war their strength was: 3,408,347, Navy; and 485,833 Marine Corps. The Navy also is keeping in constant training 200,000 officers and men in its organised reseives to augment its regular forces. The Marine Corps ground and air organised reserves, now activated have a quota of 32,400 men. A War Department officer whoso job is to plan for all contingencies, feels that the army “could start some kind of offensive in nine months,” but not a “major, sustained attack.” For the first year, he said, most of the veteran manpower recalled to arms would be needed to train recruits. Another officer recalled that each United States division was trained for a year before being ordered into combat in the recent war.

An Army Air Force executive said he believed it would take a. year and a halt for air power to regain the strength it had at the end of the war. American air units now overseas are “not in a condition to fight over a long period of time,” he said, since they would need heavy replacements in aircraft and personnel. Many military leaders interviewed said that American occupation forces overseas, in the event of war, could fight only a brief delaying action if attacked. i

War Not Expected

None of the high-ranking officers questioned expected war soon. They seem confident that present international differences will be settled and; that Russia, .the only nation which could be a challenge, is not in a sound position to fight. As to weapons in the event of an other war in the immediate or near future, military leaders say that they would be about the same ones used at the end of the last war —that guided missiles and other new paraphernalia still must be developed further. They recall that the designing of the,B-29 Super-Fortress, “the atomic-bomber,was started in 193 8, with the first model built in 1941, and with mass combat construction coming only in 1945. Scientists are hard at work, as are other technicians. But air officers see little tactical advantage gained in the construction of the new super-bombers, the B-35 and B-3G, with only one each of these planes now in use, and with fewer than 50 army jet-propelled aeroplanes and few navy jet-propelled carrier planes now in operation. American • military mobilisation plans, as a result, say the experts, envisage no radical departure from the war machine in 1945. The industrial mobilisation plan, now being written by the Army and Navy Munitions Board, will be essentially a programme to mobilise civilian resources to the fullest extent.

General Dwight Eisenhower, United States Chief of Staff, discounts the theory that long-range bombers and pilotless planes would render unnecessary advanced bases. He says that American security “demands” that we surround ourselves with a co'rd'on of bases from which our forces may intercept attacking units and from which we may quickly launch counter blows.”