Bombers v. Mt. Shasta

Old and bitter is the feud between the Army and Navy over the aerial defense of the U. S. seacoast. Each service claims this duty by right, insists it can do a better job than the other repelling an offshore enemy from the air. Last week this argument flared up again when the Army Air Corps tried and failed to sink with bombs a target ship off the Virginia Capes.

The Shipping Board had contributed for the occasion the old wartime freighter Mt. Shasta which was towed 60 mi. out to sea. In heavy weather an Army bombardment squadron headed out from Langley Field, flew around for four hours and returned to make a forced landing 25 mi. from home. Observers aboard Coast Guard craft near the target declared the Army pilots never even found the Mt. Shasta. The bombers retorted they found the freighter all right but did not try to sink her because of bad weather.

Seizing the opportunity to guy the Army for what he considered its unsuccessful invasion of the Navy's domain, Assistant Secretary of the Navy David Sinton Ingalls in charge of aeronautics wrote and published a playful letter to Secretary of War Hurley who at the moment, as Mr. Ingalls well knew, was on the Pacific Manila-bound. "Dear Pat," said the letter, "It will give me and the entire Navy Department the very greatest pleasure to place at the disposal of the Army Air Corps a few of the naval patrol flying boats, for your brother service has viewed with sincere appreciation the difficulties experienced by the Army pilots in flying out of sight of land to discover and bomb the Mt. Shasta. . . . The Naval Aviation Service will be glad either to guide and convoy the Army bombers to and from the target or, if necessary, even undertake the entire mission of finding and destroying by bombs the old hulk."

Stung by this ridicule, Colonel Roy Kirtland, Langley Field commander, spurned the Navy's assistance. Said he: "The Army taught the Navy how to bomb ships. With any sort of visibility we can locate our target unaided."

Fine weather came three days later when nine Army bombers soared out over the Atlantic for another crack at the Mt. Shasta. Fifty bombs of 100 Ib. and 300 Ib. were dropped from 5,000 ft. around the target. Only two hits were scored which damaged the rusty freighter hardly at all. The Mt. Shasta still rode high on a calm sea. Two Coast Guard cutters thereupon went alongside, spent two hours firing one-pounders pointblank into her below the water line. At last she filled with water, sank in 150 fathoms. The Navy's mocking grin at the Army's aerial coast defense was broader than ever.

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