SINGAPORE BASE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19805, 22 May 1934, Page 4

SINGAPORE BASE

ITS USEFULNESS IN WAR

COMMENT BY NAVAL JOURNAL In the event of war between Britain and Japan, it is held that Hongkong would be much more vulnerable to Japanese attack, than Japan would be to attack from Singapore. “Singapore (writes the "Naval and Military Record”) would be too remote for an operational base in the event of a conflict with Japan, but it is admirably sited as a defensive base for dealing with any possible descent upon the Australian continent. We need scarcely repeat that we are discussing this matter in a purely academic spirit, and without the least believing that Britain and J: pan are ever likely to be at open enmity. So long as military organisations continue to exist, so long does speculative discussion regarding them remain a legitimate subject to the student of war. Lost at Once, or Not at All. “We believe it is the general view of the United States Naval Staff that should America and Japan ever come to blows, the Philippines would be lost at the outset. If they were not lost at the outset they probably would not be lost at all, and this should be equally true of Hongkong. In their swoop upon Port Arthur the Japanese demonstrated their belief in the principle of starting a war without waiting to declare it. The general idea appears to be that this same principle will be followed in connection with any future great war. But we can hardly be expected to suppose that even a bolt from the blue will be launched without any sort of preliminary admonitions. The period of inevitability may be very short, but some such period there must surely always be.” Fortunately, the defensibility of Hongkong is considered to have been greatly increased by the lease of the adjacent Kowloon territory. “The Principal naval bases in the Far East," says the “Record,” “are Hongkong and Singapore (British), Manila (U.S.A.), and Vladivostock (Russian). Whether we should be* able to hold Hongkong in the event of a struggle with Japan is an oft-debated question. That Japan would at once make a vigorous effort to take the place is an elementary deduction from any strategical contemplation, since with Hongkong in her hands her sea communications would be placed beyond serious menace. “But we are not so sure that Hongkong would prove such an easy nut to crack as Captain Bernard Acworth in his new book invites us to believe. The foresight of the military authorities who got from China a long lease of the Kowloon territory right back to the hills, 27 miles inland, was very sagacious, and, although our normal strength on this strip of land could not hope to resist an expeditionary force if it landed, yet Hongkong should be able to make any such landing no easy matter. On the other hand, were this mainland territory not in our hands, Hongkong would be very much more vulnerable than It now is.” Australian Fleet’s True Affiliation. Should cruisers of the Australian Squadron, when detached and placed with the British fleet for training purposes, be sent to the Mediterranean or attached to the British Asiatic Squadron? With regard to this question, the “Record” hails the forthcoming visit of the cruiser Sussex to Australia as the signal for a renewal of the policy of interchanging ships between the Australian and the British fleets, the “Record” suggests that it would be more fitting to attach an Australian cruiser to the China command than to the Mediterranean station, “because in the event of war in the Pacific the Australian Squadron would at once become a unit of the Far-Eastern fleet for strategical purposes.” From the viewpoint of naval strategy, it is stated, this portion of the Pacific is obviously of special interest. Before the advent of Germany as a great naval Power concentrated the British Navy on the North Sea, the Admiralty policy was to maintain preponderant naval power in various seas throughout the world. It ivas the Kaiser who concentrated the British Navy. But a return to the old scattered disposition of British naval force might not be necessary even if the force existed (which it does not): “Changed conditions have brought their own adjustment. Naval force can nowadays concentrate so swiftly that it is no longer necessary, even were it feasible, to maintain in any part of the world a strength adequate to meeeting any potential enemy.