NAVAL STRENGTH

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22063, 9 September 1941, Page 6

NAVAL STRENGTH

POWER IN THE PACIFIC LONDON, August 30. British and American naval strength in the Pacific is emphasised by the naval correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. British Admiralty communiques, he points out, recently disclosed that many of the units forming the British China Squadron before the war are now employed elsewhere, but it must be remembered that arrival of reinforcements at Singapore has been publicly announced, and that the Naval Command in the Far East is still important enough to have a vice-admiral at its head. The United States Pacific Fleet has always been a full fighting fleet. It is unlikely that the force has been weakened to any extent by the withdrawal of vessels for patrol services in the Atlantic. Naval strategy in the Pacific is governed under modern conditions by the immense distances separating the fuelling and supply stations on land. Allied and associated warships may, therefore, be anything from three and a-half to ten days’ steaming from one supply base to another. The Washington Treaty bound all signatories not to fortify or create naval bases on the many small islands between the Philippines and Hongkong. But their natural configuration would enable many of them to be used as sheltering places for submarines and surface raiding craft, and anchorages for repairing larger ships. Many of them lie across the direct route from Honolulu to the Philippines, and thus a nation warring against America would hardly forgo the use of such valuable advanced points form which to harass American lines of communication.