BOMB v. WARSHIP

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 45, 17 November 1936, Page 9

BOMB v. WARSHIP

No Air Force Can Take Navy’s Place DEFENCE OF BRITAIN Importance of Sea Power Reaffirmed i British Official Wireless.? Rugby, November 15. Referring last night, in a broadcast speech on sea power, to the bomb versus battleship controversy, the First Lord of the Admiralty. Sir Samuel Hoare, said that great progress had been made in the defence of ships. Their armour had been made stronger, their range of operations greater, and their power of attack strengthened by their own use of the new air arm. It was these reasons, he said, that had made the Cabinet Committee affirm once again the principle of sea power and to conclude that while a new problem had undoubtedly been created and finality could' never be reached in a struggle between attack and defence, there was no reason to change Britain s historic attitude to the sea or her confidence in the fleet as the arm upon which the country depended for food, raw materials, and Imperial solidarity. They declared that the capital ship must remain, that no ship was less likely to be destroyed than the heavy battleship, and that no air force could replace the Navy. But a system of the closest co-operation must be worked out between the Navy and the Air Force for insuring the greatest practicable measure of security in essential areas of the narrow seas, naval bases, and civil harbours.

For this purpose, Sir Samuel Hoare said, it would be necessary for the fleet to make the fullest possible use of ship-borne aircraft, and it would be necessary for the Air Force to be strong enough to give effective assistance with its land-based machines. It was sea power that had created the British Empire, and in doing so it had established the greatest area of internal peace the world hud ever seen. It/ was the very foundation of the Imperial structure, and though the details had varied the fundamental remained the same. The British Commonwealth here and overseas depended for its highways on the ocean.