VITAL ROLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26022, 10 December 1945, Page 5

VITAL ROLE

AMERICAN NAVY VICTORY IN PACIFIC OVERWHELMING SEA POWER WASHINGTON, (Rec. 9.50 p.m.) Dec. 8. ’ Admiral E. J. King’s final report on the navy’s role in the war attributes Japan’s defeat directly to the overwhelming United States sea-power. The surrender 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 war, the power of our ground and strategic air forces, as with sea power in the Atlantic, was the essential factor. By contrast with Germany, Japan’s armies were intact and undefeated, and her air force was weakened only when she surrendered, hut 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 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 well-armed, highly efficient, undefeated army of upwards of 1,000,000 surrendered on its homeland to an invader without even a 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 been no possession of Japan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa from which to launch the bombings. The Japanese homeland might have been taken by assault by one final amphibious operation of tremendous mag. nitude, yet without sea power such an 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-advised in concept and impracticable in realisation. He attributed victory to the application of the Nelsonian

doctrine that a naval victory should be followed up until the enemy fleet was 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 were destroyed; and so on through the various types of ships, which collectively was a considerably larger fleet than America’s before the war. In striking contrast-was the United States record. Two old. battleships were lost at Pearl Harbour, but eight new ones joined the fleet. Against five aircraft carriers and six escort carriers lost, there were completed 27 aircraft carriers and 110 escort carriers. Ten cruisers were lost, but 48 were commissioned. Fifty-two submarines were lost but 203 were built. The capacity of the United States to build all classes of ships while supporting the American forces and those of the Allies all over the world exceeded former records and surpassed the most sanguine hopes.