General of the Caribbean

(See Cover)

To insure against air attacks being launched [against the U.S.'] from any of these bases . . . they must be kept under surveillance . . . and we must be ready to bomb such installations as soon as they are discovered. If the situation is sufficiently vital to require it, we must be prepared to seize these outlying bases to prevent their development by the enemy as bases of operation against us.

General Frank Maxwell Andrews spoke these words in 1935 in discussing the chances of attack on the U.S. by an enemy using bases in South America or the Caribbean. The occasion was a supposedly secret session of a House committee, but his testimony was made public by error.

So embarrassing was this accurate foresight that President Roosevelt roundly berated Witness Andrews, declared that neither the nation nor the White House shared such views. But, if the President now chooses to seize Vichyfrance's Martinique and make it part of the Caribbean defense area he could do no better than to quote General Andrews in justification.

For it is worth noting that President Roosevelt now agrees with General Andrews and that the General is the newly chosen chief of the Caribbean Defense Command.

"Andy" Andrews, who is stepping into the command of this No. 1 U.S. defense area, is also one of the Army's foremost airmen. In conjunction, these two facts are historic. For they mean that the Army has had the sense to give a soldier who knows the air full command of all Army forces in an area where fighting would be about 99% air and sea and only about 1% land.

Nobody knows better than Andy Andrews that the U.S. should never have to wage a major campaign in the Caribbean. Only a combination of great disasters, great stupidities, great timidities could ever allow war to come so close to U.S. shores. But if it came, if any foe broke past and over the U.S. belt of bases in the Caribbean, the U.S. would be very near to losing the war.

For a quick grasp of the reasons why General Andrews' Caribbean task is so big and so important, see the map on page 33. The main reasons are:

> Before the U.S. can be effectively invaded from the middle Atlantic--or from enemy outposts established in Latin America--the Caribbean must be taken or penetrated. The only alternative route is through the North Atlantic, whose approaches the U.S. must control from Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland (where another Army airman also commands all Army forces).

> If an attack comes through South America, the U.S. will have to move swiftly to aid in the defense of its Latin neighbors before the enemy is entrenched there and Caribbean bases will necessarily be the essential stepping stfmes over which such aid is carried.

> Only by having a ring of Caribbean bases, and rapidly arming them, can the U.S. gain insurance against having to go south to defend South America itself. For if the Caribbean bases are well manned, well armed with guns, ships, planes, they will do much to make an attack on South America both difficult and relatively unprofitable.

> The Caribbean bases are vital to U.S. defense in both oceans. While the Caribbean islands are Andy Andrews' ramparts, his citadel is The Ditch. For within their protective arc lies the Panama Canal--key to U.S. strategy in the Atlantic and the Pacific, certain target of any invader. Example: a sudden blow at the Canal from the Atlantic side when a big part of the U.S. Fleet is in the Atlantic--as it is nowadays--might prevent the rapid reinforcement of naval forces remaining in the Pacific.

The Man for the Job was born 57 years ago, in Nashville, Tenn. He went from West Point (1902-06) into the Cavalry, has never regretted the eleven years of sound grounding in Army principles which he got in that service. In the best Cavalry tradition, he was a proficient poloist. He married a girl who was also a poloist and who actually played on Army teams: Jeannette ("Johnnie") Allen, daughter of the late Major General Henry T. Allen, who commanded the U.S. Army of Occupation in Germany after World War I.

According to Army legend, Father Allen violently opposed the courtship, swore that no daughter of his would ever marry a man who intended to be a pilot. (Said one of Andy Andrews' ranking friends last week: "Hell, in those days nobody wanted a flyer for a son-in-law.") Lieut. Andrews put off joining the Army's fledgling air service until 1917, when he had been married three years. He did not get to France until after the Armistice, then had the satisfaction of being his father-in-law's Air Service Officer.

When most Army pilots still insisted on flying by the seats of their pants, and often died with their pants, forced down, Andy Andrews pioneered instrument flying. Deviltry and curiosity apparently had as much as scientific inquiry to do with his zest for flight in rain, storm, fog, guiding planes solely by their then rudimentary instrument boards. One soggy day he flew to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy game, got there to find no slits in the clouds he could coast through for a landing. His radio sender iced over, left no way to get a message to the ground. So he cruised over Philadelphia listening to broadcasts of the game, also to reports that he was lost.

His comment when friends later urged him to give up flying: "I don't want to be one of those generals who die in bed." His nervy, bad-weather flights did more than give him a reputation for courage; they pioneered a flight technique which every military pilot must master today. A tireless long-distance pilot, Andy Andrews several U.S. and world records (including three once held by Charles A. Lindbergh).

"Too Late for Tomorrow?" As organizer and first commander (1935-39) of the Army's General Headquarters Air Force, Major General Andrews whipped the Army's few, scattered, under-equipped combat squadrons into a small but efficient fighting arm.

Long before World War II proved his point, Andy Andrews yammered for more & bigger bombers for the U.S. Army. Said he in 1937: "Air attacks cannot be stopped by any means now known. The main reliance to defeat an enemy air force must be bombardment aviation directed against his bases and airplanes on the ground. . . . The air power of a nation is what it actually has in the air today. That which is on the drafting board . . . cannot become its air power until five years from now ... too late for tomorrow's employment."

When, at the end of his tour as GHQ Air Force commander in 1939, he reverted to his regular rank of colonel and was shipped off to Texas, most people in the Army thought that he had been sent to Coventry for his persistence. Soon after Chief of Staff George C. Marshall assumed command of the Army, he spotted Andy Andrews for an over-all command. The record shows that Colonel Andrews was soon promoted to Brigadier General once more, assigned to the General Stafr in charge of G-3 (operations & training) for the expanding Army. That experience stands him in good stead today, when he is again to command infantry, paratroops, artillery, etc., as well as the paramount Caribbean Air Force.

About to take over his newest and biggest job, Andy Andrews today is rated one of the Army's finest field commanders--a rare distinction among airmen, who usually know more about flying airplanes than about command and staff work. For want of more officers with General Andrews' capacity for command, the newly autonomous Army Air Forces is having trouble aplenty. And it is not unlikely that General Andrews may yet find himself in still bigger flying boots.

Silver-haired, trim (about 175 lb., 5 ft. 10 in.), Andy Andrews looks the general. He golfs. He still likes to fly, does it well. He gambles (for enough to make it profitable fun). He is a discriminating Martini sipper (who says that he has yet to find a properly mixed Martini). He likes to take his friends on cocktail-picnic parties. In short, he has unusual social adaptability joined to his forthright military drive. With modesty and patience, he has survived a difficult, frustrated tour as commander of the Caribbean Air Forces under his predecessor in the top command, Lieut. General Daniel Van Voorhis. Last week General Van Voorhis was ordered to duty as commander of the Fifth Corps Area. Essentially, Corps Area command is a military housekeeping job. General Van Voorhis should do very well at it.

No housekeeper, Andy Andrews undoubtedly will be promoted to Lieut. General, to give him a rank equal to the difficult and uncertain job that lies ahead of him, a job that must in part be shaped by events. To do it, thanks in part to the trade of British base sites for reconditioned U.S. destroyers, he has:

> Trinidad, as a main operating base for bombardment, pursuit and patrol aircraft, as well as ground forces which can speedily move to reinforce bases farther north, or against any enemy to the south.

> British Guiana, with a site for an advanced air base.

> St. Lucia and Antigua, two islands intended primarily to be service stations for patrol planes.

> An air base in the Bahamas, to patrol and guard the myriad cays and small passages in which oil caches and submarines could well be hidden.

> Land and air forces (bombardment, patrol and pursuit to intercept enemy raiders) at Puerto Rico, where the tempo of once laggard preparations has been recently stepped up.

> The Canal Zone itself.

Most people think of Andy Andrews' Citadel as primarily a place to be defended with the strongest possible local forces, and with all the might of the outlying bases. It is. But it is also a base for any major expedition that it may be necessary to launch against an enemy invasion of Central America, northern South America, or the southernmost U.S.

The precise state of defenses in these Caribbean bases is a military secret. No secret, however, is the general fact that Andy Andrews needs a lot more men and equipment, that construction on the British base sites is not yet completed. The Canal Zone and Trinidad have first priority on new equipment. To a civilian's eye the whole Canal Zone already looks like an armed camp with troops everywhere, a gun behind every hill.

If recent improvements in the Zone are any gauge, the defense forces of the Caribbean bases are better off than they were last spring, are still short of readiness for major action. Five months ago, the raggedy, scant aircraft equipment which Andy Andrews had to put up with in the Canal Zone was of a kind to make airmen weep. Today he has some P-40 pursuit planes, a few long-range bombers (Boeing 6-175), some modern attack planes. These are still far from enough, but better than the practically nothing which he had until recently.

Two Musts. Even when the present bases are effectively armed, the back door to the Caribbean--to lower Brazil and nether South America--will not be closed until the U.S. extends its baseline well below Trinidad and British Guiana. Reason: Brazil's likeliest site for a naval base --Brazilian, U.S. or enemy--is Natal on the South American "bulge"--a point 2,100 miles from Trinidad and only 1,800 miles from Vichyfrench Dakar. Trinidad alone probably would be ineffective as a base for interrupting an enemy Dakar-Natal line.

So the U.S. must have the use of a base at Natal or thereabouts if it is to prevent an enemy lodgment in South America. Probably the U.S. will get base rights at Natal by negotiation. Meantime, by friendly collaboration, the U.S. (through Pan American Airways) already is getting rights to intermediate airports in Brazil and Paraguay.

Meantime the Atlantic side door to the Caribbean cannot be completely closed until the U.S. has fulfilled another "must" --neutralization or seizure of Martinique and nearby Guadaloupe--which now offer spots where European invaders might gain a foothold. Many a Washington authority thinks that this "must" will soon be cared for, perhaps by suasion or blockade (see p. 16). Few people cocked an eye at Guadaloupe, which could well figure first in the news if, in addition to naval blockade, the President decided to have Andy Andrews use the paratroops and airborne infantry which have just been formed in the Canal Zone. Reason: mountainous Martinique has no land-plane airports, but eastern Guadaloupe. only 80 miles from Martinique, is flat as a table top.

Smoothie. General Andrews, like all Army men versed in Latin American ways and problems, hopes never to have to carry a gun southward. Diplomacy is definitely part of a Caribbean commander's job, and Andy Andrews has just had a test in it. He passed.

Probably to ease through the difficult interim between his assignment as Caribbean commander and the departure of General Van Voorhis, as well as to show himself to Latin Americans, General Andrews in July represented Chief of Staff George C. Marshall at Argentina's 128th anniversary celebration. Flying to Buenos Aires and back, he also looked in on Brazil. Quiet, gentle Andy Andrews had an immediate and especial appeal to Latin Americans, who appreciated his ease of manner and military dignity without the usual stiffness. His mission was a personal and diplomatic success.

But last week back in the Canal Zone he was spoken to harshly--by a macaw named George. Perched, according to his custom at mealtimes, on the back of the General's chair, George shrieked: "Hello!" For among General Andrews' unusual qualities is a liking for macaws, particularly George.

Between meals when the General is busy, George struts on a hill near Albrook Field and yells at the planes flying overhead. When there are still more planes for George to yell at, General Andrews will be happier.

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