Waging Peace

The men responsible for fighting U. S.. battles at sea asked, at Christmas time, for some $725,000,000 to build up the U. S. Navy in the next five years. Congress mulled it over, asked questions. The figures began to rise. The amount the Navy thought would be "necessary" became something like $1,000,000,000, with even wilder figures (up to $7,000,000,000) flying in press headlines. Gruff admirals with honest eyes and fuzzy chops were looking as far ahead as 1942. They kept thinking of more things they would need to defend the country.

Chairman Fred A. Britten (Illinois) of the House Naval Affairs Committee called a halt on such vigilant foresight. "The amount becomes so stupendous . . . the public becomes frightened," said he. The Committee asked Rear Admiral Charles B. McVay, the Navy's budget chief, to go back and prepare some charts, showing exactly what the Navy's proposed program would cost. The figure finally reported was $4,176,426,000 for 74 new ships, plus aircraft, plus personnel and maintenance, to be spent over a period of five to nine years--an increase of $1,500,000,000 over what the present Navy would cost from now until 1937. The Committee mulled afresh.

One thing the Committee could and did decide was that whatever ships are built shall be completed without reference to future foreign relations. This was contrary to Secretary Wilbur's suggestion that the President be empowered to suspend the building program in the event of another international conference on naval disarmament. But Congress was taking Secretary Wilbur at his own word that "there is a sense in which needs for naval vessels are absolute." While Congressmen quizzed and admirals testified, citizens pondered the U. S. Navy's "absolute needs." What are they? How determined? What is the theory underlying the U. S. naval establishment?

Answers to such questions can be set up as follows:

Central Fact. U. S. sea-dogs and British sea-dogs growl and accuse each other of wanting to dominate the seas. Stout-hearted old mastiffs like Rear Admiral Charles Peshall Plunkett even use the word "war" when they think what a good navy Britain maintains. But all such growling, and the agitation it stirs in peace-loving breasts, are stupidly beside the central fact. This fact resulted from the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1922: that the U. S. has 18 capital ships.

Fleet in Action. It is from this fact that the U. S. Navy's "absolute needs" arise. Without adequate auxiliaries, 18 capital ships are 18 doomed ships. Battleships without scouting cruisers are, nowadays, like stage stars without advance agents. In the drama of sea war, cruisers go ahead of battleships to discover the theatre of operations, ascertain the disposition of the enemy and protect the main performers from overcurious inquirers before the show begins.

The actual divisions of the U. S. Navy going into battle would be, counting from the front of their formation, as follows:

1) A force of fleet submarines, slinking separately to find where the enemy is concentrating.

2) A line of scout cruisers, rushing 250 to 500 mi. ahead of the battleships with lookouts perched, guns cleared for action, radio busy.

3) A secondary line of cruisers, several hours behind the leaders; acting the same way. In fair weather, aircraft carriers would cooperate with these cruisers, their circling swarms scouting far ahead.

4) A circular "screen" of cruisers ready to strike an enemy or (failing a fog) to throw out smoke banks.

5) The battle force, massed inside the cruiser screen by divisions, each battleship attended by a school of destroyers and submarines.

6) Supply ships (convoys), plying between fleet and bases, attended by "control" and "base force" squadrons.

Calculations. On a basis of 18 capital ships in the battle force outlined above, the present "absolute needs" for the rest of the fleet were calculated as follows:

1) To scout a 250-mile swath of sea with 25 miles between ships--10 cruisers.

2) To detect by daylight what the first scout line may have passed in the dark--8 cruisers.

3) To maintain a circle 30 mi. in diameter, spaced some 12 mi. apart--8 cruisers.

4)To protect six convoys (the number required to have two of them always at sea)--6 cruisers.

The "absolute needs" also include:

5) Protection for U. S. ports on the coast off which the operations take place--6 cruisers.

6) To protect other U. S. ports--3 cruisers.

7) For flagships of destroyer squadrons --2 cruisers.

That is, a total of 43 cruisers. The U. S. Navy already has 18 cruisers. The first item on the Navy's shopping list was therefore 25 cruisers.* The other proposed additions were: 9 destroyer leaders, 32 submarines, 5 aircraft carriers. Calculations for these added auxiliaries were evolved on the 18-battleship scale and also with the idea of properly equipping the two outer zones of U. S. defense--Hawaii and Panama. As the result of her Allied building program during the War, the U. S. has plenty of destroyers, though these are aging./- But the U. S. quite lacks destroyer leaders--big, beamy head-ships for the destroyer squadrons (18 strong), built heavier and steadier for observation purposes and so that they can keep up with the main fleet at top speed in dirty weather. The proposed aircraft carriers are limited by the Washington Treaty of 1922 to a maximum of 27,000 tons each, a minimum of 10,000.*

"Big Navy." When Secretary Wilbur submitted the "Big Navy" bill to Congress, the boom of billions echoed far and wide. At home and abroad the U. S. has been hotly accused of seeking revenge for the failure of last year's Geneva Conference, at which British and U. S. ideas on cruiser construction became deadlocked.

Concerning that accusation and the "Big Navy" plan in general, many a fact and consideration are little known. For example :

Not the Secretary of the Navy but the General Board of the Navy determined what the U. S. Navy "absolutely needs."

The present "Big Navy" program was proposed in almost identical terms a year ago, before the Geneva Conference was held.

"Bureaucrats" though they are called, shore admirals have been sea admirals. "Jingoes" though they are called, sea admirals do not want war. They, better than most people, know what it is like. They, sooner than others, must fight it. Blunt professionals, they demand serviceable instruments with which to do their duty when it becomes necessary. Permanent public servants, their philosophy is at bottom the working philosophy of the U. S. Navy, no matter how Congresses and Administrations help or hinder its expression.

"Waging Peace." The Navy regards itself as an organization for national defense. "But," says the Navy, paraphrasing Karl von Clausewitz/- "the best defense is a strong offense." The farther from U. S. shores an enemy could be met, the prouder and happier the Navy would be. The Navy does not boast that one U. S. sailor is a match for any two foreigners but it firmly believes that if the U. S. sailor is armed as well as any foreigner, no one will ever come to war with the U. S.

Besides "waging peace," the Navy would wage neutrality. Despite their martial preoccupations, Navy men are students of U. S. trade. They know that if other nations war, the Navy may be called on to protect the neutral rights of U. S. merchantmen. About merchant shipping they point out:

That the U. S. had 9.049 billions of foreign trade in 1927, second only to Great Britain.

That U. S. exports exceeded 4.8 billions in 1926, largest in the world.

That the U. S. is "self-sustaining" in most respects but depends almost entirely upon other countries for chromium, manganese, tungsten, nickel, tin, mercury, hemp, rubber, nitrates, coffee, potash.

That oceangoing trade on the U. S. coasts is about as great in volume as U. S. exports and imports lumped.

That all U. S. sea trade, plus 25 billions of U. S. foreign investments (not counting Government loans to the Allies), gives a grand total close to 45 billions.

Navy men, considering themselves guardians of all this wealth, not to mention the 400 billions heaped up in the U. S., think that a couple of hundred millions per annum for five years is a very modest sum for them to ask for new equipment. Walter Bruce Howe, ardent president of the Navy League, exclaims: "The price of one picture show from every American each year, in addition to the present Naval budget, would provide the difference nicely."

Waging War. When they stop to think of it, Navy men point back at Business as the real instigator of war. Not the Navy Department, with its warship plans, but the Department of Commerce, complying with U. S. manufacturers' demands for new foreign markets, lays the basis for international contention.

"Big Stick." The Navy's chief limitation is that it cannot be taught tact as well as tactics. Go to the Navy Department and ask to be shown how the Navy's "absolute needs" are calculable in terms of U. S. geography, population or even the noncompetitive central fact of our having 18 capital ships. The first answer the Navy blurts out is, "Well, look at all the naval bases England has scattered over the globe! President Coolidge, more than tactful, styles the "Big Navy" program as "an orderly construction procedure--nothing more. ... No thought ... of competition."

Between these extremes, the voice of Rear Admiral Hilary Pollard Jones, retired, who was President Coolidge's spokesman at the Geneva conference, gives what is probably the most honest and accurate expression of the mixed motives behind the present "Big Navy" talk. Testifying last fortnight before the House Committee, he said: "I am frank to say I hope that disarmament progress will make it possible to cut off part of the building program in 1931. . . . If in 1931 we go into that conference* with an authorized program of the strength we are entitled to, I hope we will find a basis of agreement with other nations and still have a possibility of equality."

In other words, a big stick in the corner, though not in the hand, is worth two in the bushes./-

Reticent Chief. No one tried harder to put the "Big Navy" plan before the country in a peaceful light than the man who had to explain it to Congress, Admiral Charles Frederick Hughes, Chief of Operations. To be on the safe side, he stuck as close as possible, almost word for word, to the statement of his predecessor, Rear Admiral Edward Walter Eberle, whose estimates of the year before had been revised only slightly since the Geneva Conference. It was characteristic of Admiral Hughes that he did not think to emphasize that point, to silence talk of "competition," that, when the Committee quizzed him, it was with misleading reluctance that he admitted the British fleet was the ultimate measure of the U. S. fleet.

More than with most sailors, the Navy is a family matter with Admiral Hughes. He married a daughter of famed Charles E. Clark who commanded the Oregon on its dash around Cape Horn during the Spanish War. Another daughter of Hero Clark wedded Samuel Shelburne Robison, who, like Secretary Wilbur, was graduated at Annapolis four years after Admiral Hughes, in the class of 1888. In 1925, Admiral Hughes succeeded his comrade and friend, now Rear Admiral Robison, as Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Battle Fleet.

The Navy's business could seem no less private and important to this Chief of Operations than his own affairs. Moreover, though his bushy white whiskers and bright blue eyes make him look grandfatherly and garrulous, he is as shy of talk as he is keen for action. It was for commanding battleships in the ocean, not explaining them on paper, that he received the D. S. O. after "exceptionally meritorious service" on the U. S. S. New York, operating with the British Grand Fleet ten years ago. Another characteristic case of the Hughes reticence was his failure to state, in a report on the destruction of the unfinished battleship Washington, that he and a bold colleague had stayed on board to observe closely the effects of five 2,000-Ib. bomb explosions.

The Real Navy. Besides the "Big Navy," the Chief of Operations has a not-so-small real Navy to think about. Last week this Navy was astir in many waters. While salvage work continued over the 8-4 off Provincetown, while the huge Lexington was being finished at Boston Navy Yard and the huge Saratoga bumped her way through the Panama Canal to the Pacific on her maiden cruise; while the 'Special Service Squadron (four cruisers) patrolled Nicaragua, the rest of the U. S. Naval Forces Afloat were distributed and occupied as follows:

Off Europe. Just to "show the flag" and be on call for emergency or diplomacy, the cruiser Detroit is stationed on the French coast. With her until last month, when they were ordered to the Pacific, were six destroyers. Wives of officers on these destroyers were vexed, having taken Paris apartments for the winter.

The Scouting Fleet, composed of 5 battleships, 5 cruisers, 39 destroyers, 8 squadrons of Navy aircraft and 5 tenders, disported itself near the eastern tip of the boomerang which is Cuba, where the U. S. owns a coaling station at Guantanamo Bay. The battleships blasted at blue horizons; the cruisers sped, spied, poured out smoke screens. The destroyers darted, deployed, practiced with their submarine-slaying guns. Aircraft towered to report target fire.

Control Force. Past Guantanamo, to the submarine base at Coco Solo, Panama, went the inconspicuous ships which would give rear-guard protection were the whole fleet engaged at once--the Control Force composed of 26 submarines, 4 tenders, 1 rescue vessel, 2 minelayers, 2 minesweepers. This winter the Control and Scouting forces are not joining in formal maneuvers. The underseamen will disport themselves like otters in the sun off Panama until about April Fool's Day, when Scouters and Controllers will cease practicing, head north.

Fleet Base Forces travel behind the fleet as it goes into action. These vessels--hospitals, cargo ships, tankers--were stationed last week, 9 in the Atlantic, 13 in the Pacific.

The Battle Fleet. When the flagship Texas has overseen scouting maneuvers, she will lead part of the Scouting Fleet to join the Battle Fleet, always stationed in the Pacific, composed of 11 battleships, 1 cruiser, 39 destroyers, 2 aircraft carriers, 1 experimental aircraft carrier, 2 aircraft tenders, 8 squadrons of aircraft, 39 submarines (including 10 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii), 2 destroyer tenders, 4 submarine tenders. Early in April the Battle Fleet, which last week was engaged in getting shipshape, will leave San Diego for a mock attack on Hawaii, with maneuvers on the way.

The Asiatic Fleet, commanded by Diplomat-Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol, was stationed last week, as for many months past, in Chinese waters. This force comprises: 1 armored cruiser, 3 light cruisers, 9 gunboats, 4 mine sweepers, 19 destroyers, 1 destroyer tender, 2 destroyer minelayers, 12 submarines, 2 submarine tenders, 3 squadrons of aircraft, 3 aircraft tenders, 2 auxiliaries.

*Of a speedy, durable, 10,000-ton type, like the Memphis, which can cruise 7,000 miles without refueling.

/-103 destroyers are in service. 173 more lie idle at Philadelphia and San Diego. Aged about 10 years, decommissioned but well-cared-for, these are not yet crumbling patriarchs. An active destroyer's "lifetime" is only about 16 years; but inactive ships live longer.

*Aircraft carriers of less than 10,000 tons would, it is thought, count as cruiser tonnage under the 1922 treaty. The new Saratoga and Lexington, 33,000 tons each, were especially provided for.

/-Prussian General and military writer (1780-1831) whose writings inspired the German operations of 1914-18.

*A sequel to the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1922 is scheduled for 1931.

/-In enunciating the "big stick" policy, Admiral Jones gave the "big stick" one flourish. He hinted, without naming any nation but to let the world know that he suspected some one, that some signatories of the 1922 disarmament treaty were planning to denounce it in 1931.