WHICH IS SUPERIOR?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 31 December 1941, Page 7

WHICH IS SUPERIOR?

BATTLESHIP V. AIRCRAFT LESSON ()l OLD CONTROVERSY I Although the accounts so far avail able of the destruction off Malax, i of the British capital ships Prince of i Wales and Repulse are insufficient m base any final opinion, there is much evidence to suggest that Japan, after only a few days of war. has given a fairly definite decision at last on the 20-year-old battleship v. bomber eon -j Jtroversy. writes George 11. Johnston,) ! m the Melbourne “Argus." ; In the 27 months of war that preceded the Japanese attack there liatl been much more in favour of the lability of a battleship to resist at ! tack from the air than there lino [been against, it. Japan has changed ; that. She has proved and she has proved it in Pearl Harbour, appar ently, as well as in the China Sea I that intensive air attack can batter, and eventually sink even the most ' modern type of capital ship, despite enormous weight of side armour ! against torpedo attack and deck ar - mour against air attack. The basis of naval construction in Britain before war began was that, though aircraft would provide a formidable threat to naval craft. the ship of war would prove superior in ' the struggle between bomber and battleship. Germany pinned its | hopes of subduing British naval might; oil two main weapons—the submarine I and the bomber. The first test came on 27th September. 1939, when a big squadron of the. Home Fleet was attacked by 20 Ger ! 'man bombers in the North Sea. Hon-i ours went to Britain in a fairly in-i conclusive action, notable mainly for j the fact that Germany made the first of [ , its many claims that Ark Royal had j j been destroyed. In the first R.A.F. (raid of the war the British claimed a' ■direct hit on the pocket battleship) Admiral Scheer, but she was no more! than superficially damaged, i It was not long before Britain had i ■ lost two of her big ships—the battle- 1 ship Royal Oak and the carrier Cour-| ag**ous —but both were victims of U- ! boats. I It seemed that ships were winning I the controversy. The almost insuperable obstacle to effective bombing was that a bomb had to be dropped from a ! [great altitude adequately to pierce deck! j armour; but against the small and | swiftly moving target of a warship accurate bombing was possible only [from a low level. where armour-1 | piercing propensities were lost. “LABORATORY TEST" I Then came the Norway campaign —an almost perfect “laboratory test” of bomber v. battleship theories. Britain had superior sea power. [Germany had superior air power. In the blizzards of the North Sea ■ the first real duel between planes and [warships was fought out. Air superiority won the campaign for Germany, but! jit did not solve the bomber-battleship 'problem. The huge battleship Rodney! [took a direct hit on her forward deck, from a I.ooolb aerial torpedo and was) (only slightly damaged. Germany sank j light British forces by air attack, but i the only big ship lost—the carrier Glorious —was lost in a surface action.! Britain learnt, however, that a battle fleet was always in grave danger if lit lacked air support. By this time Britain had the Royal Oak. Courageous and Glorious sunk, and the Barham and (Nelson laid up for extensive repairs, i In no case was aircraft responsible. ! It was not until November of 1940 that aircraft won their first great (success against capital ships—at i Taranto, when torpedo planes of the [Fleet Air Arm smashed or crippled heavy units of the Italian Fleet. Here again torpedoes, not bombs, were the i cause, and the Italians had been caught iat anchor, where they were denied the ! power of movement. They were, in [fact, sitting shots. 1 In January. J 941. the Germans (began their new system of bombing 'attack—with Stuka divebombers against the new aircraft-carrier Illustrious, off jPantellaria. Despite the hugeness of (the target and the comparative light ' armour on the carrier’s vast flight deck, a vicious and ceaseless six-hour attack failed to sink Illustrious. It was true that she was sadly damaged, that her casualties numbered 121 killed and '4OO wounded. But she was not sunk, and she reached port under her own steam! I Off Crete and Greece, later in the |year, the most vicious dive-bombing attacks ever made against ships were i hurled at British naval units. Cruisers land destroyers were sunk, but again the I capital ships were able to withstand 'the battering. Warspite, for instance, 'was damaged, but she was able to cross the Atlantic to be repaired in U.S.A. And Greece and Crete again emphasised the lesson that warships would have to expect to suffer damage if they lacked air support. JAPANESE PLAGIARISTS That was the situation until the opening rounds of the new war In the Pacific, when Japan struck with a cievilish ingenuity that was as surprising as it was effective. Up to this stage the most effective method of air attack against capital ships had proved to be the torpedo-bom-ber—pioneered and developed by Britain over a period of many years. We might have known that those archplagiarists, the Japanese would have copied us! For it is very evident now that Japan had also developed torpedobombing on a large and effective scale. There seems little doubt from evidence available that Oklahoma was hit in Pearl Harbour by torpedoes loosed from aircraft (the attack on anchored shipping was so similar to the Taranto tactics that we might again suspect plagiarism!), and this was so unexpected (from Japan) that we began to say that Germans must have been piloting the planes. I think this i 'is highly unlikely. The Germans have shown no great liking or aptitude for [ this form of attack. Indeed, they have i been inferior to the Italians at it. Japan must be given credit for ("forward planning.” For many years we have known that she has been | concentrating to an enormous ex- ' tent on her naval air arm. She ' ! has built one of the strongest fleets ' !of aircraft carriers in the world (and 'no ocean in the world is more suit- ! able to the operation of aircraft . (carriers than the Pacific), and we ’ should have realised that she would :; have concentrated very largely on i '■tactics that could be employed by! ! [ aircraft based on those ships. We ; ’ j already seen the results of those j [tactics. We have seen two of Britain’s i (greatest ships destroyed by air attack! (in which submarines might have | assisted), and it will have taught us I a lesson. Despite the reports of submarines co-operating with the bombers, , ! there is sufficient evidence that the air- j ’ era/t were the real assailants, and) , I credit lor the success in smashing much | Jj 0 f Britain’s naval power in the East) I ) must be given to them. • i Reports say that the attacks were j [made from a very low level. Tie ; ■ | these up with reports that Prince oi l ■ 1 Wales had deck armour as strong lias any battleship in the world, and, ; was believed to be almost invulner-| I able from the air. And remember) i that all past theories have said that l deck armour could be pierced by i jbombs aimed only from a very high*

level. The result is that you have to presume either a new type of armour-piercing bomb or a new and more effective method of attack. Whatever the outcome of the inquiries which have doubtless begun, it seems certain that Britain will nov have to make a considerable re-, vision of its traditional naval policy. Capital ships in close waters will have to be protected by a strong screen of anti-aircraft vessels and will have to be given adequate air support. Tactics will have to be revised in the light of the tragic action off Malaya. And greater use will have to be made of aircraft carriers in waters that are ideal for the work of such ships.