NAVY’S REVERSE IN EAST

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 171, 16 April 1942, Page 5

NAVY’S REVERSE IN EAST

Much Heart-Searching In Britain POLICIES EXAMINED (Special P.A. Correspondent) (Received April 15, 9.20 p.m.) LONDON, April 14. Grave concern is widely expressed over the British naval losses in the Indian Ocean, and Mr. Churchill’s re-vela-tiou of the Japanese strength there has resulted in much heart-searching regarding the Navy, and also compiyisoiis of the British and Japanese air strength and methods. Not the least surprise is the fact that the Japanese have detached such a large fleet from that which awaits an American attack, and the "Manchester Guardian” comments: "So much do the Japanese trust distances in the Pacific.”

In the strained position in which the Navy finds itself, the recent losses are doubly dear. “The Times” in an editorial says: “Strategically, the question is bound to be asked whether there was adequate reason for tlie exposure of these ships—not operating in a single squadron so that an aircraft-carrier could protect the cruisers—in waters where very powerful enemy air and sea forces were certain to be soon encountered. Granted, as Mr. Churchill said, that the business of convoy and sea warfare compels the Navy to take innumerable daily risks, there is still room for a reassurance that the risks which proved fatal to these ships were not taken haphazard but were organically part of an articulated plan for the conduct of the whole campaign in the Asiatic lands and oceans.” Material Deficiencies.

The "Daily Mali,” in a "candid review,” states : “The British Navy is materially much below the strength of the combined Axis fleets iu all classes except cruisers. In the battleship strength cur inferiority is marked. This estimate disregards the still materially strong French fleet. More serious tliau the material deficiencies in warship strength, which can be made good, is our lack of properly-equipped naval bases from which our ships and squadrons can operate. . . .

"So far as the public can judge, the great American Navy is almost a phantom fleet, but, in spite of Pearl Harbour, the British and American Fleets, in close and enthusiastic concord, can recover the supremacy in the Seven Seas —though only step by step. In the Pacific alone does the enemy seem to be temporarily secure from British and American co-operation, owing to the newly-reversed position regarding bases and the great distances involved.” Lord Winster suggests that to strike at the Japanese iu the Indian Ocean the British Navy must become searaiders. "Till American co-operation is available, our strength in warships and merchantmen will be stretched nearly to the limits of what is possible,” he writes. "Till then, we can only operate in the Pacific and Indian Oceans in the face of greatly superior Japanese forces, while being compelled to cut things fine in the Mediterranean and Atlantic and on the supply-line to Russia.” Aim of Invigoration. He adds: “Britain has not the strength to make everything secure everywhere. Any more losses like the Prince of Wales, Repulse and Hermes, or a defeat like the Java Sea battle, may result in a reduction below the precarious safety line.” There are unhappy comparisons between the use by Japanese of torpedobombers against the Prince of Wales and Repulse and dive-bombers against the Hermes, Dorsetshire and Cornwall, compared with Britain’s lack of a strong force of either type of aircraft when the German battleships made their dash through the Channel. There is also a recrudescence of the argument concerning the value of divebombers, which Britain has not manufactured since the war began, relying on the supply from America. It is probably well to point out that there is nothing defeatist in all this public discussion, which is typically English of a kind that usually results in firmer and more vigorous action, but there is no blinking the fact that shipping is the crux of the Allied Nations’ war effort—both warships and merchantmen—-for which reason anything affecting it is of urgent public concern.