"To Secure Peace"

"For the first time since assuming this office six years ago it is possible for me to report that the security of the United States of America is entirely in our own hands."

With this matter-of-fact statement. General of the Army George Catlett Marshall this week delivered to the nation what may be his valedictory as Chief of Staff. In a "Biennial Report to the Secretary of War," he told how that security had been won. But mainly--and most earnestly--George Marshall warned the U.S. of the certain consequences of future unpreparedness and of how the U.S. might be destroyed in another war.

The long report was the story of disaster narrowly averted, when the security of the nation rested dangerously in hands not hers. Said George Marshall: "The refusal of the British and Russian peoples to accept what appeared to be inevitable defeat was the great factor in the salvage of our civilization."

The other great factor: "Failure of the enemy to make the most of the situation." The German High Command--almost incredibly, but on the best of evidence--had no overall strategic plan. Wrangling between Hitler and his generals, lack of coordination between the Axis powers had wrecked what might have been a conquest of the world. Japan's strategic plan, its climax an invasion of the Aleutians, bombardment of the U.S. Northwest and seizure of critical areas, had "initially failed when she missed the opportunity of landing troops on Hawaii." George Marshall made it crystal clear that the U.S. had had much good luck in the war before it had much good management.

Now It Can Be Told. The report answered some questions which the Allied High Command had declined to discuss during wartime. Items:

P: The chief reason why the U.S. and Britain refused to open a Second Front in 1942 was their lack of assault craft to land the six divisions necessary to create an adequate diversion. The comparatively small-scale North African invasion was the best the Allies could do at the time.

P: So devouring was the battle of France that General Eisenhower needed every month, for replacements alone: 36,000 small arms, 700 mortars, 500 tanks, 2,400 vehicles, 100 field pieces, 8,000,000 rounds of mortar and artillery ammunition.

P: Ninety-three million men & women, Allied and Axis, took part in the world's greatest war. On the Allied side at peak strength: 22,000,000 Russians, 14,000,000 Americans, 12,000,000 British Empire men, 6,000,000 Chinese.

From the Stratosphere. But this overwhelming manpower was not mobilized until almost too late. When Hitler first massed his forces, the U.S., "in Terms of available strength, [was] not even a third rate military power." The next time such a thing happened, Marshall indicated, almost too late would be too late. He lifted the lid on some secrets to give emphasis to his warning. He quoted from a report of General of the Army Henry Arnold, boss of the Air Forces:

Stratosphere bombers, flying faster than sound, carrying bomb loads of more than 10,000 Ibs., able to attack any spot on earth and return to a friendly base, are already "a certainty."

Rockets will be directed to sources of heat, light and magnetism by electronic devices. "Drawn by their own fuses, such new rockets will streak unerringly to the heart of big factories, attracted by the heat of the furnaces." In the new atomic age, "the cities of New York, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago or San Francisco may be subject to annihilation from other continents in a matter of hours."

But the doctrine that the nation no longer needed manpower for its defense was foolish and dangerous talk. Said George Marshall: "The only effective defense a nation can now maintain is the power of attack. And that power cannot be in machinery alone." There must be men to man the machines. War Department planners, "who have taken every conceivable factor into consideration," advocated a system "which will permit the mobilization of an Army of 4,000,000 men within a period of one year following any international crisis resulting in a national emergency for the U.S." The chief units in that system, if General Marshall has his way, would be the Regular Army, the National Guard, an Organized Reserve --with universal military training to fill out these ranks (and the Navy's) in an emergency.

Course That Failed. For those who asked, "Who is going to attack us?" Old Soldier Marshall, soon to retire, had an answer. He did not know any more now then he knew even in 1940, when he was asked the same question. "I did not anticipate [then] that in the near future American soldiers would fight in the heart of Burma. . . ." He had another answer: "We have tried since the birth of our nation to promote our love of peace by a display of weakness. This course has failed us utterly, cost us millions of lives and billions of treasure."

The counsel of President Washington, said General Marshall, still held good: "If we desire to secure peace . . . it must be known that we are at all times ready for war."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.