End of an Argument

All over the U.S. armchair strategists still pound the table: the battleship is through, air power rules the seas.

But last week the evidence piled up that the armchair strategists, not the Navy, were behind the times--for the Navy has turned the corner while its critics still call for the corner to be turned. A profound reorganization of the Navy high command is under way--and the men coming up are airmen. Navy thinking recognizes clearly that sea power is in transition again, a transition as great and as clearly marked as that of a century ago, when steam revolutionized blue-water warfare. Pearl Harbor ended an epoch in naval history--an end to which the sinking of H.M.S. Prince of Wales and Repulse were only extra footnotes. The Navy now has put its full wartime emphasis on airplane carriers and on airborne attack. Blue-Water Men. The works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, for half a century, were the Navy's Bible.

Tactician Mahan had taught that a nation with a good navy was a nation able to protect its trade routes. A nation with protected trade routes was a prosperous nation, able to support a good navy. The one thesis upheld the other in a solid arch. But now the flat-topped, hound-fast carrier had suddenly become sea power's capital ship. Unregenerate airmen, in the hearing of brooding seadogs, said the carrier outmoded the battleship. Air-power partisans supported them.

Senators galore said the usefulness of battleships had be come "limited," advocated building only carriers.

Aircraft Maker Glenn L. Martin said that battleships could be scrapped if the U.S. had enough big flying boats like his newly launched, titanic Mars. Old blue-water men kept their tempers. Rear Admiral Ormond L. Cox remarked during a reporter's visit to the Newport News yards that if the other fellow has battleships, then we've got to have them too. Jane's, the British annual handbook on fighting ships, credited Japan with five new 40,000-ton battleships built or on the ways, plus battle-cruisers of 12,000-15,000 tons. Down Battleship? What blue-water men would like to say, but cannot, is that there is no real argument. An enormous forward step is being taken: placing air officers in command of Navy task forces in which air strength predominates--and most U.S. task forces are now organized around air power. The needs of the war had wrought the change: the task forces which intercepted the Japs in the Coral Sea and smashed at the Marshalls were built around carriers because of the need for air striking power. A typical task force in 1942 warfare consists of one or more carriers, two to four heavy cruisers, one to two light cruisers, six to eight destroyers. Task-force commanders, sniffing for bad weather to screen their movements, would welcome the addition of the new 25-to-28-knot battleships to their fleets, valuable in pumping shells ashore to cover landings, and to engage enemy battleships. But task-force commanders cannot use the husky old tubs of battleships that the Japs attacked in Pearl Harbor; the older 18-to-20 knot battleships are through as striking-force units. Speed of nearly 30 knots is a minimum requirement. Up Airmen. President Roosevelt is aware of the supreme importance of air power. Last week he was about to promote Rear Admiral John Henry Towers, chief of the Navy's aeronautics bureau. Towers will become vice admiral, will be assistant chief of naval operations. The "scrambled eggs" (gold braid) on his cap will give him authority corresponding to that of Lieut. General Henry H. Arnold, Army Air Force Chief. Navy departmentation appears to be at an end. To Airman and Admiral Ernest J. King, both commander in chief and chief of naval operations, will come centralized authority. The plain fact apparent last week was that the Navy had stolen a march on critics who complained that it did not appreciate air power. The last Navy peacetime announcement said that 18 carriers were built or building.

Two more have been authorized, but not announced. Actually, many more are being added. Carriers on the ways before Pearl Harbor were of radically improved design. Two passenger liners were rebuilt as carriers. In 1943 more carriers than battleships will certainly be commissioned.

Meanwhile the Navy is scouring U.S. colleges for 30,000 flyers a year. The armchair admirals, fuming to their hearts' content, will find out all about it in good time.

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