Discussion of "Our Naval Power."
Commander C. H. Stockton, U. S. N.—It is not my purpose to review the paper of Lieut.-Commander Wainwright as a whole. So much of it is or ought to be accepted as sound that in the main a review would be simply a re-echo of his views. There are a few points, however, which may be well to discuss, in order to elaborate or to present varying rather than antagonistic opinions. It is perhaps natural, but none the less to be regretted, that there should be such diverging views held by officers of the Army and Navy as to their respective roles in harbor and coast defense, and also in combined operations. The lack of a common defense board or proper general staff in both services aggravates this discordance. Many military officers of high rank in both services seem even at this late day to fail to comprehend the necessity and utility of such an organization, the lack of such comprehension being, to my observation, greater in the Army than in the Navy.
The differentiating of the defense of harbor and of coasts, urged by the writer for years past, as expressed by the essayist, shows plainly the difference between the functions of the Army and Navy upon our sea frontier, and the larger and more comprehensive scope of naval coast defense over that of harbor exclusion and defense. So to my mind the alternative predominance of the Army and Navy is generally lost sight of in the question of combined operations in the attack or defense of a fortified seaport.
The attack or siege is based upon the sea, and to it the command of the sea in those regions is necessary. This free use of the sea gives the life and movement to the attack, the sea is the highway for its communications, its supplies and its reinforcements. In the attack, then, the naval force and command is essential for advance and retreat, and the naval commander-in-chief should have the pre-eminence and command of the combined forces. There should be unity rather than concert of action.
In the defensive operations the contrary exists. Everything depends and is based upon the land, whether the fort is insular or continental; the command of the sea, without which the attack is impossible, limits to the land territory the source of all supplies and resources. If the mobile forces assisting the fortifications of the fort are sea-going they are by force of circumstances and inferiority localized as auxiliary for defensive purposes; if the auxiliary craft be non-seagoing, such as those likely to be manned by naval volunteers or militia, they are still more secondary in place, and the land forces become the principals and the commander of these land forces naturally the commander-in-chief.
I do not understand the author of the paper to take the ground that the Hawaiian islands are necessary or important to us in the matter of the defense of our Pacific coast. A group of islands at a distance of more than 2000 miles is neither of assistance for the defense of our home coasts nor of use to an enemy for purposes of attack upon such coast. Its importance, strategical and otherwise, to my mind, is due to its position as a stepping-stone to what is beyond and as a coaling station, with docking facilities, at a crossing of sea highways.
It does not require a separate fleet to defend, as the sea-going fleet that defends our Pacific coast from Attu to San Diego likewise defends the Hawaiian group against the only objective—the enemy's fleet. The distances from the home ports of origin of possible enemies causes a filtering and reduction of available force for offensive purposes to a size which we should be able to readily meet.
Attention has been called, and not improperly, to the fact that the great circle routes between North American ports and the extreme Orient go long distances to the northward of the Hawaiian group. This will be doubtless a factor, as the Alaskan coast and the Aleutian group furnish sufficient ports of trade to attract the cargo or tramp steamer along our own coasts and islands; but such is not the fact now, and few, if any, of the steamers in crossing the Pacific follow the extreme great circle routes.
It is not unfair to suggest the analogy between weather and sea conditions and the topography that dictates routes for armies and railways— the fog, high winds and rough seas of the northern Pacific in practice are related to the rough topographical features of uninhabited regions, and force most of the sea routes, even for steamers, to the southward of the great circle routes to Japan. Neither the Canadian Pacific steamers from Vancouver nor the Pacific mail steamers from San Francisco ever take the extreme great circle route, while the number of steamers that take the longer routes and call at the Hawaiian group is increasing every year.