JAPAN’S GAMBLE

Camp News, Volume 3, Issue 152, 11 December 1942, Page 4

JAPAN’S GAMBLE

On it the Axis Staked All—and Lost

after that of the U.S. The navy’s high speed fighting planes are heavily armed and can fight at as high at 40,000 feet. Its aircraft carriers are bigger than those of any other maritime power, hold nearly twice as many planes as foreign vessels, can launch them three times quicker. If, as the' Japanese expect, the battleship vs. bomber controversy is finally settled in favour of the bomber, the U.S. Navy is ready and able to see to it that it is the American bomber which wins. The American bomber has, indeed, already scored a tremendous success. Three days after Pearl Harbour, Captain Colin P. Kelly, Jr., a U.S. pilot flying an American bomber, sank the ‘Haruna,’ one of Japan’s capital ships. It was the first time in history that a battleship had been sunk at sea by bombs from the air. But wherever and however the de-

The treacherous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour failed in its primary purpose: to cripple the United States Navy. Lacking sufficient forces for a prolonged struggle at sea, the Axis, through its Pacific partner, staked all on one swift blow of surprise and lost. In losing, Japan challenged a foe strong enough in sea power to seal its doom, and in sealing it to decide the fate of aggressor nations everywhere. For whoever rules.the seas and the skies above them will win the war. Control of the seas means control of the routes of supply, vital to victory in a war which, like this one, encircles the globe. The U.S. and British Navies, because they have always had thousands of miles of Atlantic and Pacific to patrol, great reaches of two oceans in which they might be called into action, are far better prepared to hold control of the seas than the Axis powers, comparatively poor in sea power. The U.S. Navy is designed to be used as a single machine—a machine in which huge battleships as well as tiny motor torpedo boats, patrol bombers as well as small speedy fighter planes, sailors on sea and in the air, bases and boatyards and factories function as parts of one great, longrange plan. The Japanese won a short-range, tactical victory at Pearl Harbour, not a strategic one. Their swift blow merely set into motion the grand strategy of a navy whose officers and men had long Ween trained for a war with Japan— navy almost all of whose recent manoeuvres had been based on the probability of just such a war. BATTLE FOR THE AIR The navy welcomed, 'too, the manner of the Japanese challenge air —because naval aviation was invented and perfected by the American Navy. The naval air forces of most other nations have been patterned

cisive battles at sea are fought, the navy is confident that it will be on the winning side. For the U.S. has the largest and most versatile fleet in the world.

Deduct something, for ships on convoy and raiding duties elsewhere, in drydock for refit and ships hit by enemy subs or bombers in the opening stages of the war, , and the net total of the U.S. Navy will still be greater than that of any other nation. .

General specialization in sea-keep-ing qualities has given the Navy a fleet with the longest cruising range. Other navies seek speed; to the U.S., speed is desirable, range, armament and armour are necessities. The oldest vessels in the U.S. battle line are better prepared for the shock of battle than the newest in the service of most navies.

The ships of America’s. Navy have also the greatest combined gunpower of any fleet. The Navy’s gunnery standard has long been the envy, of other nations.

Its gunners can achieve “dematerialization”—hits that will sink—on the second salvo at a 15-mile range.

The navy is certain of the final outcome because of all these facts and one more. In all its 167-year history it has never lost a war. In every full-fleet naval battle in which it has participated, the U.S. has destroyed or captured every ship of the enemy. Not one has ever escaped.