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Legislative Items........................................................................................................................... 345
United States.................................................................................................................................. 348
Multijet Sea Master Designed to Set New Pattern in Naval Warfare— Into the Unknown White Continent—Three Services Debate Roles in H-Bomb Era—Plywood Dart Makes Tactical Tow Target— Qualms at M.I.T.
Foreign............................................................................................................................................. 355
Soviet Polar Stations—The Trouble Ship Balory—Australia Lines Up A-Force
Briefs................................................................................................................................................ 357
LEGISLATIVE ITEMS
By John R. Blandford
Recognizing the need for a brief survey of current legislation concerning the armed forces, the U. S. Naval Institute has requested Mr. John R. Blandford, Counsel for the House Armed Services Committee, to prepare this account. For a fuller biographical account see page 295 of this issue of the Proceedings.
The first session of the 84th Congress, now well under way, will undoubtedly have a marked effect upon the stability, size, efficiency, and morale of the Armed Forces.
The legislative program of direct interest to service personnel consists mainly of matters involving pay (together with other service benefits), the extension of the Selective Service System, extension of the Doctors Draft Law, consideration of a national reserve plan, a slight modification in the tax laws with respect to retired personnel, permanent integration authority for the Army and Navy, appropriations—with emphasis on air power, public works, including dependent housing, and legislation dealing with the status of temporary officers of the Navy and Marine Corps.
Pay
Of immediate interest is a pay increase for the Armed Services, including retired personnel. Under the bill submitted by the Department of Defense, no across-the-board increase is contemplated. Instead, the bill is aimed at increasing basic pay for those who have completed their obligated service. The Department of Defense has not recommended an increase for enlisted men with less than two years of service, nor any increase for officers with less than three years of service.
The objective of the legislation is to induce men to remain on active duty. It is intended to bring about a higher re-enlistment rate and an increased number of applications from among qualified personnel for regular commissions. The present re-enlistment rate is running at about 20%, considered far too low for efficient operation. Applications for Regular commissions from among qualified individuals have declined at an alarming rate.
The legislation will also increase hazard pay, and it proposes to create three new types of hazard pay. Per diem for temporary duty is proposed to be increased. In addition, an entirely new benefit is suggested namely the payment of one month’s quarters allowance for members of the Armed Forces who, with their dependents, move in connection with a permanent change of station. The allowance is to be known as a “dislocation allowance.”
A few examples of the pay increases proposed will indicate the general nature of the proposed legislation. Upper-half rear admirals with over thirty years of service would receive an 8.41% increase in basic pay. Lower-half rear admirals with over thirty years’ service, a 12.52% increase, and a 9.02% increase for over 26 years. Navy captains with over eighteen years of service would receive a 12.61% increase, while those with over sixteen years of service would receive a 7.83% increase. Commanders with over fourteen years of service would receive a 11.46% increase, while lieutenant commanders with over ten years of service would receive a 12.52% increase. Lieutenants with over six years of service would receive 14.04% increase, and lieutenants (jg) with over three years of service, a 22.33% increase. Ensigns with over three years of service would receive a 25% increase.
Warrant officers would receive increases ranging from 3.09% for W-4s with over ten years’ service (10.73% for W-4s with over fourteen years’ service), to a 22.48% increase for W-ls with over twelve years’ service.
In the enlisted grades, chief petty officers with over sixteen years of service would receive a 11.04% increase and E-6s with over ten years of service would receive a 13.28% increase; E-5s with over eight years of service would receive a 15.35% increase, and
E-3s with over four years of service a 15.65% increase.
A substantial increase in flight and submarine pay would also be put into effect under the Department’s measure. For example, Navy captains would be increased from $210 per month, to $245 per month. Flag officers, on the other hand, would only be increased $10 per month. Navy lieutenants would be increased from $120 per month to $180, for those with over six years of service, and progressively more for those with longer service. Lieutenants (jg) with over three years of service would be increased from $110 per month to $150 per month. E-7s would be increased from $75 a month to $105 a month for those with twelve or more years of service. E-5s with over six years would go from $60 a month to $80 a month. \V-4s with over fourteen years of service would jump from $100 a month to $155 per month.
UMTS
A four-year extension of the present Universal Military Training and Service Act, more commonly referred to as the Selective Service System, is on the Department of Defense must list. The Armed Forces are apparently headed for a long period of stabilization at an overall figure of approximately 2,850,000 men. While this is a reduction, from present strengths, it is nevertheless considerably in excess of the 1,400,000 men that are considered to be the maximum that can be maintained on a purely voluntary basis.
The House passed the Universal Military Training and Service Act on February 8 by an overwhelming vote. As passed by the House the authority to induct men will be extended to June 30, 1959. The House also extended the Dependents Assistance Act to the same expiration date, as part of the Draft Law extension.
Two Committee amendments were adopted. One reduced the age of liability for induction for young men who join the National Guard prior to attaining 18J years of age, from age 35 to age 26. (Under existing law such men remain liable for induction up to age 35 because they are in a deferred classification.) The other Committee amendment provides that persons who have completed or hereafter complete six months of service in the armed forces will not be liable for induction except in time of war or national emergency declared by the Congress.
Two floor amendments were also adopted which would preclude local draft boards taking into consideration the existence of a surplus or the shortage of an agricultural commodity in granting or denying deferment. The other amendment reduces the liability for induction from age 35 to age 26 for persons who are deferred for physical or mental reasons as the result of an examination given at an Army examining station.
Doctors Draft Law
Medical personnel for the Armed Forces can not yet be obtained through regular registrants under the Selective Service System, or by voluntary means. The Department of Defense has recommended a two-year extension of the Doctors Draft Law. Doctors are given an opportunity to apply for reserve commissions and in practically all cases are ordered to active duty as reserve officers with rank based on experience, but they can be inducted and utilized as enlisted personnel if they decline to accept commissions, or fail to qualify. Any physician, dentist or veterinarian, who enters on active duty as an inductee disqualifies himself for the $100 a month bonus now paid to physicians, dentists, and veterinarians.
Armed Forces Reserve
The Administration, and the Department of Defense, very strongly urge the adoption of a national reserve plan. This program contemplates giving each young man in the nation an opportunity to fulfill his military obligation in one of four methods.
The plan is proposed only as a four-year program on the theory that manpower availability will require re-examination of the entire problem four years from now. Under the reserve program as proposed by the Administration, a group of 100,000 young men will be given an opportunity at the outset to apply for active duty in the Army or Marine Corps for a period of six months followed by 9j years in the Ready Reserve. Young men who do not apply for this method of entering the Armed Forces may enlist in the Navy or Air Force Reserve with the understanding that they will be ordered to active duty for a period of not less than two years in the Navy, or four years in the Air Force, followed by a compulsory reserve obligation. As a third choice, young men can continue to enlist in the Regular Services; or finally, they can take their chances on the Selective Service System and if inducted serve for two years, followed by a compulsory reserve obligation.
Other Items
Other legislative items include a public works bill and a separate housing bill for members of the Armed Forces. The Chairman of the Armed Services Committee has already strongly endorsed a program for the construction of 120,000 family units over a period of four years. Twelve thousand units having been authorized in 1954, he proposes 27,000 units during each of the next four years.
Efforts will be made to amend the tax law with respect to tax credits for retired military personnel. Under present law, individuals under 65 years of age who earn less than $2100 a year are allowed a $1200 tax credit with respect to retirement compensation received from all public retirement systems, except the military system.
The appropriations for the Department of Defense will be in excess of $34,000,000,000, with funds for a new aircraft carrier of the Forrestal-type. The emphasis in this year’s budget is clearly based on the necessity for air power, a continental air defense system and the ability to engage in effective retaliatory measures.
The Department of Defense is also supporting legislation with regard to the status of temporary officers of the Navy and Marine Corps so as to give these officers the same retirement privileges as reserve and regular officers who complete twenty years of active duty, ten years of which has been commissioned service. Public Law 407 of the 83d Congress confirmed the temporary appointments of Naval officers promoted under the 1941 Temporary Promotion Act so that any temporary Naval officer still on active duty in a commissioned status who retires as an officer will be entitled to retirement in that temporary grade. However, under existing law, temporary officers with less than thirty years’ service who still hold permanent enlisted status are not eligible to apply for retirement in their officer status. Thus, temporary officers today with less than thirty years of service must first revert to enlisted status and transfer to the Fleet Reserve, and upon completion of thirty years of service, they are then eligible to be advanced but only to the highest grade served prior to June 30, 1946. Proposed changes in the law will be considered, aimed at placing individuals in this category on an equal basis with reserve and regular officers in respect to grade in which retired. Likewise, the legislation will be aimed at giving temporary officers the same privileges as regulars and reserves in applying for retirement as officers upon the completion of twenty years of active duty, ten years of which has been commissioned service.
Other legislative items that may be considered deal with the boards established under the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 which review the cases of officers released to inactive duty pursuant to the action of a retiring board, but without pay.
Congress has also been presented with a disposal report involving the Government- owned synthetic rubber plants. The report was submitted January 24, 1955, and for practical purposes, will be effective on March 24, 1955, unless either House adopts a resolution of disapproval. Sales contracts have been entered into for the sale of 24 plants at a cost to the purchasers of $285,464,000.
UNITED STATES
Multijet Sea Master Designed to Set New Pattern in Naval Warfare
By Harry C. Kenney
Christian Science Monitor, January 5, 1955.—One of the most important developments in this country’s military activities has just been announced in the unveiling of the world’s first multijet attack seaplane by the United States Navy and Martin Aircraft.
It is the XP6M-1 Martin Sea Master.
It is a water-based aircraft designed primarily for mine laying and photo-reconnaissance, but it can perform other combat tasks. It can remain in constant operation— on flying missions or afloat—for long periods of time and has the ability to function in high waves and marginal sea conditions.
This plane is seen as the forerunner of an entirely new concept in naval warfare— actually a seaplane striking force—and is aimed at providing the Navy with added mobility in the deployment of forces serving as a deterrent against a surprise attack on the United States.
Important Role Forecast
This plane is expected to take some of the pressure and anxiety off the military divisions responsible for protecting and maintaining land-based airports, equipment, and personnel. Many types of seaports can be envisaged which might afford a tremendous advantage to defense of the country and the offense of the military arm.
There are numerous areas suitable for seaports not only along the coastline but in fresh-water lakes and rivers. There is considerable belief that seaports could be an important type of “flexible operation” which would include “disappearing” or movable seaports, permanent “runways,” quick getaways in defense and offense wherever there is sufficient water. There are many other important advantages which are classified “critical.”
And, for the first time, with the Sea Master, this country has the use of a high speed, water-based aircraft which, when supported by mobile support ships and tankers, can operate with great flexibility in or near enemy waters independent of fixed installations or foreign bases.
Great Expectations
The importance of the seaplane in this day of supersonic aviation can be pinpointed by the fact that on combat missions, the Sea Master will be able to make an operational runway of five-sixths of the earth’s surface—the open sea, a river’s estuary, a lagoon, or the lee of an island:
Even while the plane was being ground tested and under wraps, James H. Smith, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, had
this to say about water-based aircraft.
“The seaplane can soon be given the speed and altitude and load-carrying capabilities of land-based jet bombers. It can be given the ability to operate from any sheltered bay, gulf, lagoon, and estuary having sufficient water depth. It can be given the capability to land in semisheltered sea areas, refuel from a waiting submarine, and proceed on its mission.
“With these capabilities, it could deliver powerful weapons to vital targets, yet operate from a mobile base well removed from threat of heavy attack. The operating base, a seaplane tender, can be given missile and helicopter defenses against light air and submarine attack. It can be moved frequently to foil enemy attack. No advance preparation is needed, and no expensive facilities are left behind. Nor are the sabotage and espionage problems as great as for a floating base.
600-Mile Speed
“With perhaps half a dozen seaplanes, a single tender, and a pair of tanker submarines, we could provide an integrated force that an enemy could not ignore. Once nuclear propulsion could be fitted to the seaplanes—and for this they appear ideally adapted —the submarine could be dispensed with, the tender base moved still farther back out of attack range. Use of proper seaplane force is good deployment—an essential to nuclear warfare. It permits us to attack from many directions and divides an enemy’s attacking forces.”
Powered by four Allison J-71 turbojet engines with take-off afterburners, the big swept-wing plane has been designed to cruise normally at 40,000 feet and is capable of speeds of over 600 miles an hour.
It carries a crew of five including pilot, copilot, navigator-minelayer, radio operator, and armament defense operator. Its long, sleek, and narrow hull ends in a gigantic T-shaped tail which towers at least three stories high. The engines are mounted atop the sharply swept-back wings in such a manner that they are easily accessible, even when the plane is afloat at sea.
One of the Sea Master’s most outstanding features is its rotary mine door, a Martin development which permits the big flying boat to sow mines or drop charges while streaking along at speeds rivaling that of fighter planes. Also, the door is self-sealing, making it watertight.
Martin is producing a portable dock for use in servicing while the plane is afloat. This, company officials said, eliminates beaching. The dock can be knocked down for storage aboard ship. It can also be transported by air.
Into the Unknown White Continent
By Walter Sullivan
New York Times, December 26, 1954.— There is a continent on this earth almost as large as Australia and Europe combined, a major portion of which has never been seen by human eye. This is Antarctica, some 6,000,000 square miles in extent yet shown on most maps of the world only in general outline.
Mount Everest has been conquered and hence there remains but one great terrestrial feat left for mankind—the exploration and mapping of the Antarctic hinterland. More important, the Antarctic holds the key to many secrets of the earth and the space through which it is flying.
With other continents of the world long since fully explored, the Antarctic is almost certain within the next five years to yield some of its mysteries to the new weapons of exploration: long-range aircraft, radar, rockets to pierce the upper atmosphere, aerial mapping cameras, and the huge tracked amphibians used during World War II to carry tanks across invasion beaches.
A U. S. Navy icebreaker, the Alka, has begun the long voyage to Antarctica to inaugurate a series of exploratory ventures that may culminate in the mapping of the entire continent. The immediate task is preparation for the International Geophysical Year, a combined effort by about thirty-six nations to conduct simultaneous observations of many sorts in all parts of the globe during 1957 and 1958. Special emphasis is being placed on virgin areas of observation— especially the south polar regions.
The United States has undertaken the unique task of setting up an observation post directly at the South Pole. This in itself will require a major logistical effort and will probably bring to Antarctica, for the first time, planes and other equipment capable of surveying the entire hinterland.
For obvious reasons the Antarctic has remained comparatively untouched long after other continents were colonized and developed. It has been largely inaccessible, girdled by a band of floating pack ice that is often hundreds of miles wide, and by seas of notorious violence. It is spectacularly inhospitable. Hardy groups of men have, from time to time, built huts on scattered bits of rocky ground around its shores and spent the long winter night. Icy winds pouring off the polar plateau tore their roofs off, lifted explorers bodily from the ground and blew gravel from underfoot like drifting snow. Others have dug their habitations into the snow and practically hibernated while new drifts added to the covering.
The anatomy of Antarctica is full of wonders, many of them unique to this region. For one thing, it differs fundamentally from the Arctic in that there is no continent at the North Pole. Instead there is a vast area of drifting ice, floating on the Arctic Ocean.
Antarctica on the other hand is a great land mass, crisscrossed by mountain ranges whose extent and elevation are largely unknown. Some may even be higher than Everest. The continent shows on Mercator projections of the globe as a thin ribbon of white across the foot of the map. This is a gross distortion that derives from trying to picture the features of a sphere on a flat surface. The continent is roughly round with its centerpoint close to the South Pole.
It is the most unearthly region within reach of man, and will remain so until the moon or other planets are attained. The landscape is so alien that only the specialized polar vocabulary can describe it. Nunataks, the tips of mountain peaks, poke their heads above the ice cap. Wind and gravity mold the granular snow, or neve, into countless strange shapes—sastrugi, bergscrunds, barrancas, dongas, hummocks, seracs.
The continent sheds ice as other continents shed water. The ice flows seaward in various forms. There are precipitous glaciers which pour thousands of feet, down cataracts of “ice falls,” into the sea. There are gigantic rivers of ice like Beardmore Glacier, a dozen miles wide and hundreds of miles long, that twist down through the mountains, marked by fantastic patterns of crevasses. There are ice shelves that jut seaward as much as 200 miles before breaking off into gigantic, flat- topped icebergs, that are 500 feet thick and often as large as Staten Island, sometimes as large as Long Island.
Even volcanoes thrust their fiery heads through the Antarctic ice—how many, no one knows. Mount Erebus smokes continuously and has been climbed. Another volcano on Bridgeman Island, sighted only occasionally, has twice been seen in eruption.
Yet Antarctica is believed to be by far the coldest region in the world. No one knows how cold it gets in the interior after six months of darkness. But near the sea coast, where it is sure to be warmer than inland, temperatures of 83 degrees below zero Fahrenheit have been recorded. Readings of 85 below have been reported from Siberia, but the chances are that inner Antarctica does worse. Moreover, the winds are extraordinary. In the coastal areas the ocean winds are unimpeded in their constant westward thrust and the result is “the worst weather in the world.” Steady blows of 100 miles an hour and more are not uncommon and one
expedition based on Adelie Land reported a mean annual velocity of 50 miles an hour.
The South Pole itself lies on a plateau 10,000 feet above sea level, and only twice have men set foot on that spot. Both occasions were in the southern summer of 1911-12, when the Amundsen and Scott parties reached the same point just over a month apart. No one has been there since except in several flights over the area by planes of the various Byrd expeditions.
In terms of military strategy, the Antarctic may seem far away from the traditional theatres of war. But in both World War I and World War II the waters south of the tips of Africa and South America saw active operations. Both the Panama and Suez Canals were bottlenecks subject to plugging, and the sea lanes far to the south had to be kept open; conversely, the Qnemy, unable to use the canals, had to round one or the other of the capes for traffic between the Atlantic and Pacific.
In military matters of the future, some officials believe the West should control Antarctica as the ideal testing ground for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
After the tragic injury to Japanese fishermen by fall-out from a hydrogen bomb over Bikini, it is no longer entirely safe to set off such weapons in the Pacific. The Antarctic interior provides some unique advantages for such tests. There is no known animate life whatsoever, with the exception of a few skua gulls which, for no known reason, fly across the continental icecap from coast to coast. The surface is homogeneous—a smooth blanket of snow ready to preserve for later observation the effects of the weapon; at sea such evidence is dissipated in the water.
Furthermore, the Antarctic is remote from points where a potential enemy might keep track of the experiments through air samplings. The West has been able to learn much about Soviet atomic experiments through analysis of radioactive dust carried by winds. Presumably the Russians have sought to do the same as far as we are concerned, even though they are generally “upwind” from our test areas.
Finally, the Antarctic, might prove to be an immense resource in the world’s quest for
food. Icy though the seas here may be, they produce great quantities of algae, which manufacture carbohydrates and thus make animal life possible. Hence these waters are teeming. They are estimated to produce three or four times more organic matter per acre than the most fertile farm or forest lands.
The most promising new weapon for Antarctic exploration is the Navy’s P2V Neptune patrol bomber. This plane has tremendous range and ruggedness. A ski-wheel landing gear has been developed that, for the first time, should bring Antarctica into air contact with its neighboring continents—• Australia, Africa, and South America. The landing gear, which can be attached to the “Neptune,” consists of skis with a slot in the middle through which the landing wheels protrude. Thus the plane can take off from a concrete runway in New Zealand and land on snow at Little America. It can ferry supplies to the proposed polar camp, and make long-range exploratory flights, landing at the farthest point of each leg to take observations.
The ability to land will help solve one of the great difficulties in previous Antarctic air exploration. The U. S. Navy’s “Operation Highjump” in 1947 was the most massive Antarctic venture to date. It involved 4,000 men on thirteen ships. Thousands of aerial photos were taken from planes ranging over many parts of the continent, but no map has yet resulted from this effort. Why? Because of doubt as to just where the planes were when the pictures were taken.
To construct even rough maps of Antarctica cartographers want mapping planes to land and establish accurate positions at points roughly 100 miles apart. This would entail 130 such “control points” for the coast and 520 for the whole continent. It is hoped that flights on “Highjump” and other expeditions can thus be pinpointed, whereupon pictures taken by them can be used for mapping.
The task the icebreaker Atka is now setting out upon is that of scouting the conditions of snow, ice, sea, and weather, so that the needs for fuller exploration can be anticipated. The specialists will study whether snow can be compacted for hard-top landing strips;
whether the bay ice can be used for a similar purpose; how much of the old facilities left at Little America can be used; where other stations might be established. In transit, and while they are at work in Antarctica, scientists will make observations on high-altitude winds and temperatures, on cosmic ray intensities, on various aspects of oceanography and aerology.
All of this will be for guidance of the party which will follow in the year 1955-56, to establish the base camp for the main expedition and the advanced base at the South Pole itself. Then the sicentists and all those who will support their operations will move in for their work, until sometime early in 1958.
To establish the projected camp at the South Pole will entail great difficulties. The plateau is so high—the air so thin—that aircraft landing there on skis can take off only with jet assistance.
The Pole is 700 miles south of Little America—the nearest potential base that can be reached by ship. Mountain ranges and the world’s most massive glaciers, cracked with yawning crevasses, lie between the Pole and Little America. No route is known whereby tracked vehicles could travel from the coast to the Pole, though such a route might be found.
An LV(T)—the “alligator” used by United States forces to land tanks in World War II —has proved to be an ideal overland vehicle on Antarctic snow, but its range is limited to a few hundred miles by its heavy fuel consumption. It could only travel deeper into the continent on air-dropped fuel.
These developments in wings and wheels, electronics and other technology, have been complemented by advances in cold-weather clothing, in survival gear and in food processing. It should be possible to do more work and do it better in a shorter time than ever before. The result should be a significant filling in of blanks and “unknowns” in a greatj^area of today’s otherwise much- explored world.
Three Services Debate Roles in H-Bomb Era
By Ansel E. Talbert
New York Herald Tribune, January 6, 1955.—A debate of the greatest national importance concerning the future roles and relationships of the Army, Navy and Air Force in the hydrogen bomb era has been in progress for some time behind closed doors in the Pentagon.
Chiefs of all three armed services are in agreement that a comparative handful of properly positioned men operating offensive weapons with the lethal radius of nuclear explosives can do more effective damage to an enemy than the greatest military host ever assembled in the past. The argument is over the number of primary instruments for employing this tremendous offensive power, the correct circumstances for using it—and the best means of blunting the effects of a possible use of this power against this nation by the Soviet Union.
The differing views of the service chiefs almost certainly will be brought to the fore during coming Congressional discussion of the new budget and President Eisenhower’s message.
* * *
The Air Force wants to continue depending primarily on long-range strategic air power in the shape of high-speed jet bombers aided by numbers of guided missiles of rapidly increasing range, and there is every evidence that it will get its way. It believes that the best defense is an overwhelmingly good offense, but is willing to give greater stress in the future to strengthening North America’s and the free world’s air defense with supersonic jet fighters, anti-aircraft missiles, radar network and other warning devices.
Air Force chiefs also are giving greater current attention to highly mobile tactical air units for putting out “brush-fire wars” quickly.
The Navy is willing to go along with the general concept involved, at least for the time being, but its leaders believe that since the advent of the hydrogen bomb the pendulum is swinging strongly to indicate a greatly broadened concept of strategic air power favoring mobile water-borne bases more than ever before. It wants full range in the future to develop guided-missile launching ships and submarines, streamlined task forces of fast super-aircraft carriers and even more advanced units of jet-powered attack sea
planes and flying boats, all capable of delivering nuclear explosives.
The Army is obsessed with developing many types of air transportable weapons and is agitating for production of fast planes to fly these weapons and shock troop units to any part of the world. They foresee their future offensive power bound up in surface- to-surface guided missiles with hydrogen bomb warheads in addition to its present atomic cannon.
The Army’s chief present complaint is that impending man-power cuts might lessen its over-all capabilities and prevent it from taking decisive action in following up what might be accomplished by strategic air strikes.
Both the Navy and the Army stress a view that there may be many future “little wars” and that these will not necessarily turn into big ones. Recent Washington news reports might seem to indicate that this nation’s policy of “massive retaliation” through employment of atomic and hydrogen bombs is under heavy attack.
* * *
Charles S. Thomas, Secretary of the Navy, strongly is of the opinion that “without the ability to excel any enemy’s capability for massive attack with nuclear weapons, this nation surely is doomed.” Gen. Matthew B. Ridgeway, the Army Chief of Staff who often is described as being a foe of strategic bombing, actually has been the driving force behind a series of recent Army studies still in progress to determine what change in his service’s organization, tactics and equipment will be dictated by nuclear warfare. Gen. Ridgeway believes in the rapid increase of strategic mobility through the use of many types of aircraft including vertical risers and those able to operate without fixed runways.
He says that it is this capability for strategic mobility “which will largely determine the promptness with which United States ground troops can exploit the effects of strategic air attacks upon the enemy.” This is hardly the view of a real opponent of strategic air power although it does cling to the old Army view that the war is not over until enemy territory has been occupied.
All armed services are in agreement that the most intensive research is required. The plain fact is that there is now no known practical defense against future missiles of the rocket-powered hypersonic V-2 type which both the United States and Soviet Russia are developing except destruction of the bases from which they are launched.
Plywood Dart Makes Tactical Tow Target
Aviation Week, December 6, 1954.—Naval Ordnance Test Station has developed a low- cost, highspeed aerial target for evaluation of fire control systems of highspeed aircraft.
The target is a four-finned cruciform plywood “dart” with faired corner radar reflectors and a towline attachment at the center of gravity.
“This target and the simple technique devised for launching it have proved exceedingly effective in providing fighter pilots with a target-practice system which approaches tactical conditions,” reports A. G. Hoyem, head of the station’s aircraft projects division.
The brilliant fire-orange dart consists of four triangular wings of 12-ft. maximum chord and 2-ft. maximum span. Weight of the dart is about 145 lb., including nose bal-
last. It somewhat resembles the paper airplanes made by schoolboys. Body is made of f-in. plywood. Target can be picked up by a low-flying jet using the aerial snatching technique. Towline is a 2000-ft.-long, 5/16-in. nylon rope.
The dart has been towed at speeds up to 450 knots at 30,000 ft. by an F2H-2. The Navy reports that the F2H needed no more than 96% power for these conditions due to low drag of the target. The dart travels sev
eral hundred feet below the tow plane, which therefore is out of the line of fire. Due to its brilliant color, pilots report no difficulty in sighting the target.
An aft-facing radar-reflecting corner is provided in each quadrant on the aft end of the target, made of plywood. Each corner is painted with a conducting silver paint. The Navy reports that this paint proves as good as precision-made metal reflectors for returning a radar signal.
* * *
Cost of each dart is less than $55. Although considered expendable, the targets often can be used more than once. Damage in dropping at the end of a flight is negligible.
Qualms at M.I.T.
Engineering, December 3, 1954.—The dilemma facing academic scientists and technologists to-day, especially in the United States, is emphasized in the report of the President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the year ended October 1, 1954. Dr. J. R. Killian draws attention to the fact that the Federal Government now spends about two billion dollars a year on research and development, most of it relating to defense. As a result the Government is now the principal sponsor of university research in the United States.
* * *
Nearly 65 percent of income came from sponsored research contracts, and these figures do not include the operating of the Division of Defense Laboratories. Among the latter were the famous Lincoln Project on Continental Defense. A great deal of this work is subject to security regulations; and the recognition that, although the use of science for defense is necessary, it is not a natural or satisfying use, has led to the decision to build an unclassified nuclear reactor for non-military purposes.
Dr. Killian fears that the scale of Government-sponsored research may endanger independence of science and freedom of educational institutions. So far, he claims that this hazard has been avoided, but the hazard remains and calls for constant vigilance and wisdom to combat it.
Arising out of the same factors, the work and methods of the scientist have begun to produce popular reactions of fear, uneasiness, and misunderstanding. One of the responsibilities of M.I.T. is to demonstrate and to symbolize the beneficent nature of science and creative intelligence. It is no doubt with these developments in mind that M.I.T. is trying to break down the barriers between the conventional academic departments, between the scientists and the engineers and between the engineers and the students of the humanities and the social sciences. The claim is made that a modern university can and should be built round the teaching of applied science and that M.I.T. may become the prototype of this new kind of university.
The number of students in 1953-54 was 5,183, of whom 1,955 were graduate students; 596 foreign students come from 76 countries. The total of faculty, students and all other staff was 11,500; a figure which includes those working in the Defense Laboratories. In spite of an expected increase in the numbers of applicants who will be seeking admission to the college in the next five years, M.I.T. feels that, without marked change in structure and a great increase in resources, it cannot grow much bigger and still maintain its present standards. The problem of resources for further expansion highlights the problem of relationship with Government, with its continually increasing demand for more scientists and engineers, which is added to the demand created by the growing use of research and advanced technology in industry. As in Britain, a vicious circle is being formed, with insufficient scientists and engineers graduating from the colleges and, as a result, a growing scarcity of science teachers in the schools. As with so many things on the two sides of the Atlantic, the problem is the same even if the scale is different.
FOREIGN
Soviet Polar Stations
La Revue Maritime, December, 1955.— The Soviet press has recently given considerable publicity to the expeditions of Soviet scientists made over a period of years in the Arctic Ocean.
The first attempt to study meteorological and oceanographic conditions from a floating island were made in 1937. This first station was named North Pole No. 1. At the present time, two Russian expeditions, called North Pole No. 3 and North Pole No. 4, are under way. They have at their disposal abundant and very modern material, including motorized vehicles, helicopters, and very complete scientific investigation equipment.
The most highly qualified specialists have been recruited. They include oceanographers, hydrographers, geophysicists, geologists, and zoologists. The aviators with maximum experience in polar flights have been assigned to the organization. It has even been pointed out that two female scientists, “the first women to have landed on ice floes,” are included in the personnel of these expeditions.
Station North Pole No. 3 has undertaken the systematic measurement of the depth and nature of the ocean floor in the “mountain” region of the Lomonosov chain. This submarine range, whose existence has been known for some time, but whose exact location had never been determined, was charted and, according to reports, the reproductions of the charts were put on exhibit at a recent exposition in Leningrad.
The position of the two stations North Pole No. 3 and North Pole No. 4 has never been published. All we know is that they are drifting at the rate of 5 to 10 miles per day; they are regularly supplied by plane.
Outside of the scientific interest of such expeditions, the official reason for such an effort is the study of the maritime route via the Arctic from Archangel to Vladivostok. It is quite likely that strategic considerations, such as those mentioned by Admiral Peltier in his article of last February, are not entirely foreign to the operations.
The Trouble Ship Batory
By Sam Napier
Nautical Magazine, December, 1954.— Just as the Polish liner Batory was leaving Copenhagen a few days ago, another seaman jumped over her side shouting “I want freedom.”
All the captain could do was make another entry in the chequered log-book for this vessel has been constantly in trouble during recent years.
The Batory has had a stormy career since she was exchanged almost fifteen years ago by Mussolini who traded her for just over £1,000,000 worth of Polish coal. Her storms have not come from the ocean waters, but the troubled waters of international politics.
Just a year ago the ship’s gold toothed Captain Jan Cyklinski and the ship’s doctor jumped ship at Newcastle. Two years before that seven seamen walked off in Tyneside. But the greatest mass desertion was in the United States where 19 crewmen jumped ship on one trip.
In the pre-war days this liner was used in the Atlantic luxury tourist trade. When Poland was invaded in 1939 the ship was placed under the orders of the British Naval authorities. Even that resulted in trouble, for the then captain and nearly 200 members of his crew refused to sail for Halifax as ordered. They were removed from the ship in New York—after near mutiny.
After the war she re-entered the transatlantic service, but within a short time was back in the headlines.
In May, 1949, Gerhart Eisler, called by the American congress the Number One Communist Agent in America, broke his £6000 bail and stowed away on the Poland bound Batory. He was arrested at Southampton as a fugitive from justice, but the extradition proceedings failed and he was permitted to continue his journey.
Early in 1950 a spy convicted in America, Valentin Gubitchev, was placed upon the vessel tightly handcuffed. He was being deported behind the Iron Curtain.
Later the same year seaplane pilot William J. Newton crash landed alongside the Batory 75 miles out from New York. On the same voyage the ship carried as a stowaway an American Communist Party organiser. Both of them were returned to the United States from Southampton.
Not long ago the adverse publicity being received by the line which owned the vessel caused a change of name not in the ship, but of the company. Formerly the Gdynia America Line it became the Polish Ocean Line. For nearly two years the vessel on arrival at New York was subjected to the most stringent security measures. It was searched for arms. Then inspectors boarded the vessel carrying instruments to check for atom bombs.
On one occasion when the vessel docked at New York for overhaul the workmen refused to touch her. The Vice-President of the line owning her has been deported from America as an alleged Communist agent. Her passengers have been detained on Ellis Island and her crew refused shore leave at ports of call.
To-day the Batory carries a political officer as part of her crew. His job is to lecture the crew on such subjects as Marx and Engels. Despite this almost every voyage, members of the crew desert.
Refused facilities at New York any more, the owners of the vessel changed their name and decided to ply between Bombay and Southampton.
It was upon docking at Bombay that 200 demonstrating seamen prevented the ship’s officers from obtaining forty additional crew members which they required. The Batory wanted only Communists to work on her and because of this she had to sail for Europe without any new recruits.
Few ships have enjoyed such a stormy chequered career as this 14,000-ton luxury vessel which was an Allied troop carrier during the war.
Australia Lines Up A-Force
Christian Science Monitor, January 7, 1954.—President Eisenhower’s call to the free world, in his State of the Union Message, to deter Communist aggressors by maintaining necessary military power has been dramatically re-echoed in Australia.
Hard on the heels of the United States President’s message, Prime Minister Robert G. Menzies’ Australian Liberal government announced that the training of his country’s armed forces would be changed to meet the challenge of atomic warfare.
Speaking for the government, Army Minister Josiah Francis said: “The effect of atomic and thermonuclear weapons has been studied intently by senior Australian commanders and staff officers, (and) the modifications considered necessary to present teaching in tactics and operational procedures to cope with this new situation have been worked out.
Immediate Shift
“This new doctrine,” said Mr. Francis, “will be adopted immediately and will be revised from time to time as demanded by developments in the field of atomic warfare.”
In training Australian military commanders to meet such new demands, Mr. Francis said, more than 10,000 Army students would attend 400 courses which would be given during 1955 through 23 Army schools of instruction.
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Last year the Australian Government heralded a reorganization of the Australian armed forces when it announced that priority would be given to expansion of the Air Force.
This caused considerable controversy in the top echelons of the Australian armed services, and some senior commanders broke with tradition by publicly criticizing the policy changes.
Issue Clarified
Now some clarification of the underlying reasons for the Air Force priority has been given in Mr. Francis’ statement that “the Army might well have to get away from the idea of fixed lines of communication to use of . . . aircraft to take the place of road transport.”
This Australian official view of ground forces depending perhaps entirely on the Air Force for transport services is not new as a military concept adapted to the demands of atomic warfare.
It already has been propounded by such authorities as Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, who said recently he could “see the control of the seas eventually passing to air forces” and that “armies needed a simple line of supply based on airlift” under conditions of atomic warfare.
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Air Priority Defined
The significance of the Australian Government’s announcement concerning the dependence of ground forces on air forces is that the Montgomery advice has been taken and the matter has been dealt with now in this country at the highest political levels.
In making it finally clear that the Australian Government subscribes to the theory of air power as the dominant factor in atomic warfare, the Menzies government has taken the vital step of defining the new fields of military responsibility which Australia’s armed services individually will cover in the future.
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Free Nation Teamwork
Some idea of the changes now being developed was given by Mr. Francis when he stated that the Australian Army will begin training its own pilots. These will fly Army aircraft, which will provide ground forces with various services in addition to those provided by the regular Air Force. In short, the Army will become air-minded and airborne on its own account in certain directions.
The Army Minister also announced that the Army will offer its new atomic warfare training facilities for the use of other free nations.
The Indian, Pakistani, Burmese, New Zealand, and South African armies will send officers of various categories to Australian Army establishments for training, he said.
This is in line with the already established
Australian policy of exchanging staff officers with the United States, British and Canadian Armies.
BRIEFS
New Weapons, Fur Substitutes Included on Current “Want List”
Navy Times, December 25, 1954.—Ideas for everything from new guided missiles to substitutes for Wolverine fur are “wanted” by the armed forces.
A list of “technical problems affecting national defense” is issued each year by the National Inventors Council of the Department of Commerce in the hope that amateur inventors may turn up some ideas that the services have not been able to produce.
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A New List of the needed inventions (several hundred in all) will be out early next month, available through the NIC’s Washington office. It will include some 100 new problems plus some of the following, carried over as unsolved, from the list issued last summer.
Among other things,the services hope inventors will come up with:
New concealment devices for vehicles to permit night operation without disclosure through the usual means of radiation, light or noise.
Soil additives which can be dropped or spread on the ground to harden it into emergency roads and landing areas.
Three-dimensional radar devices more accurate than possible stereoptical techniques.
A substitute material for sandbags. Cotton and synthetics are more expensive than the present jute material.
A substitute for Wolverine fur. Real fur is not too plentiful and most synthetics so far have created frost-removal problems.
A liquid which can be painted or sprayed on cockpit canopies to restore scratched or distorted plastic.
Airspeed indicators for helicopters where normal indicators are affected by the whirly- birds’ rotor downwash.
A cheap detector for carbon monoxide in cockpits.
A tester for adhesion in bonded joints which does not destroy the joint being tested.
An aerodynamic missile capable of high “G” maneuver but with low storage volume.
Cold weather sleeping gear which allows the sleeper to turn over, can be laundered in the field and is warm.
Direct Amplification of Light
Aviation Week, December 27, 1954.— Long-sought goal of direct amplification of light without vacuum tubes has been demonstrated by General Electric Co. scientists using new transparent-film type phosphor (Aviation Week, Oct. 11, p. 61). Possible aviation uses of the new technique include nighttime aerial reconnaissance of enemy movements using ultra-violet (black) light, display of radar and blind landing information on cockpit windshields, and brighter cockpit radar displays.
Canada Booms Naval Power;
Expands Fleet and Personnel
Navy Times, January 8, 1955.—The growth of the Royal Canadian Navy in 1954 has been greater than in any single year of its peacetime history.
During the year, the strength of the RCN regular force increased by nearly 2,000 officers and men. Twenty-five new and converted ships joined the active and reserve fleets. Canadian warships visited more than 30 countries in the course of operational missions and training cruises to all six continents of the world.
By the end of 1954, it is estimated that the total strength of the RCN regular force will be 18,800 officers and men, a record high for the peacetime navy and within striking distance of the current planning target of 21,000 odd.
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There are now 49 ships in commission, an increase of nine over last year. They include an aircraft carrier, two cruisers, 10 destroyer escorts, one Arctic patrol vessel, eight frigates, five coastal escorts, eight coastal minesweepers, an auxiliary coastal minesweeper, a repair ship and 13 small craft. In addition, there are 112 naval auxiliary vessels manned by civilian personnel.
Besides those ships in commission, the Navy has another 53 in reserve, including nine on loan to other government departments. Twenty-five of these ships have been modernized and most of the remainder are in the process of modernization.
Big strides were taken in the RCN’s shipbuilding program. Eighteen vessels were completed, including, the Arctic patrol ship Labrador, 10 coastal minesweepers, three of which were among the six turned over to France this year under the mutual aid program of NATO, and seven smaller vessels. Since the shipbuilding program began in 1949, 69 ships have been laid down, of which 26 have been completed and another 18 launched.
At present under construction are an aircraft carrier, 14 destroyer escorts, six coastal minesweepers, eight patrol craft and 32 auxiliary vessels.
In the Pacific Command, three new minesweepers, three converted frigates together with two coastal escorts from the East Coast were added to the fleet. The ’sweepers form the 2d Canadian Minesweeping Squadron, while the coastal escorts and an auxiliary minesweeper form the 2nd Reserve Training Squadron. The 1st Minesweeping Squadron and the 1st Escort Squadron were formed on the East Coast late in 1953.
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The navy announced in November that an agreement between the RCN and the Admiralty will result in a group of three “A” class submarines being allocated for duty with the RCN, for the training of Canadian anti-submarine ships and aircraft. About 200 Canadian naval personnel, all volunteers, will serve either with the squadron or in other British submarines.
The first two submarines of the squadron are scheduled to arrive in Halifax in March. * * *
Among the more noteworthy cruises this year was HMCS Labrador's historic voyage through the Northwest passage and her subsequent circumnavigation of North America.
The destroyer Haida became the first Canadian warship to circle the globe twice when she returned to Canada from the Korean theater in November. On her two missions to the Far East from Halifax she has traveled to the Orient via the Panama Canal and Pacific, returning via Hong Kong, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
Improving the Suez Canal
Manchester Guardian, December 29, 1954. —The Suez Canal is to have two new bypasses constructed so that convoys of ships can pass each other and thus raise the daily rate of ships passing through the canal from 36 to 48. A spokesman of the Suez Canal Company said to-day that a three-year program, which would cost the company £7,500,000, would start next month.
Marines Drop M-l Carbine
New York Herald Tribune, December 29,
1954. -—The Marine Corps today dropped the M-l carbine from its arsenal of weapons.
Gen. Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., corps commandant, ordered the action after noting that some Marine guards on security duty in the Far East were still using the comparatively lightweight gun used by both the Army and Marines in World War II. Earlier this year the carbine was eliminated as a weapon in the three Marine divisions and other combat units.
Gen. Shepherd ordered that the regulation M-l .30-caliber semi-automatic rifle will be the basic weapon for enlisted men from technical sergeants on down. Master sergeants and officers will carry .45-caliber automatic pistols.
Reds to A-Blast Asian Sea?
Christian Science Monitor, January 11,
1955. —There are indications that the Soviets are going to use nuclear explosions—on a scale unmatched in history—to blast out a central Asian sea that may change the weather of Europe.
Western diplomats have brought back reports from Moscow that creation of such a sea has been planned as part of a long-term program to change the physical surface of Siberia and the wastelands to the south.
Last fall the Soviet Council of Applied Sciences in Moscow published an outline disclosing plans that a vast area in Siberia would be irrigated and criss-crossed by a system of canals and dams.
This, said the Soviet experts, would change the weather in Siberia, making the winters and summers milder. Western meteorologists say this probably would have a profound effect on the weather throughout Europe, also making winters milder there.
Returning diplomats also resport Soviet plans to divert two of Siberia’s big-rivers, the Ob and the Yenisei, both of which flow north to the Arctic seas.
They said Soviet natural scientists have privately expressed their hope to be able to make these waterways flow southward, forming a central Asian sea.
The diplomats said nuclear explosions, in which the Soviet armed forces could test their atomic and hydrogen weapons, would be used to blast out the tremendous land areas necessary to bring all this about.
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