SEA POWER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 10 December 1945, Page 5

SEA POWER

VICTORY IN PACIFIC ADMIRAL KING’S REPORT Washington, Dec. 8. Admiral King’s final report on the Navy’s role in the 1939-1945 war attributes Japan’s defeat directly to the overwhelming United States sea power. The surended of the German land, sea and air forces was a direct result of the application of air power over land power, and the power of the Allied ground forces. Admiral King says that in the Pacific \*ar the power of our ground and strategic air forces, as with sea power in the Atlantic, was an essential factor. By contrast with Germany, Japan’s armies were intact and undefeated, and her air force was weakened only when it surrendered, but her navy had been destroyed and her merchant fleet fatally crippled. Japan lost the war because she lost command of the sea and the island bases from which her factories and cities could be destroyed by air. Never before in the history of war had there been a more convincing example of the effectiveness of sea power than when a wellarmed, highly efficient, and undefeated army of upward of a million surrendered its homeland to an invader without even token resistance. The bomb devastation was terrible. The demonstration of the power of the first atomic bombs augured total extinction for Japan, yet without United States sea power there would have beenno possession of Saipan, Iwojima, and • Okinawa, from which to launch the bombings. The Japanese homeland might have been taken by assault by one final amphibious operation of tremendous magnitude, yet without sea power such assault could not have been attempted. Admiral King said the strength of the navy lay in the complete integration of the submarine, surface and air elements but contended that to attempt unity of command in Washington was ill-ad-vised in concept and impractical in realisation. He attributes the victory to the application of the Nelsonian doctrine that naval victory should be followed up till the enemy fleet is annihilated. The result of this strategy was that of 12 Japanese battleships, 11 were sunk, of 26 carriers, 20 were sunk, of 43 cruisers, 38 destroyed, and so on through the | various types of ships, which collect ivej ly was a considerably larger fleet than I ours before the war. In striking contrast is the United j States record. Two old battleships were lost at Pearl Harbour, but eight new ones joined the fleet. Against five air- , Cl 'aft carriers and six escort carriers lost we completed 27 aircraft-carriers and 110 escort carriers. We lost 10 cruisers, hut 48 were commissioned; we lost 52 submarines and built 203. The capacity of the United States to build all classes of ships while supporting our forces and Allies all over the world exceeded former records and surpassed most sanguine hopes.