War Game

As the greater part of the fleet was getting ready to leave Honolulu, last week, for its cruise to Australia, Major General John L. Hines, Chief of Staff of the Army, was back at Washington. He had been in Hawaii acting (with Admiral Coontz) as one of the two chief umpires of the war game in which the fleet attempted to take the Islands from the garrison (TIME, May 4, 11).

Umpire Hines rendered the first authentic account to reach the public of the outcome of the games. The plan was that the fleet, with an expeditionary force, known as the Blues, should attack the Islands. The garrison, with the ships and airplanes regularly stationed at the Islands, should constitute the defending force, known as the Blacks.

The defending Blacks were not in sufficient force to attempt to hold any of the archipelago except Oahu, the chief island. They expected the Blues to attempt to establish an air base on the island of Lanai. Seven Black airplanes were dispatched to Lanai to hinder the Blues. The Blacks, with about 15,000 troops available, were required to keep 4,000 to man the fortifications. A cordon of troops was established at all the available landing beaches, and the remainder were held in reserve near the west coast, which was regarded as the most dangerous and the most likely point of attack.

But the Blues planned to seize not Lanai, but Molokai for an air base; then to make a feint with the fleet at the south coast of Oahu, making its main landing attack on the north coast, with a secondary landing on the west coast. As a matter of fact, both Molokai and Lanai were seized. The airplane carrier Langley was kept well at sea to avoid the Black submarines and the Blue airplanes flew to land as soon as the Islands were taken. Before this, the Black airplanes inflicted losses on the landing parties, sinking a tender, but of course could not prevent the occupation of the Islands.

The Blue feint at the south shore of Oahu was a failure. The Blacks were not deceived and the attack brought the Blue fleet under the fire of strong land batteries. This was the second day of the attack. Early the following morning the Blues made their landing attack. On the west coast, the umpires decided that they were repulsed. On the north coast, the umpires held that they suffered severe losses, but were successful. The reserves were too far away.

The lesson learned, as General Hines inferred it, was that the garrison of the Islands was too small. With 7,000 more men, the defense would have been able to maintain mobile reserves close enough to the north coast to repulse the attack there. "Dependence," said he, "must not be placed primarily or even predominantly upon mechanical means--field guns or machine guns--but upon mobile troops and aircraft, counter-attacking whenever and wherever necessary."