UNITED STATES NAVY

Southland Times, Issue 18963, 9 June 1923, Page 15 (Supplement)

UNITED STATES NAVY

STRATEGIC UNITY. IMPORTANCE OF PACIFIC. BASES NOT ADEQUATE. After combined manoeuvres lasting six weeks, the squadron and flotilla comprising the newly organised “United States Fleet” dispersed on March 31, some to Pacific and others to Atlantic waters. The exercises, which were held for the mest part in the Bay of Panama, included battle practice by the Dreadnought squadrons, submarine and aerial operations, and an assault on the defences of the Panama Canal. This was probably the first time all the commissioned ships of the United States Navy —except those on foreign stations—had been grouped under one commander for so long a period. The fact that the designation of “United States Fleet” has been officially adopted is not without significance, says the Naval and Military Record. It implies that the strategic unity of the Fleet has been restored; that, although some squadrons may, for purposes of convenience, be stationed in the Atlantic and others on the West Coast, strategically the Fleet is to be regarded as one and indivisible, and effect will be given to this principle by combining all formations from time to time and carrying out evolutions and manoeuvres. It is evidently not the intent ion of the Washington authorities to keep the entire commissioned Fleet in the Pacific. For the time being, a number of squadrons will be based on Atlantic ports, which are better equipped for the repair and maintenance of modern vessels. MATERIAL LIMITATIONS.

As the Naval Secretary pointed out in his latest annual report, the existing system of bases and dockyards was developed mainly with a view to the employment of the fleet in the Atlantic and the Caribbean, and is therefore inadequate to cope with the requirements of a large force permanently stationed in the Pacific. This dearth of well-found navy yards on the West Coast is, no doubt, largely responsible for the retentions of certain squadrons in the East, as most American strategists agree that the whole battle fleet ought, if possible, to cruise and train in the Pacific Ocean.

On several occasions detailed proposals have been made for the enlargement of Pacific bases already available and the creation of new ones in that ocean, but for reasons of economy little has been done. The Board of Inspection which investigated the matter in 1919 found that the joint resources of Mare Island and Bremerton navy yards were quite incapable of attending to the needs of the then Pacific Fleet, and recommended the immediate development of Bremerfton yard on a large scale. Until this work was completed, the Board added, the new Pacific fleet as a whole could not bze kept in good condition and repair on its own station. Since then the Pacific fleet has been augmented by several of the heaviest battleships afloat, and the problem of maintenance has therefore become intensified. NAVAL AUTHORITIES CONCERNED. American officers do not disguise their concern as to the inadequacy of dockyard accommodation in the Pacific. Realising that such establishments cannot be improvised in an emergency, they ask what the fleet would do if it had to fage war in an area practically devoid of well-found bases. Damaged or defective ships which could not be delat with by the Pacific yards would have to be sent to Atlantic ports, 5000 miles away, a voyage that would be no light undertaking for a seriously injured vessel. So far as can be gathered, there are now under American control in the Pacific six docks capable of taking the largest ships, viz., two at Bremerton, cne at Mare Island, two (private) at San Francisco, and one at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. THE BASE AT HAWAII. Since it is generally agreed that if the American Fleet has to fight at all it will fight somewhere to the west of Hawaii, the resources of that island ebase are naturally scanned with interest by those who seek to weigh the chances of warfare in the Pacific. Pearl Harbour has at present but one dry dock cf Dreadnought dimensions. The Board of Inspection urged that the station be expanded int o a first-class fleet and submarine base, with several more docks, additional repair plant, and reserves of fuel and stores for the entire Pacific fleet and stores for the entire Pacific fleet and its auxiliaries, but this scheme has not yet been carried out. A fleet in action west of Hawaii would, therefore, have onlyy one dock within reasonably easy reach. There are others at San Francisco, but that port is 2100 miles distant. Thus the American Fleet would be badly handicapped by lack of base acccmmodation even if it were fighting a more or less defensive campaign As for carrying the war into the Westen Pacific, that would seem to be physical!? impossible in view of the absence of an; major base in or adjacent to Asiat.t waters.

The present organisation of the “Unitec’ States Fleet”—nominally a united force, but actually divided between the two oceans—pivots, of course, on the Panama Canal, which offers a short cut for ships proceeding from one ocean to the other the idea being that a fleet in either ocean cculd be reinforced in a comparatively short time if the situation became critical But although the voyage from New York to San Francisco is only 5205 miles by the canal, as compared with 13,275 miles round the Horn, the two sections of the fleet are still widely separated. And it at a critical moment, the canal werfc blocked by accident or design, the ships in the Pacific would have to bear the whole brunt of the campaign in its earlj stages.