GREAT BRITAIN
American Naval Strength
Naval and Military Record, 7 May, 1924.—Concern over the alleged relative inferiority of the United States Navy continues to be very manifest on the part of those who should be in a position to speak with authority upon the subject. William B. Shearer, who was for a long time expert adviser to the Navy Department at Washington, has recently added his voice to what is now becoming a regular chorus of admonition. He states that, at the present time, the American Navy is so completely outnumbered and outgunned by the British and Japanese Fleets that so far from the ratio of 5-5-3. as laid down by the Washington Treaty, being maintained, the figures should be 5-5-1, the last numeral standing for the United States.
This is rather a cynical commentary upon the Washington Agreement—or rather upon the failure of the nation which gave birth to it—to keep up to the standard which she set herself under it. Mr. Shearer does not suggest there has been any want of good faith on the part of the other Powers. His quarrel, indeed, is not with Great Britain, nor Japan, but with America.
Coming from the generalities of Mr. Shearer’s sweeping assertion to definite facts, there are certainly reasonable grounds for much of his criticism. The Navy Department denies his allegations but admits that the sea service is not up to the Washington ratio, putting the true relation today in the proportion of 5 for England, 4 for the United States, and 3 for Japan. But this official denial leaves Mr. Shearer’s categorical assertions unanswered. His impeachment is that, whereas Great Britain and Japan have modernized their navies as a result of the war, the United States has done nothing.
Recollecting the colossal program of new naval construction she launched upon the world at the end of the war, this is a surprisingly contradictory state of affairs. In protection against torpedo-boat and submarine attack the American Fleet is hopelessly outclassed by the two other Powers named. While five American battleships have equal range with British ships, nineteen of the latter have superior range and all British battleships have a great advantage in speed. Mr. Shearer points out that the same disparity exists in cruisers and destroyers and that “generally, the American Navy is in a poor condition.” The personnel is 5,000 officers and 18,525 men short of authorized strength. In fact, there almost seems to be another reason than mere pacific intention for President Coolidge’s desire to call another international conference for the further limitation of armaments.
Following Mr. Shearer comes Admiral Coontz, commander-in-chief of the United States Navy. He is thoroughly dissatisfied with the condition of things throughout the service of which he is the fighting head. Apparently the recent big maneuvers disclosed a very disquieting state of affairs. The battle fleet, the admiral complains, found itself unable to maintain an evolutionary speed of more than 10 knots, which he attributes to the fact that the vessels are not kept in proper repair. Thirteen vessels of the earlier capital-ship classes, the commander-in-chief points out, need modern machinery, elevation turret guns and anti-aircraft equipment to give them anything approaching an adequate war value.
As for the United States submarines, Admiral Coontz sums them up as “the worst of all the combatant ships taking part in the winter maneuvers, all of them being so deficient in speed as to be of small use for fleet work except by accident of position.” There are certainly no half measures in criticism of this sort. A naval standard cannot be measured in such details as tonnage, collective gun-power and authorized strength of personnel. The subject is naturally one of great interest to the people of this country, who realize that American sea power stands for much the same ideals as the British Navy defends and who therefore like to think of that sea power as fully equal to fulfilling its role.
America’s Dominant Navy Propaganda
Naval and Military Record, 21 May, 1924.—American naval politics continue on the high note. The only occasional break in the chorus is caused by a wave of doubt as to what all this outcry is really about; why the United States should be suddenly obsessed with the imperative necessity of being the dominant naval Power in a world from which she is so incessantly proclaiming her aloofness. The subject is more fully dealt with in a special article in this issue. Theodore Roosevelt, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, in his report to the Naval Affairs Committee, admits that the ratio of 5-4-3 is a fair comparison of the present fighting strength of the British, American and Japanese Fleets, but the general opinion in the states is that Mr. Shearer was very much nearer the mark when he put the relative standard as at 5-1-3.
Anyhow, the propaganda clamor seems to be achieving its purpose. Mr. Wilbur’s demand that six million pounds be forthwith appropriated to the modernizing of battleships is meeting with vociferous support, although how any really effective modernizing can be done without infringing the Washington Treaty is a point upon which we are not very clear. The big cruiser program is also proceeding in the press upon the big snowball lines. Although the whole thing is frankly stimulated by a spirit of competition with the British Navy, it is really attracting but very little interest on this side of the Atlantic. We have seen these outbursts of strenuous naval activity in America before. They are the usual corollary to talk about international disarmament.
The Premier and U. S. Naval Policy
Naval and Military Record, 21 May, 1924.—The Prime Minister appeared to be taking rather a lot for granted when he assured Commander Kenworthy last week that there "is absolutely no connection” between the building of the five cruisers in this country and the naval policy of the United States. One can only suppose that Ramsay MacDonald has not read the reported speeches of such responsible officials as Mr. Wilbur and Theodore Roosevelt. These gentlemen and others of the same school of opinion have been at no pains to conceal the fact that what Great Britain is doing, alike in the direction of maintaining a high standard of efficiency and of laying down new ships, is the direct impetus to their own demands.
We are not quite clear as to what the Premier meant when he said that “there is no misunderstanding in America about our intentions.” Did lie intend to convey the idea that the United States fully realizes what perpectly peaceful persons we are, or did he mean that the United States quite understands our determination not to suffer our naval strength and naval standard to fall below a level of adequacy, whether a Socialist Government is in power or not? Probably it is true to say that there is no misunderstanding on either score on the other side of the Atlantic. The raison d’etre of the British Navy and the necessity for its maintenance as the most effective sea weapon in the world is so self-evident that the present wave of contentious dogma in the United States is more than a little perplexing.
Meanwhile, while our Premier indulges in dulcet deprecation of very timely questions, the United States Naval Affairs Committee is getting on with things. Still lugging in the British Navy, Mr. Roosevelt says that Congress ought to vote an appropriation for twenty-two new cruisers. He has got the plans for these all ready: they are to cost eleven million dollars apiece, have a displacement of 1,000 tons, carry 8-inch guns, and have “a better lay-out than the new British cruisers.” Just how much the Assistant Secretary may know about the designs of our new ships we need not worry to speculate. What is more interesting is the ground upon which Mr. Roosevelt bases his program. It is not equality with the British Navy he wants, hut superiority.
Why docs lie want superiority to a navy that has no sort of idea of competition with any keel-boosting stunt? With his consistent frankness he explains that his purpose is "to have something to bargain with,” when it comes to suggesting a further reduction of naval strength to the Powers. In fact, he wants to arm so as to make the other nations disarm. The reference to “something to bargain with” indicates the idea that disarmament should he on any such lines as the United States may choose to lay down. Possibly the Old World is a little behind the times in some things but this does seem a curious form of approach to a great ideal, and all this sort of thing, which is now going on daily in America, Ramsay MacDonald apparently knows nothing about. At least, this is the inference to which his recent answers in Parliament inevitably leads us.
Curious Plea for Big American Building Program
By Sir Herbert Russell, Naval and Military Record, 21 May, 1924.—It has become somewhat of a platitude in this country to say that war between the United States and ourselves is “unthinkable,” and that therefore we need manifest no concern regarding her naval plans and proposals. Is the “unthinkable” conclusion equally shared on the other side of the Atlantic? I have 110 doubt whatever that it is by most “good Americans,” but the question is at least justified by the invariable bracketing of the British Navy with discussion upon the sea strength of the United States. Just now a perfect epidemic of the "big stick” doctrine laid down by the late Theodore Roosevelt is in progress. If the United States were in imminent peril from some thoroughly well-prepared rival, the warning note could scarcely be more urgent.
The “Big Navy” party in America lays it down very definitely that the fleet of that country must be predominant upon the sea. When a militant policy of this sort is put forward it is surely not unreasonable to ask what is the objective of it. A predominant navy means a navy superior in fighting strength to the British Navy. This advocacy cannot pretend to be aimed at Japanese sea power because the Washington Treaty has settled the relative ratio of naval strength as between the United States and Japan in the proportion of five to three, which means that the Navy of the former Power is already predominant over that of the latter.
So we ask ourselves, what is at the back of this very real agitation? We were asking ourselves the same question immediately after the conclusion of the Great War when the United States gleefully plunged into a most stupendous program of battleship construction. Nobody over here professed to understand what it all meant. None of the great Powers paid the least heed to it in their own naval plans. The Washington Conference was the direct result of that feverish outburst of building activity. America realized that she was doing a purposeless, and indeed a ridiculous, thing. She foresaw that even if she built all these terribly costly ships she could never man them, since she was then finding it impossible (as she apparently still does) to keep her existent fleet up to strength in man-power. So she very cleverly saved her face and her money by posing as an apostle of disarmament.
But now there is a very large and influential body of opinion in the United States demanding a repetition of these "big stick” tactics. In fact, as I read it, the whole of the Republican party “stands” for Mr. Wilbur’s heroic policy. Only apparently, on this occasion, unlike the last, somebody has asked the Navy Secretary just what it is all about, and he has given a reply which, with all due respect, I regard as rather astonishing. “Let the United States,” Mr. Wilbur is reported to have said, “have the most powerful cruiser navy in the world; then, when other nations see the impossibility of competition they will agree to limitation in the same way they accepted the American proposals for the restriction of the number and tonnage of battleships, when they were convinced that the United States was determined to have more and larger ships than any other country and that in this race they were hopelessly outclassed.”
I need scarcely point out that the reason the Navy Secretary speaks of a "cruiser navy” is because, as the instigator of the Washington Agreement, America could not build a battleship navy. Now, let us consider this astonishing eyewash. At the time when America plunged into her colossal program, to convince the other nations that they were hopelessly outclassed in the race, there was no race at all. There was no competition at all. All the big Powers were reducing their fleets to a peace footing and hundreds of thousands of tons of new warship construction were abandoned on the stocks. So much for that.
Mr. Wilbur speaks of competition. There is no competition of naval armaments in the world today, but he seems desperately anxious to start one so as to show the world the hopelessness—of what it isn’t attempting to do! For a country which so insistently proclaims its aloofness from the affairs of the rest of the world, save in trade bargaining, this is a curious doctrine. But is Mr. Wilbur a competent judge of race psychology? He may not find that other great nations are to be coerced by noisy blustering gestures. What may be accomplished by goodwill and common sense may utterly fail of accomplishment by threats. My own humble opinion is that if America chooses to plunge into another spasmodic burst of warship construction, the other great sea Powers will continue unheeding on their normal course, doing just what their policy and their requirements dictate. If anon the cries, “See! I have outbuilt you all! What do you mean to do about it? they will politely answer, “Mind your own business!"
Nobody denies to the United States the necessity for a big Navy. But why so much fuss about it ? She settled her own relative position at Washington and because she has, apparently, let that relative position slide by default she is shouting like a bad loser at baseball. Suppose she tells the world that she has an immense seaboard, vulnerable to attack from cast and west, that she has a great maritime commerce and that she has some small overseas possessions in which her prestige, if not her interests, are involved. Suppose she tells the world this (since it is quite clear she insists upon telling the world something) and adds that here are sufficient reasons for the maintenance of a powerful fleet, the world will unanimously agree.
But when America proclaims that she must have a “hundred per cent navy —whatever that may mean— because Great Britain has kept her fleet up to a much higher standard, the note of competition and rivalry is sounded at once. I go further and say that Mr. Wilbur’s reported words constitute an indirect threat. He wants a “big stick” cruiser navy to bully us into agreeing to further limitation of armaments—not, apparently, having previously taken the trouble to find out whether we might be prepared to so agree without being bullied.
The United States could build cruisers like hot cakes; so could we if we wanted to, hut for the very good reason that there is nobody to build them against we limit our construction to the bare necessities of simple strategical requirements. Yet, although the United States could turn out the biggest armada ever put upon the face of the waters, she could never maintain it at fighting strength by voluntary service. The Americans are too prosperous at home and too self-contained as a nation to want to go to sea even under the mild disciplinary conditions of their Navy.
There is so very much blunt speech about the British Navy just now on the other side of the Atlantic that there can be no legitimate reproach against a little frankness on the side. The British Navy is maintained to defend the interests of the British Empire. It has no reference whatever to the United States Navy, that is to say beyond a sentiment of friendly regard, but Mr. Wilbur and his party are rather overdoing the competition stunt. They are quite at liberty to lay down as many cruisers as the Republican party can afford to pay for, but for goodness’ sake let them cease proclaiming to the world that they only want to do this because they have discovered that the British Navy is so much better than it had any right to be. America won’t have anything to do with the League of Nations—her own invention. She offers to come to the help of Europe, when Europe has effectually helped herself, thereby recalling Dr. Johnson’s definition of a patron in his famous letter to Lord Chesterfield. Mr. Wilbur wants to completely overtake our naval standard for the amiable purpose of making us lower it to his dictation. This is the plain English of his reported utterances. The answer is that the standard of the British Navy is none of the business of Mr. Wilbur and his ambitious scheme of competition will not provoke a single gesture of response.
I suppose there is really some political object in this effort to persuade the American public that the British are “trying to pull the wool over their eyes.” Mr. Wilbur has only been Navy Secretary for a few weeks and the Commander-in-chief of the United States Fleet has surely given him enough to think about in his impeachment of the present condition of things in that fleet without troubling his head about the British Navy. Or is it a sort of side-tracking campaign?
Another Comparison
Naval and Military Record, 4 June, 1924.—We make no apology for returning to American naval politics, first of all because these are just now such a very live subject and secondly, because they have such close and insistent reference to the British Navy. In his report to the Naval Affairs Committee a few days ago, Mr. Wilbur, on behalf of the Navy Department, said “that when several very important features were considered America’s Navy stood third in comparison with the navies of Britain and Japan. British ships of the first line were faster, had a greater steaming radius, longer gun range, better torpedo protection and superior deck protection against aircraft. All these advantages combined to give the British ships a tremendous advantage over those of the United States.”
To anybody unacquainted with the facts, this might very well suggest that the British Navy had succeeded in stealing a march upon the United States Navy. But what is the fact? The position in “ships of the first line” is precisely the same in our fleet today as it was at the time of the Washington Conference. America has brought new capital ships into commission since the Washington Conference. We have not. America proposed the Washington Conference, had more to say in it than any other Power and virtually laid down her own terms of agreement, and now we find her regretting it.
Mixed Armaments in the Mediterranean
Naval and Military Record, 21 May, 1924.—The Queen Elizabeth is not to be deprived of her almost traditional glory after all. When Admiral Sir John de Robeck strikes his flag in her she will go into dockyard hands for refit, after which she will become fleet flagship in the Mediterranean. The Warspite is to be taken in hand for a considerable refit at Devonport, on completion of which she too will proceed to the Mediterranean. Apparently the intention is to reconstitute this fleet with one battleship division of 15-inch-gun ships and one division of 13.5-inch-gun ships. The battle squadron of the reduced Atlantic Fleet will consist of the 15-inch-gun Resolutions.
While the policy of mixed armaments is tactically bad, it will only be temporary in the case of the Mediterranean Fleet. On the completion of the Nelson and Rodney these ships will replace two of the older vessels in what will then be the premier command, and it is generally believed that the Hood and Repulse will also go to the Middle Sea. All the remaining capital ships of the 13.5-inch-gun type will then be passed into reserve. The King George V class still have a very high fighting value, which, in view of the fact that there will be virtually no more battleship construction on the part of any of the great sea Powers for some years to come, will not be relatively reduced during that period.
Mr. Bowden, the Minister of Defense for Australia, in the course of an after-dinner speech a few nights ago, put the case for a Singapore base more lucidly and conclusively than any statement we have yet come across. He began by pointing out that the development of the Malayan Island would be purely defensive; the development of Hong Kong (even had the Washington Agreement permitted it) would be offensive. Japan had agreed to restrict her bases to her own islands. The United States had agreed to remain satisfied with Honolulu. Great Britain agreed not to further fortify Hong Kong and to fall back on Singapore. The abandonment of the scheme quite overset this balance. When the Hood arrived at Sydney she had lost nearly 4 knots of her possible speed through fouling under-water. Had it been necessary to dock the Hood she must have gone to Japan for the purpose.
The fact is, the Washington Conference quite recognized that Britain meant to expand Singapore into a first-class base. The confiding sincerity of the idealists is a very precarious assurance of the maintenance of peace. As the Minister put it, we are practically abdicating our naval position in the Pacific and this at one period in history when the Pacific has become the great naval zone of the world. The decision to abandon Singapore does not meet with that degree of approval in the United States which our pacifists profess to believe. The Washington Conference aimed at the stabilizing of an international balance and Singapore figured definitely in the calculations to this end.
Disarmament with Security
Naval and Military Record, 14 May, 1924.—The ingenuity of Labor Ministers is being a great deal taxed to explain their contradictory attitude, as manifested in the Navy and Army Estimates, which tell a very different story from the socialistic doctrines of pre-election days but perhaps the neatest apology yet put forward was that of Harry Gosling to a big Labor demonstration at Port Talbot. The present government, explained the Minister of Transport, is only maintaining the standard of armaments until it is assured that it can disarm with security. The crowd cheered but whether because it construed this into a promise, or because it regarded it as a prophecy of a life of decades, if not of centuries, for the government is not quite clear.
At any rate, we may evidently still follow the advice of the late Lord Fisher and sleep soundly in our beds. Probably it is true to say that the Sea Lords and the Army Council feel more assured than at any period since the war. With a government in power which has never done any governing before and which is manifestly desirous of "courting a continuance of the same” from the country, the expert advisers and the permanent officials have not only to insist upon their point to be pretty sure of carrying it. Singapore was only allowed to be shelved because there is really no urgency about the scheme but the Admiralty’s “minimum demand” of five cruisers went through Parliament with a thumping majority and so will it continue to be until such time (which will not be in our time) when we can disarm with security.
Fellowship of the Sea
Naval and Military Record, 14 May, 1924.—Earl Beatty struck a characteristically felicitous note in his speech on the occasion of the presentation of the United States Ambassador to the Board of Admiralty, on behalf of the officers and men of the Sixth American Battle Squadron, of an oil painting of that squadron joining the Grand Fleet. He said that “the fellowship of the sea is very close between sailors hut was more so between British and American seamen.” Just at the present time there is a great deal of popular agitation in the United States, engineered by political propaganda, upon the subject of the superior efficiency of the British Navy to the American Navy. We venture to say that nowhere is there more distaste for the criticism and the comparisons between the two services than in the American Navy. Not only is it a question of showing the United States Navy in an unduly unfavorable light; the controversy is inevitably developing an unfriendly sentiment toward the British Navy, which is quite opposed to the “fellowship of the sea.”
That a natural spirit of rivalry should exist between the two services is but an expression of the high standard of efficiency in both, but this competition of smartness, so to term it, is marked by a genuine sense of camaraderie. The' “blood is thicker than water” sentiment will always continue to form a strong tie between the two greatest navies in the world and Earl Beatty’s words will, we are sure, find a general responsive note under the Stars and Stripes. “We worked together, trained together, played together. If we had had the opportunity of fighting together, each would have felt that they were in good company.”
FRANCE
French Naval Reorganization
Engineering, g May, 1924.—The French Parliament has recently been presented with a bill for reorganizing the French dockyards. It has been examined and made the subject of fairly long reports by naval committees in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies and the thoroughness of these documents shows that, if the French Parliament is slow to vote naval credits, it is at least willing to make the most searching inquiries into its naval affairs.
At present France has six naval bases: Brest, Cherbourg, Rochefort, Lorient, Toulon and Bizerta, which are in part supplied by three naval factories for guns, munitions, anchors, cables and armor: Indret, on the lower Loire—Guérigny, in the center of France, near Nevers and Ruelle, in southwestern France, near Angouleme. These bases and supply establishments do not owe their existence to any fixed plan. Practically all of them were founded by the great French naval administrators of the early seventeenth century. Toulon, for instance, was made a naval arsenal in 1604 by Henri IV ; Indret was, it is true, only made a regular naval depot in 1777 but it had been hallmarked as a supply place for naval material as early as 1642. In some respects the French dockyards have adapted themselves to the requirements of a modern fleet, in others they have failed to do so. The projected law on naval bases is therefore intended to set the naval arsenals of the country in order and so remedy the existing confusion.
It is proposed that Brest shall be a main base for the Atlantic and Channel, Toulon for the Mediterranean and that Cherbourg shall be maintained as a point d'appui for the northern squadrons and Bizerta for the southern ones. The base at Rochefort is to be wholly suppressed ; Lorient is to be kept simply as a place for building new ships while the factories at Guérigny are to be transferred to Indret. These proposals are accompanied by sweeping recommendations with regard to the plant and workshops of the existing bases.
Brest cannot build vessels more than 670 feet long, but the arsenal is well fitted in other respects. Monsieur de Chappedalaine's committee recommended that new construction quays, capable of building the larger vessels allowed for under the Washington Agreement should be taken in hand. To do so, three additional kilometers of wharfage and two basins, each about 400 yards long, would have been necessary. The work would have taken ten years and would have cost 235 million francs. The senatorial report says that such a project must he “resolutely set aside” ; the country cannot afford it ; and "it would be absurd to undertake work of such importance before it is certain that France will ever have to build capital ships 800 feet long.” The whole question of battleship construction seems to be under consideration by the Conseil Superieur de la Marine. The senatorial report, none the less, recommends that the torpedo range at Brest shall be transferred to Ile Longue and entirely renewed and that the gun foundries at the port shall be brought up to date. Both the plant and the installations are in a very bad condition.
As has been said, Cherbourg is to be made a point d’appui. The meaning of this phrase is explicity added to the proposal. “A point d’appui is a port where vessels of every class can find such protection against enemy ships as may be necessary for reprovisioning or carrying out such temporary repairs as will enable them to reach their main base.” Cherbourg is at present over-equipped. The law therefore proposes to lend the big 790-foot basin to the local chamber of commerce, but to keep the naval munitions factory in an up-to-date condition as an arsenal for the coastal defenses of the northern maritime frontier. At present four submarines of the new building program are being constructed at Cherbourg. The senatorial report strongly urges that, as soon as the work is finished, all the building plant shall be sold or let to private firms, “in order to keep to the conception of a point d'appui as defined by the Ministry of the Marine.”
Toulon, the main base for the French fleet in the Mediterranean, seems to be well supplied with plant and installations but the report draws attention to a constant weakness in the labor supply. Six thousand workmen are needed for the construction and repair of ships. There are at present about 5,350 and the number is falling. None the less, Toulon arsenal seems to be one of the best fitted munition factories in the country. In addition to supplying the Mediterranean fleet and the antisubmarine flotillas with all they required during the war, the arsenal turned out 70,000 field gun fuses and 20,000 field gun cartridge cases per diem, in addition to a large quantity of heavy artillery. Its daily output of melinite was increased from two tons to eighty tons per day, and its manufacture of fulminate of mercury from 150 tons per annum to 550 pounds per diem.
Bizerta, the point d’appui of the Mediterranean fleet, is stated in the report to be "the only one of our dockyards which was built on a singly conceived plan.” No special outlay or reconstruction is necessary to adapt it to the uses for which it is intended under the new law. A new foundry costing one and a half million francs is the only thing recommended.
Neither the Senate nor the Chamber of Deputies seems inclined to question the wisdom of suppressing the Rochefort dockyard. Created by Colbert in 1665, it is simply a survival of an earlier age. It lies well up the Charente River; a vessel more than 330 feet long can hardly reach it and its plant and installations are hopelessly out of date. The question of Lorient is not so easy. On the one hand, it possesses the largest government dock in the country and its basin and dockyard plant are up-to-date and in good order. On the other hand, Lorient has no fleet anchorage and for that reason can never be a naval base. The senatorial committee urges most strongly that it is a bad principle to “accumulate naval material and personnel at a place of no naval importance. Reason (logique implacable) demands that the dockyard at Lorient should be suppressed, as its historical role is over. The idea of making Lorient a model state factory is a ruinous and deceptive fantasy . . . . ” The recommendation is, therefore, that a sum of about seven million francs shall be spent on the place but that no large ships shall ever be laid down there. "Parliament cannot agree to expenditure upon a condemned harbor, undertaken with a view to presenting the country with an accomplished fact, which would be used to justify the upkeep of the place in future.” It is on this point that the report is rather difficult to understand. A project which would have replaced the Lorient yard by another, more conveniently and centrally placed, is turned down and yet, at the same time, it is strongly recommended that Lorient dockyard, the only place capable of building big battleships, shall be gradually suppressed. The refusal to extend the Brest dockyard is the more remarkable in that the report particularly insists upon the principle of concentration. "There is no thought of drawing attention to the decline of our fleet, and then of perpetuating it, by reducing the number of our naval establishments. We are here concerned with restoring our navy, by concentrating our means of action upon points of our territory, which are as limited as can be.”
There is another reason why the report does not seem very consistent. The proposal to suppress Lorient by degrees and to leave Brest as it is, implies that the committee has been much influenced by the scepticism about capital ship construction which has recently expressed itself so strongly in expert French circles, but if, as many think, and apparently the reporter among them, the French Navy can best be reconstructed by building a very large fleet of submarines and flotillas, with a backing of powerful cruisers and a huge air force, then, is it so certain that Lorient and Rochefort are places of “no naval importance”? A dockyard well away from the coast, on the banks of a winding waterway, might well be a submarine base of the first order.
The French parliamentary commissioners have added an analysis of the naval budget to their report on the dockyards. In it they have endeavored to divide the money spent upon the French Navy into productive charges; that is, all sums which directly support the fleet’s military efficiency and overhead charges of a purely administrative kind. They do not state how they have arrived at their figures but some of the results are extremely interesting. From fifteen to twenty per cent of the total naval expenditure is spent upon making good the ordinary wear and tear of ships, while industrial work in the dockyards costs about thirty-five, and the arming of the fleet from thirty to forty per cent of the naval budget. The British Naval Estimates have never been analyzed on the same lines, so it is impossible to say how our figures would compare with theirs. The results of their survey have, none the less, alarmed the French parliamentary commissioners. With regard to the dockyard expenditure, Monsieur Lémery remarks: “Nothing could show more eloquently what our budget is suffering from. If one reflects that in 1922 (when no ships were being built) our dockyards cost 342 millions of francs, one must admit that dockyard reform is an urgent necessity and that if it is not undertaken our navy will be in a fair way toward ruin.”
The percentage of naval work carried out by private firms is at present about twenty-five and it is to this point that the commissioners attach one of their strongest recommendations: “It is important that a serious effort should be made to renew the fleet by decreasing departmental expenses and by increasing the amount of work carried out in private industries. Expenditure of this kind makes the whole budget more productive in that it does not increase departmental charges and it may be contracted, or even suppressed, as the general naval policy of the country demands.”
New French Cruisers
Naval and Military Record, 14 May, 1024.—The French Ministry of marine has permitted the publication of the general details of the new 10,000-ton cruisers which are shortly to be put in hand. While these add little to what had already been announced upon the subject, one point of considerable interest is disclosed. The vessels are to be fitted with twelve torpedo tubes apiece. They will thus have an all-round field of torpedo delivery. Knowledge of this fact would make an enemy very chary about closing one of these ships, even should all her guns have been silenced in action. In a ship 600 feet long, which is the overall dimensions of the new French cruisers, such a big torpedo armament must be regarded as mainly of a defensive character.
Notwithstanding their high speed (34 knots, developed by turbine motors of 130,000 s.h.p.), these French vessels will present much too large a target to indulge in destroyer tactics. The provision of so many torpedo tubes makes but a trifling addition to the weight imposed and for the moral effect alone is probably quite worth while. The main armament will consist of eight 8-inch (203mm.) guns, mounted in double turrets and the upper decks will literally bristle with anti-aircraft guns. Two seaplanes are to be carried, which indicate that the vessels are designed for independent operations that may take them far from any fleet aircraft carrier.
The Guidance of Sound
Naval and Military Record, 21 May, 1924.—The great explosions which were caused by direction of the French Government last week for experimental purposes have a very direct interest to our own services. The extraordinary variations in the volume of gunfire are notorious. Sometimes heavy artillery firing in the near distance will give dull, muffled reports suggestive of great distance. At other times the reverberations from a battery many miles away will be audible with remarkable distinctness. While there is not so much variation of sound at sea, the subject is of more importance to the navy than it is to the army, because when sound is acted upon for guidance and proves to be misleading, serious consequences may ensue.
The most baffling experiences with sound ranging occur during fog—the very time when accuracy of judgment is most essential. Ships coming into Plymouth from sea during thick weather frequently report picking up the Penlee siren, completely losing it, and then hearing it again. As it is established that the siren has been blowing regularly throughout, it can only be assumed that zones of silence exist through which the vibrations pass without being audible.
The French explosions have resulted in some interesting data, but that they can lead to any reliable method of judging sound distance is very improbable. Since it is clear that the vibrations wax and wane as they travel, any system for measuring them could not prove reliable. The hydrophone is effective for determining the direction and course of travel of sound waves within a limited area but only in the case of regularly sustained vibrations.
GERMANY
Germany’s New Bid for Sea Power
By J. B. Gautreau, Naval and Military Record, 14 May, 1924.—In the present electoral turmoil the question of the navy is being practically overlooked, security and peace being the points on which French electors are in agreement, although there are great divergencies in the views as to the best ways of attaining those desirable aims. Germany is unanimously being viewed as the only possible enemy of France, German revanche threats and armaments loom conspicuously on electoral placards and the firm vindication of France’s treaty rights and safety by le grand Français, M. Poincaré, is certain to be approved by the nation. M. Briand is a great orator and would be very popular but for the Washington abdication, which naval men and the electors of the Loire Maritime will never forgive him.
That Germany will anew “make her future on the sea" is the opinion of all those French experts who have personal experience of the fatherland and of what is being thought and done in German maritime circles. In contrast with France, where public opinion remains indifferent and blind to the international importance of sea power, Germany has learned the naval lessons of the war and traces the downfall of the Kaiser's armies not so much to the genius of Foch and to the weight of the allied legions as to the influence of the superior sea might of Great Britain. England Urheber des Krieges, England initial cause of the war, is the motto which is being heard in all circles, and, if revenge against France is avowedly the first object of Boche Chauvinists, an object they feel confident of realizing very shortly, the second is the mastery of the water and revenge against England; but this plan they consider can only succeed by persevering constructional efforts both at sea and in the air and there are signs that effort has already commenced.
The German merchant fleet is being reconstructed with wonderful speed and the German liners that called at Cherbourg this month, for the first time since the war, gave an impression of highly efficient construction and handling and so great have been improvements in constructional plants and all-round resources of great German yards that they are capable of building ocean greyhounds more efficiently and more cheaply than any other yards in the world and also that they are a long way ahead of all comers in the matter of internal combustion motors that are, as everybody knows, the motors of tomorrow.
It has been contended—and not without good grounds—that all large German merchantmen, especially those fitted with Diesels, are being designed with a view to their eventual military utilization (camouflage, protection of buoyancy, provisions for additional motors, and semi-immersion, emplacements for guns and seaplanes) and these announcements well agree with what we know of German ways. The Ballin and Deutschland, for instance, are fitted with elaborate bulges that add to their steadiness at sea and carrying power but render them practically unsinkable by torpedoes or mines, whereas France and all the other Allies, after the mighty effort of the war, aspire to settle in peace, Germany considers the present time as a truce and is applying her mighty will and genius to the preparation for a new war. Submersible cargoboats and troopships have been spoken of in France but in practical matter-of-fact Germany they have been already designed minutely with the help of realistic experiments and the next war is certain to see “commercial submersibles” on a vast scale.
* * * *
German Military Chiefs Oppose Allied Demand for Arms Control
Baltimore Sun, 12 June, 1924.—Berlin, June 11.—Complications which, unless eliminated, may affect the fate of the Dawes report and the entire question of a reparation settlement arose today over the subject of allied military control in Germany when the Marx Cabinet met to consider the note from the ambassadors’ council which was made public in Paris on May 13.
In this note, which bears all the earmarks of an ultimatum, the Allies demand submission by Germany to a general allied inquiry into the military condition of the Reich. A reply from Berlin not later than June 13 is also demanded and particular significance is lent to the communication by the fact that it has the approval of all the Allies, including Ramsay MacDonald, thus apparently guaranteeing joint allied action against the Reich in the event of failure to comply with the note’s terms.
Although for obvious reasons of internal policy strict secrecy as to the cabinet’s deliberations on this matter is being maintained, it is learned, following today’s meeting, that, unless either the German Army command or the Allies alter their attitude in this connection, Germany will be compelled to answer the ambassadors' demands with a refusal.
From excellent sources close to the government it is learned that the army command, including General von Seeckt, commander-in-chief, is bitterly opposed to resumption of Allied military control on the conditions prescribed by Paris. The army command, it is stated, declines even to accept responsibility for the safety of any allied investigators sent into Germany now in connection with a military inquiry.
One danger point created by this attitude on the part of army officials lies in the effect which any political reprisals taken by the Allies might have upon the army under the stimulus of nationalist propaganda. This danger has already been clearly pointed out to the Chancellor by General von Seeckt, whose warning is especially impressive because of his reputation for cool, level-headed judgment.
The government purposely postponed consideration of this question until after the Reichstag had adjourned. Parliament, however, will be in session again with the arrival of the time limit set by the Allies for Germany's final reply and it is not impossible that the Nationalists, who have declared their intention of reopening the whole question of reorganization of the government when the Reichstag resumes sitting, may seize upon this military control controversy as a useful weapon for renewed political bargaining, a lever for obtaining entry into the government on a basis that would give them a dangerously influential position.
The German Army
Army, Navy and Air Force Gazette, 24 May, 1924.—The organization of the German Army now consists of three cavalry divisions and eight infantry divisions. The former have each three four-gun batteries. The total artillery is 1,401 guns. The German police number 150,000 men, partially armed. War trained civilians number five millions. The military party in the fatherland aims at drilling many of the latter in clubs and social organizations, and the hope of equipment lies with Russian sources. A strong-armed Germany is still a national ideal which sets the question of European disarmament well back among the ideals of the well-intentioned.
JAPAN
Cruiser Submarines of Japanese Fleet
By Hector C. Bywater, Baltimore Sun, 12 June, 1924.—London, May 28.—A London newspaper has just published a story to the effect that Japan is now building, or about to build, a series of submarines of unparalleled dimensions, from plans provided by the eminent German naval architect, Professor Oswald Flamm. This news, which appeared in The Sun several months ago, has since become a more or less open secret.
Being inhibited by the Versailles Treaty from constructing underwater craft of any description, Germany’s naval designers have amused themselves during the last few years by drawing up schemes for super-U-boats, ranging from 3,000 to nearly 8,000 tons. There is reason to believe that the drawing and calculations relevant to these craft were offered to more than one foreign government but so far as is known Japan is the only power which has acquired the drawings in question.
While the full history of this transaction is still wrapped in mystery, certain facts have come to light which deserve attention. Japan’s interest in the submarine as an implement of offensive warfare is of very recent development. It dates from the fall of 1918, when particulars of the German undersea cruisers U-142-145 reached Tokio.
The idea of huge commerce raiders, which combined all the attributes of a cruiser—such as a powerful battery of guns and an extensive radius of action—with those of the submarines seems to have impressed the Japanese imagination very strongly and after the German surrender Japan made a determined effort to secure one or more of these U-cruisers as part of her share of the spoils of conquest.
It appears, however, that only one such vessel, the U-139, was actually completed and in service at the date of the Armistice, and the French claim to this boat was accorded priority, with the result that U-139 is now in commission as the French submarine Halbronn.
Japan took delivery of seven smaller German submarines but among them was a fairly large minelayer, the salient features of which were incorporated in many Japanese submarines laid down in 1921 and later years.
Meanwhile Professor Oswald Flamm claimed to have solved the problem of stability, which previously had baffled all attempts by Germans to produce submarines of 3,000 tons and upward. His initial plans were completed in the early part of 1921 and it was in that year that the Kawasaki Shipbuilding Company, acting in all likelihood in behalf of the Imperial Japanese naval authorities, sent to Europe a certain Makino Ritsu with instructions to purchase the Flamm plans.
The price originally quoted is said to have been prohibitive; at any rate, the negotiations came to a deadlock and it was not until some months later that Mr. Makino was able to return to Japan with the much-desired blueprints and formulæ in his suitcase. The bargain is understood to have been clinched by a cablegram from the president of the Kawasaki Company authorizing Mr. Makino to go to the limit in the matter of price. That was about three years ago. What has been going on in the interval?
In well-informed quarters it is regarded as certain that Japan has laid the keel of at least one very large submarine cruiser designed on the Flamm model. The construction of so heavy and unique a craft was evidently beyond the power of Japanese shipwrights and engineers, capable as they have proved themselves to be in ordinary and naval shipbuilding work. It is now confirmed that a party of German designers and mechanics is working at the arsenals of Kure and Yokosuka, where the latest and most powerful Japanese submarines are built. Whether these men were specifically engaged to supervise and assist in the construction of giant underwater cruisers designed from the Flamm formula is still undetermined but the indications certainly point that way.
Assuming Japan to have embarked definitely on a program of very big underwater cruisers, her submarine building activity is now directed toward the completion of the following types:
- Medium boats of 800 to 950 tons, suitable either for coast defense or moderate oversea voyages, with a speed on the surface of 17 knots, a battery of six torpedo tubes, one long-range rapidfire gun and a cruising endurance of 8,000 miles.
- The Kaigun ocean-going type of 1,500 to 2,000 tons, specially designed for the attack of enemy coast lines and shipping. These vessels carry a large stock of torpedoes and one or two rapidfire guns but some are fitted for the transport of mines. Their nominal radius is 12,000 to 14,000 miles but under war conditions they probably could not cover more than 10,000 miles without refueling and giving their personnel a spell of liberty on shore. Their living quarters are cramped and the health of their officers and men would suffer if the cruise were prolonged beyond several weeks.
- The Flamm-Kangun type of 3,000 to 7,500 (?) tons, designed purely for aggressive operations oversea. They are armored against gunfire, bomb and depth-charge attack, mount two or more high-power guns of 8-inch caliber, carry forty torpedoes and have a nominal radius of 25,000 miles. Owing to their very large fuel supply, commodious living quarters and ample deck space, these submarines could doubtless remain at sea for several months, during which time the personnel would probably retain their physical fitness and efficiency. These vessels would be most formidable as commerce destroyers, even against well-guarded convoys. They could cross and recross the Pacific Ocean quite independently of friendly bases.
It may be added that all Japanese submarines of recent date are built to resist the water pressure at great depths and therefore are better adapted to war operations in the Pacific Ocean than the majority of American and British boats; that all save the very oldest Japanese boats are maintained in full commission and are continually exercising at sea and that the submarine branch of the Japanese Navy has been developed in recent years on a scale far exceeding the growth of other sections of the service.
In vessels already built, Japan now enjoys a definite lead over the United States and Great Britain so far as long-range ocean submarines are concerned. Thanks to her large building program, her margin of submarine strength is widening year by year.
National Competition for Supremacy at Sea
By Hector C. Bywater, Baltimore Sun, 18 June, 1924,—London, May 29. —Like their predecessors in Germany, the militarists of present-day Japan have a strong aversion to the spotlight of publicity being focused upon their proceedings. Preferring, for obvious reasons, to work in the dark so far as possible, they become highly indignant with anyone who shows more than a casual interest in what they are doing.
In Germany, previous to the war, a foreign journalist who ventured to write in other than approving or perfunctory terms of the Kaiser’s patent preparations for naval warfare at once found himself a marked man. It mattered nothing that he might simply have drawn the plain inference from data accessible to all. He became a target for abuse by the well-drilled German press and efforts, often as unscrupulous as they were puerile, were made to pillory him as an irresponsible alarmist.
It would seems as if the same fate awaited those who have the temerity to inquire too closely into the current naval policies of Japan. I have myself been attacked rather viciously by certain Japanese writers for daring to print the facts in this connection. Rarely do they venture to challenge my figures as to the progress of warship construction, naval base improvements and so forth. As a rule, they content themselves with scolding me because I continue to print the latest news of such developments and to show how Japan has set the pace in developing minor naval armaments since the Washington Conference.
My latest assailant is Rear Admiral K. Nomura, a very distinguished officer who was formerly Japanese naval attaché at Washington. Writing in the Far Eastern Review (Shanghai) for March, he attempts a detailed reply to an article of mine published in the Atlantic Monthly more than a year ago, which reviewed Japanese naval policy in the first twelve months subsequent to the signature of the limitation treaty.
Admiral Nomura aims to prove that Japan, so far from expanding her fleet in the post-treaty period, has loyally conformed to the spirit of that covenant, yet the figures he presents are sufficient in themselves to weaken, if not to destroy, his own case. They are put forward in such a way as to ignore the one vital point in every discussion on this subject: namely, the number of auxiliary ships ordered by the various powers subsequent to the signing of the treaty.
Since he makes no distinction between pre-treaty and post-treaty shipbuilding, his tables will probably convince many lay readers that Japanese naval expansion during recent years has been on a very modest scale compared with the growth of other fighting fleets. For instance, his tabular exposition of cruiser strength shows the United States to have twenty-three ships with a tonnage of 182,625 tons, while Japan is credited with twenty-five ships of 148,170 tons, resulting in a ratio of 1.0-.81 to the advantage of the United States.
A later table, compiled on more rational lines, gives a very different picture. It shows that Japan eventually will have twenty-eight ships of 171.055 tons against America’s ten ships of 75,000 tons, modifying the ratio to 1 for the United States and 2.2 for Japan.
Admiral Nomura concedes that “the American Navy is not strong in cruiser strength. But,” he adds, “the destroyer strength of the United States is very superior and it is grotesque to argue that Japan's program of eight light cruisers, to be constructed in the next five years, will give us a menacing predominance. If we should not build these ships our shipbuilding yards, now seriously hampered for want of construction, would be even more seriously injured and it would be more difficult for us to reorganize them in the future than for such highly industrialized countries as the United States and Great Britain to revive theirs.”
The argument that warships must be built to keep the Japanese yards employed may be valid enough in Japan but it has no bearing on the subject under discussion.
In speaking of the eight light cruisers “to be constructed in the next five years,” Admiral Nomura might have informed his readers that five of these ships are already under construction. Dealing with the relative destroyer situation, he again lumps together old and new craft and thereby succeeds in giving the United States a huge paper superiority in this type: 280 against Japan’s 92.
That, however, will be at the end of 1927. Would it not have been more sincere to point out that by the date in question nearly all the American destroyers will be ten years old, while almost half of the Japanese boats will be of modern and, therefore, of more powerful and efficient design?
We may well believe that figures can be made to prove anything when we learn, from the same authority, that by the end of 1927 the United States will possess 121 submarines of 84,900 tons, while Japan will have only 67 submarines of 68,636 tons. All save half a dozen of these American boats are of pre-Armistice design and the total includes a great many that will be quite obsolete and probably junked before the end of 1927. On the other hand, all but a few of the Japanese boats will be of post-Armistice design and, boat for boat, vastly superior in size, radius and power to the American flotilla.
In the article referred to I made the following statement: “It is patent to everyone that Japan is at present building more combatant tonnage than any other power; but what is not generally appreciated is the fact that she is actually building more tonnage of this description than all the other powers combined.” This was written in November, 1922, and published in the following February. Admiral Nomura terms it a “gross exaggeration.”
What are the facts? Japan at that time was building a series of cruisers, destroyers and submarines which she had laid down after the conference, while, of the other four signatory Powers, only Great Britain was at work on a post-conference naval unit. There is no getting away from the notorious fact, demonstrated time and again in The Sun by official figures, that Japan was the first Power to embark on a great program of auxiliary naval construction in the period immediately following the conference.
Readers of this paper will recall that Mr. K. K. Kawakami has twice denied, in categorical terms, the existence of any fortifications in the Bonin Islands. According to him, the project of fortifying the Bonins never went beyond the paper stage. Now listen to Admiral Nomura, who, as a high officer of the Japanese Navy, ought to know what he is talking about: “We do not deny the fact that with a view of strengthening the defenses of our homeland our government devised a plan of fortifying the Bonins, which are situated at a distance of only 500 miles from our coast, and when the disarmament conference was called at Washington the fortification work in these islands was in course of progress.”
If the forts have since been dismantled, the world has never heard of it. Admiral Nomura does deny, however, that the work was speeded up in order to have it completed when the conference met. I can only refer him to the Japan Chronicle, which has stated repeatedly, quoting from Japanese vernacular papers, that the forts on the Bonins were hurriedly completed by November, 1921, and that the occasion was marked by a festival held in the islands.
It is all very well for Admiral Nomura to say that “Mr. Bywater is recommending to the American people the adoption of the so-called ‘mailed fist’ policy, which some of the powers were wont to pursue before the war,” and that my views are “instrumental in provoking distrust of Japan, if not actually intended to do so.”
If Japan is distrusted, not only in the United States but in England as well, the fact is due to her own actions since the conference. While her leading public men and the newspapers have been paying lip service to the spirit of the treaty, her shipyards continue to launch cruisers, destroyers, submarines and other naval units with unfailing regularity. No fair-minded person who examines the comparative figures of naval construction during the past two and a half years can escape the conclusion that Japan has inaugurated a new race for supremacy in sea armaments.
It is unquestionably because of her policy in this matter that the other signatory powers are now being forced to. adopt costly programs of new construction. That is the outstanding fact of the situation today and it is not to be obscured by the verbal smoke-screens which Japanese apologists are now seeking to develop.
Navy Officer Declares Present Japanese Situation May Be' Serious
Army and Navy Journal, 7 June, 1924.—“The American people ought to realize that we are unprepared for war,” is the burden of a message sent to Secretary of the Navy Wilbur by Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, U. S. N., retired, and made public by him on June 4. He declared that the situation should be revealed to them, “in so far as it bears on the present American-Japanese situation,” and pointed out that the Japanese strength in Far Eastern waters is superior to that of the United States.
Extracts from this letter follow:
“Our people imagine that the 5-5-3 naval ratio, established by the naval conference, means that our Navy is superior to the Japanese in the relation of 5-3; in the sense that, if a war should arise between this country and Japan, our Navy would have a 5-3 chance of overcoming the Japanese.
"This is the reverse of the truth. Our Navy is not superior to the Japanese in the relation 5-3 except (approximately) in the matter of capital ships and even if it were superior in that ratio in the number of ships it is far from being superior in that ratio in personnel; and even if our Navy were superior in that ratio in the number of personnel in active service it is far inferior in reserves; for the solemn truth is that we have no trained reserves worthy of the name, whereas the Japanese have. Our people ought to realize that the Japanese are distinctly a maritime nation and a military nation but that our nation is neither.
“If Japan should go to the extreme of taking the Philippine Islands and thus force us into war, we should find ourselves in a deplorable condition, because of the lack of trained men as well as of other requisites.
"In this matter I think that I may reasonably claim to be an expert. I was a member of the General Board of the Navy from August, 1910, to August, 1911, and in charge of the war plans of the Navy, while from February, 1913, till May, 1915, I was aid for Operations of the Navy (now called Chief of Naval Operations) and was responsible under the Secretary for the readiness of the Navy for war. In both of those positions the problem presented by a possible war with Japan was my principal preoccupation.
“As we estimated the situation, Japan was a very poor but very ambitious nation, desirous of becoming the Great Britain of the East. To accomplish this high destiny the occupation of the Philippine Islands by the United States was an evident obstruction, because the Philippine Islands flank the communications of Japan, not only to America, but to China and India.
"Therefore, we believed that Japan would like to own the Philippine Islands. Therefore, we believed that Japan would take the Philippine Islands if ever the resentment of the people against us should reach a height sufficient to assure the government of their support.
“That Japan could take the Philippine Islands we all agreed at that time; but that we could retake them no officer then was willing to declare.
“In case the Japanese should take the Philippine Islands our fleet would have to go out to the coast of Asia, more than 5,000 miles away from our inadequate bases on the west coast of the United States and more than 3,000 miles away from our solitary drydock in the Hawaiian Islands and engage the Japanese fleet in immediate proximity to their bases. Our fleet would have to remain near the coast of Asia, exposed day and night continuously to attacks by Japanese submarines and Japanese aircraft.
“Of course, I do not mean to suggest that war is even possible but nevertheless the Japanese and Americans have taken attitudes that are irreconcilable. They have virtually broken off diplomatic relations by giving their ambassador a ‘vacation.’ Such attitudes and such acts have usually preceded wars, though they have not always been followed by wars.
“But even if war does not come the American people ought to realize that we are unprepared for it if it does come and that the longer we delay preparing, the greater the war will cost us if it comes.
“In view of the importance of this matter I am giving this letter to the press.”
New Tokio Premier Advocate of Peace
Baltimore Sun, 12 June, 1924.—Tokio, June 11.—Peace and international friendship will form the basic policies of the new Japanese Cabinet, the incoming Premier, Viscount Kato, declared tonight in a statement to the Associated Press. The Ministry formed by the viscount yesterday will assume office tomorrow.
The statement said:
“My ministry will contribute to world peace by promoting friendly relations with all powers in pursuance of the foreign policy hitherto carried out. My cabinet also will undertake domestic reforms in the interest of the whole nation.”
Viscount Kijuhiro Ishii, who negotiated the Lansing-Ishii agreement, is to succeed Masanao Hanihara as ambassador to the United States it is indicated on reliable authority.
A dispatch from the American Embassy at Tokio today informed the State Department of the formation by Premier Kato of a tri-party cabinet, comprising the Seiyukai, the Kabushin Club and the Kenseikai, as follows:
Prime Minister, Viscount Takaki Kato; Foreign Minister, Baron Kijuro Shidehara; Home Minister, Rejiro Wakatsuki; Minister of Finance, Yugo Hamaguchi; Minister of War, General Ugaki; Minister of Navy. Admiral Takarabe; Justice, Sennosuke Yokita; Education, Ryohei Okada; Agriculture and Commerce, Korekiyo Takahashi; Communications, Ki Inukai; Railways, Mitsugi Sengoku.
UNITED STATES
Is Our Navy Headed for the Rocks?
The Literary Digest, 17 May, 1924.—The startling disclosures of the American Navy’s deficiencies in ships, guns, and naval bases, contained in the recent report of Admiral Robert E. Coontz, the statements of William B. Shearer in the New York Times, and the tables of Captain Knox in the Baltimore Sun, together with the admission of Secretary of the Navy Wilbur in a New York interview that "our battleships today are undermanned,” have caused Senator King (Dem., Utah), Representative Rogers (Rep., Mass), and Representative Britten (Rep., Ill.) to offer resolutions calling for an investigation of reported weaknesses in the Navy These resolutions ask the Secretary of the Navy for a statement regarding Mr. Shearer’s assertion that since the Washington Conference the United States Navy has lost ground and now ranks behind the navies of Great Britain and Japan.
“Something is radically wrong with the American Navy,” declares the New York Times editorially and, adds the Albany Knickerbocker Press, “Admiral Coontz, commander-in-chief of the United States fleet and until recently chief of Operations, does the country a service by giving it this frank and illuminating document about the sad deficiencies in our first line of defense.” For, The Dayton Journal points out that “the Navy is our insurance policy against trouble on the high seas and possible destruction of American commerce, along with loss of our insular possessions. It must therefore be kept up to par, both for protection and for the moral influence it will carry.”
Taking these indictments in the order of their appearance, we find this disquieting statement in The Times of April 27:
“William B. Shearer, formerly a special expert employed by the Navy Department and inventor of the Shearer torpedo boat, the one-man torpedo boat and the amphibian tank, charged yesterday that neglect of the Navy and failure to provide it with adequate fuel reserves had so weakened that branch of the national defense that the advantages gained by the Washington Arms Conference had been thrown away and that the ratio of power instead of being America 5, England 5, Japan 3, was in fact England 5, Japan 3, America 1.
“To show the relative gun strength of the British and American fleets, Mr. Shearer submitted the following tabulation, which he said was official:
Elevation and Range of United States and British Guns | |||||
United States Navy | |||||
Battleships | Caliber of Guns in Inches | Length of Guns in Calibers | Elevation of Guns in Degrees | Normal Range in Yards | |
3 | 16 | 45 | 30 | 32,000 | |
2 | 14 | 50 | 30 | 34,000 | |
3 | 14 | 50 | 15 | 22,000 | |
6 | 14 | 45 | 15 | 20,000 | |
2 | 12 | 50 | IS | 22,000 | |
2 | 12 | 45 | 15 | 20,000 | |
Battleships | British Navy | ||||
2 | 16 | 42 | 30 | 32,000 | |
10 | 15 | 42 | 20 | 24,000 | |
4 | 13.5 | 42 | 20 | 23,800 | |
Battle Cruisers |
|
|
|
| |
1 | 15 | 42 | 30 | 30,100 | |
2 | 15 | 42 | 20 | 24,300 | |
1 | 13.5 | 42 | 20 | 23,800 | |
According to Mr. Shearer, as quoted in The Times:
"The Washington Conference established a naval ratio of 5-5-3: England 5, America 5, Japan 3. This was considered a victory for the United States, because it marked the end of the two-power standard England had maintained for a century and it brought the United States on a level with her and gave us at the same time a marked superiority over Japan; but whatever advantages might have been ours under that treaty have been thrown away.
“Not only are we outgunned so far as our battleships are concerned but we are outnumbered in light cruisers and in fleet submarines. The British are 4-1 over us in light cruiser strength and the Japanese 2½-1. Of this class of ships England has fifty-three, Japan has twenty-five and we have ten. Not only that, but Captain McNamee, naval expert now under Admiral Robison, is authority for the statement that the British have built eighteen flotilla leaders, whereas we have no vessels of this class.
In ships and bases and fuel stored Japan has the largest naval program of all. She lost only one cruiser in the earthquake. She has thirty new destroyers and seventy submarines under construction. England has seventeen fleet submarines, Japan has twenty-five, and we have just six.
“Now fleets must have bases of operations. Without such bases they can not operate in war. How do we compare there? Well, England has nineteen bases, Japan has many, some of them secret, and we have none.
"Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is the Gibraltar of the Pacific. It protects the Pacific coast, the Panama Canal, the Philippines, and all our Pacific possessions, yet all that we have there are a few submarines and none of them are fleet submarines.
“The United States has navy yards but not naval bases. The Navy has on reserve at the present time 1,500,000 barrels of fuel oil and all of it is at Pearl Harbor. There is no oil reserve stored on the Atlantic coast. There is none stored on the Pacific coast. The British fleet has an oil reserve sufficient for three years. Moreover, the British have not all their oil stored in one place.
“Not only do such conditions obtain but the entire Atlantic fleet is tied up. The vessels undergoing repairs are the Wyoming, Arkansas, Utah and Florida. They need repairs or changes to boilers.
"Outgunned, outnumbered, part of the fleet in a deplorable condition, with no naval bases and our only fuel reserve 2,100 miles distant, we have lost our position in the 5-5-3 treaty. That ratio is 5-5-1 and we are 1.
“We have ten capital ships in the Pacific; Japan has ten. We have ten light cruisers; Japan has twenty-five. To attain the treaty ratio in light cruisers we would have to build nineteen more light cruisers of 10,000 tons each. We have six fleet submarines; Japan has twenty-five; and to attain the ratio we would have to have thirty-six fleet submarines. Unless our range is increased we will be five battleships against twenty British. Japan is spending 50,000,000 yen for the modernization of nine battleships and changing the gun elevation from eighteen to twenty-five degrees. She will outrange us five miles with some ships. Japan has a number of mine-laying submarines, but how many is a secret. It is no secret how many we have—none! Of other types of submarines we have twenty-one at Pearl Harbor Japan, in addition to all types, is building seventy new submarine boats.
“Perhaps the greatest lesson of the war was the effectiveness of the torpedo. It was not long before the torpedo had made the seas unsafe for capital ships. The British turned around for some method of protection for their battleships. They decided to ‘blister’ them.
“Now a ‘blister’ is, roughly speaking, an outside hull, put on both sides of the vessel below the water line. They ‘blistered’ such of their ships as they could during the war. They have ‘blistered’ them all since the war.
“They have done more than give protection to the ship, however, in this process of ‘blistering.’ They have utilized that space inside the ‘blister’ to carry reserve oil. This not only adds to the protection and adds to the displacement of the ship but it increases its cruising radius up to perhaps 23,000 miles. Curiously, the ‘blister’ also adds to the speed of the ship.
“Japan is also ‘blistering’ her big ships. We have done nothing. None of our ships are ‘blistered.’ None are to be ‘blistered.’ The Navy wants it done but what the Navy wants and what Congress gives it are two different things.
We have not only failed to modernize our ships by ‘blistering’ them but we have failed to learn the lesson of deck armor as well. Nowadays the angle of fire is so high and bombing so feasible that the vitals of a ship are unduly exposed to attack. These vitals are the machinery, fuel and ammunition. To protect them the British have built as many as three armored decks.
The Japanese, too, have modernized their ships in this respect. Two of Japan’s capital ships have three decks of armor; two others have two decks. We, however, have only one deck armored as protection against the long-range gun and the aerial bomb.
“The average range of the twenty-two British ships is 24,967 yards, practically 25,000 yards, while the average range of our capital ships is 23,333 yards. We have five ships of equal range with the British. These are the two ships of the California class and the three ships of the Colorado class They have a range of 30,000 yards and they would have to do all the fighting, because every other ship in the British Navy—nineteen of them—out-ranges every other ship in the American Navy. And that is not all. While the California and the Colorado ships have the same range as the Hood and the two Rodneys, those ships could sail circles around ours, for the Hood makes 31 knots and the two Rodneys make 30. Against this none of our ships can do better than 21.
"Back in 1916 we authorized ten cruisers. That was the year before we entered the war. Of those ten, seven have been built. Three have not yet been completed and before they are launched they are out of date. It is just that sort of thing that has turned the 5-5-3 ratio into a 5-3-1 ratio with America 1.”
Of the winter naval maneuvers, and the lessons to be learned from them, the Commander-in-chief of the fleet, Admiral Coontz, says in his report:
"There is a shortage of ships adequate for the exercise of command. The Seattle, independent flagship of the commander-in-chief, is not in the best material condition, particularly as to her boilers. Since she must be continued in this duty until a modern 10,000-ton cruiser can be built to replace her, she should be converted into an oil-burner if possible. Otherwise a complete reconditioning of her boilers should be undertaken.
“The Procyon demonstrated that she is too slow for a flagship of the commander’s fleet base force. After being appointed to command the convoy in Problem IV she was unable to keep in touch with the fleet at 10 knots speed.
"The lack of destroyer leaders has been keenly felt in all the problems. A destroyer squadron commander has a very considerable task. The present squadron leaders do not have that excess of offensive force, speed and reliability which they ought to have in order to lead.
“Shortly before Problem IV opened orders were received from the Department limiting the boiler pressure of the Wyoming, Arkansas, Florida and Utah to 160 pounds, which entails a maximum speed of about 14 knots with accompanying difficulties in the operation of auxiliary machinery. It has since been determined that these boilers are in bad shape. The commander-in-chief considers that the sooner these ships are converted into oil-burners and reboilered, the better the fleet as a whole will be.
"The battleships of our fleet are of different design and can not fight together at long ranges because of the lack of high elevation of turret guns in some of them, thus making it impossible to take advantage of the power of the newer ships. This should be corrected as soon as possible.
"The commander-in-chief urges a thorough program of modernization for these battleships. If begun at once it will take several years to complete. Meanwhile the ships deteriorate and obsolesce. This modernization should include all the coal-burning battleships, which should be reboilered and fitted for oil-burning.
“None of the light cruisers took part in Problem IV. They were much needed as scouts, as supports for the screen and as linking vessels It is hoped that more cruisers will be built soon, to be of ten thousand tons mounting 8-inch guns.
“Of the combatant ships taking part in the problems the submarines are the worst. Their design is obsolete and faulty. Their ventilation is poor and at times almost non-existent. The temperatures in the engine-room rise as high as 135 degrees. They are unreliable. Some of their fuel-tanks leak, either spoiling their fresh water or enhancing the fire menace or leaving an oil slick whereby they can be tracked. All the submarines are so deficient in speed as to be of small use for fleet work, except by accident of position.
“The material condition of the fleet is not as good as it should be. The defects may be looked at from several points of view. There are a number of major defects which can be corrected only by a correction of national policy, which must be worked for. There is in the fleet what may be called a deferred maintenance resulting from a failure to keep the ships properly repaired and up to date in beneficial alterations. This is partly due directly to insufficient appropriations and partly due to a high overhead expense at navy yards which uses up the money available without putting a sufficient proportion into ships.”
The House Naval Committee has authorized the construction of eight 10,000-ton fast light cruisers, writes Captain Dudley W. Knox in the Baltimore Sun, but no construction can be undertaken until the House Appropriations Committee provides the money, which will be some time next year. "We are the last to present any new building programs,” notes this naval expert, but we gather from the table which he presents that Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy have not been idle:
Nation | Laid Down Since Naval Treaty Signed | Officially Projected Since Naval Treaty Signed |
United States | None | None |
Great Britain | 1 minelayer, 7,000 tons. | Baldwin Government program (not authorized): 52 Light cruisers through next ten years. 3 Submarines. 2 Destroyers 1 Airship carrier 5 Miscellaneous. Labor Government program (incorporated in Navy Estimates this year and bids issued): 5 Light cruisers. |
Japan | 6 Light cruisers. 10 Destroyers. 3 Fleet submarines. 11 Miscellaneous | Ordered: 4 Light cruisers. 2 Fleet submarines. 1 Submarine. 1 Destroyer. Building or projected (exact status unknown): 3 Light cruisers. 22 Destroyers. 18 Fleet Submarines. 17 Submarines. |
France | 3 Light cruisers. 6 Destroyer leaders 12 Destroyers. 6 Fleet submarines. 6 Submarines. | Already voted: 9 Submarines. Now being considered by Deputies: 6 Light cruisers. 15 Destroyer leaders. 24 Destroyers. 30 Fleet submarines. 9 Submarines. |
Italy | 4 Destroyers. | Proposed but not voted: 5 Light cruisers. 20 Destroyers. 20 Submarines. |
These men are authorities and their words should have weight, maintains the Brooklyn Citizen. In the opinion of the Chicago Daily News, "the inferiority of the American Navy in cruisers and in the most modern types of submarines is so marked that this condition can not safely be ignored by Congress.” The British, remarks the Manchester Union, “are living up to the terms of the Washington agreement but they are making sure that their part of the 5-5-3 ratio remains 5.” The Brooklyn Eagle declares, “no possible excuse can be found for maintaining our own Navy at any standard under the most powerful permitted by the 5-5-3 agreement.” “The safety of the Nation depends primarily upon its air and sea forces. We can not starve them without running serious risks,” agrees the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Washington agreement, we are reminded by the New York Sun, “did not do away with the necessity for constant vigilance. A wealthy country such as ours must realize that war may burst upon it overnight.” "Nowhere,” concludes the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “is the position taken that the Navy of today is in fact what it is in theory—equal to that of England and greatly superior to that of Japan.”
Secretary of the Navy Wilbur, who is responsible to the President for the state of the Navy, says some of the reports of deficiencies in the Navy "should be accepted with moderation." Continues Secretary Wilbur:
“To the layman who is not conversant with naval affairs, the various reports that have been seen in the daily papers in the last few days might indicate an alarming condition in our fleet. A month or so previous to the beginning of the winter maneuvers technical experts in the Navy Department drew up a great many questions for the fleet to answer resultant upon these maneuvers, the idea being that the Department desired to know the weaknesses of the fleet in all particulars in order that action might be taken to place the fleet in as near perfect condition as practicable.
“The result was that the commander-in-chief’s report, which has been referred to and remarked on by the papers, was a resume of the answers to the questions to the fleet.
“When one considers that this report covered all the types of vessels, including aircraft in our service, and the many vessels in each type, the significance given to the report should be accepted with moderation.
“The Department was well aware of many of the faults contained in this report and has been trying for some time to improve the condition as the appropriations warrant it. Congress is fully aware of these shortcomings in our service, which were not brought about by any indifference on the part of the Department but through lessons learned since the World War.”
The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot also takes exception to Mr. Shearer’s figures when it says:
“A ratio differing so widely from that established at the Washington Conference with the assistance of naval experts of all the great nations is to be accepted with reserve. Much is to be said in favor of many of Mr. Shearer’s criticisms. . . . But persuasive as many of his criticisms may be, it is to be questioned whether they sustain the conclusion that America's naval strength is only one fifth of that of Great Britain and only one third of that of Japan. Such a conclusion could only be correct on the assumption that our naval experts made a colossal blunder when they assisted Secretary Hughes in making tonnage the primary consideration in the establishment of the naval ratios at the Washington Conference.
“Mr. Shearer’s criticisms are weakened by his assumption that the disarmament treaty is a guide-book of naval policy, when it is in fact only a contract of limitation on certain classes of naval construction. Our naval policy is subject to the treaty limitations, but provided we do not overstep the treaty, we are free to determine whether we shall have a big Navy or a little one, whether we shall have a well-balanced Navy or one deficient in vessels of auxiliary types. The arguments on these questions deserve to be considered solely with reference to our needs as a nation and to the tactical decisions of naval experts. They ought not to be considered by a reference to the mistaken theory that the Washington Treaty requires us to maintain a Navy equal in every respect to that of England and greater by a ratio of 5-3 than the navy of Japan.”
Besides, we are reminded by the Richmond News-Leader:
“Mr. Shearer is not basing his comparisons on tonnage, as the diplomatists at Washington did. He is speaking in terms of general efficiency, of seaworthiness, of fighting strength. That means nothing more nor less than that he affirms the navy of Japan, numerically much inferior to that of America, is three times as strong in general value for active operations. Yet he rests his argument on America’s limited number of submarines and light cruisers, or her temporary shortage of stored oil, on the superior range of a few British ships and on this country’s restricted number of naval bases. No reference is made to the fact that of capital ships the United States has in full commission 525,850 tons, as against 301,320 for Japan, eighteen ships as compared with ten. Nor is anything said of America’s 243 first-line destroyers, with a speed of 35 knots, or of her fifty-two destroyers, with a speed varying from 29 to 32 knots. Japan has, in comparison, only 125 destroyers of all ages and types. In short, Mr. Shearer’s argument is all on one side.
“Washington confirmed only Mr. Shearer’s statement as to the range of certain naval guns, the number of cruisers and the volume of oil in storage. For the rest, the Times’ own Washington staff, though doing its best to support the story its paper was featuring, specifically quoted the Navy Department as saying that the relative naval strength of the three leading Powers was ‘a matter of opinion.’ ”
“Mr. Shearer criticizes the Navy for having no reserve supply of oil except that at Pearl Harbor,” observes the Detroit News. But, this paper goes on:
“Mr. Shearer does not explain why this country, the world’s greatest producer of oil, needs a storage reserve for the Navy. There is practically no oil in the British Isles; the entire British supply must be brought in from abroad, chiefly from the United States and Mexico. Japan has no home supplies of oil; she must buy from other countries and keep the sea open for the safe passage of her tankers but we are not dependent on any other country for our oil. Whatever oil the Navy wants it can buy right at home, by the million gallons if necessary and as our oil supplies are safe enough for some years to come, we do not need tank reserves. Our naval oil reserves should be kept in the ground, where they belong, and held for emergency use, not put into tanks, as long as the Navy can buy oil cheaply and the supply is sure.”
Take the Navy Out of Politics
Army and Navy Journal, 17 May, 1924.—The vicious point of view which too often governs with respect to questions of national defense in this country is well illustrated by the fact that the report of Admiral Coontz, the commander-in-chief of the United States Fleet, upon the condition of that fleet should be mistaken in some quarters for partisan political propaganda of the same kind as that of the many recent congressional investigations with no other object in view than the discrediting of the party in power.
National defense vitally affects the whole country. It should be too big a question to be mixed up in partisan politics. When the day comes that one party can be credited with being for and the other with being opposed it will be the beginning of the end of our power.
The Regular Army and Navy, like every other human institution, are subject to justifiable criticism. Throughout their history, however, they have always stood, regardless of political questions, unitedly for the central Government and absolutely free from politics in the major question of national defense.
The sooner the politicians, the press of the country and the country as a whole realizes that the report of Admiral Coontz has nothing in any way whatsoever to do with politics and is based on facts absolutely established by the recent maneuvers, from the point of view of the battle efficiency of the United States Fleet, the sooner the truth will be arrived at and the more secure the future of the country.
The sole object of a navy is to be able to decisively defeat any navy which any possible opponent or group of opponents may bring against us. Inability to inflict such defeat means the landing of foreign expeditions on our soil, the capture or destruction, and possibly both, of our principal sea ports, the seizure of the Panama Canal, the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska and the denial of the overseas routes to our commerce.
Whatever may be the hopes for the future with respect to international agreements which will operate in fact and pot merely on paper, to eliminate warfare no thinking individual willing to accept Grover Cleveland’s statement that "we are confronted with a condition and not with a theory” can escape the conclusion that the general tendencies of the world today are more toward war than peace. In other words, whatever promises the distant future may hold out to the enthusiastic and optimistic, the hard cold fact remains under existing world conditions the nation which values its existence must be prepared to defend it by force of arms.
There is nothing in our past history to contravene this point of view; there is everything to support it. In our brief history we have been at war with every large European nation with a seacoast on the western ocean, in that we have fought England twice, Germany, France and Spain each once. Since the Russo-Japanese War we have had a succession of crises more or less acute with Japan, who, since the Washington Conference, has become the master of the western Pacific.
The question before Congress, the present administration, the press of the country and our people at large has nothing to do with politics. It is a very simple one and easily answered. Is our Navy in shape to fulfill the sole mission compatible with its existence, and if it is not, what should be done to put it in shape to fulfill that mission? If it is not, the responsibility for its present inadequacy is entirely subordinate to the responsibility for the immediate placing of the fleet in the proper state of battle efficiency. Party loyalty must be subordinate to loyalty to the nation. Haggling about details, whether intentionally done to obscure the real issue or done through inability to see the larger issue, must not be tolerated.
The Navy Department’s answer to Mr. Shearer’s article setting forth the weakness of our fleet while a partial admission of the fact that the 5-5-3 ratio has not been maintained engages in quibbling when attempting to prove Mr. Shearer’s statements largely erroneous, while at the same time admitting that their approximate ratio of 5-4-3 does not take into consideration strategically located and well equipped naval bases nor the relative strength of the various merchant marines. The only way to compare fleets is their relative strength as they could be opposed to each other in combat in the theaters of war, which conflict with each possible naval antagonist will compel action. Combat admits of no exceptions to the general rule of the maximum force exerted at the proper time in the locality in which strategy has compelled action.
The question as to whether or not the Washington Arms Conference accomplished any political or sentimental purpose is entirely aside from the fact that it resulted in our fleet being brought down from a position of superiority to that of Great Britain’s and of twice the battle strength of that of Japan’s to a relative strength of 5-5-3, but only applying to capital ships in which we were decidedly the strongest, and not operating with respect to other types and auxiliaries in which we were relatively weaker In other words, when it came to the classes outside of capital ships our position was less than the proportion established by this ratio.
Unfortunately, in spite of this decided weakening of our naval strength, the fleet has been allowed to deteriorate well below this ratio.
Failure in maintenance, failure in new construction and failure to modernize are the causes. The necessity to economize in government expenditures without adequate understanding on the part of Congress as to the damage being done to the Navy and weak-kneed yielding to adroitly disseminated foreign propaganda as to what we were honorably entitled to do under the treaties emanating from the Washington Arms Conference are the reasons.
That economy, and rigid economy, must be had in government expenditures is so obvious as to be axiomatic. That the recently installed budget system operates to establish a sane control of government expenditures, and hence for economy, is obvious. However, in the operation of the system there has been a failure on the part of the executive branch of the Government to make it clear to Congress when the recommendations for expenditures were submitted that such recommendations were merely proposed to do with the sums allotted to them under the budget and not at all what these same departments considered should be done.
In other words, in considering the appropriations to be made for the Navy Department, for example, Congress should have before it a complete plan as to what is absolutely necessary to put the Navy on an efficient basis, so that it could thoroughly understand that any sum appropriated of a lesser amount than was necessary to do this was done solely in the interest of the most rigid economy and at a sacrifice, perhaps necessary for the moment, to naval efficiency.
The fact that the legislative branch of the Government did not fully understand all of the circumstances will not excuse it from accepting its share along with the executive branch of the responsibility for the present stage of inadequacy of our Navy from the point of view of combat, the only point of view from which an armed force should be considered.
The present condition of our Navy is no secret to foreign powers. They are not fooling themselves with respect to our weakness or their strength. There is no excuse to try to fool our people. For every vote gained from a pacifist ten votes will be lost from the men and women, of whom the country is full, who are honest and courageous enough to face the truth. Congress and the administration should act now and act vigorously.
Notables Attend the Annapolis Reunion
Army and Navy Journal, 14 June, 1924.—Between 700 and 800 graduates of the Naval Academy, something over a quarter of the total number living, attended the reunion at the Academy on Saturday, May 31, after the athletic contests.
During the morning and afternoon most of the graduates attended the sports and in the evening the business meeting, including election of officers, was held, followed by the banquet.
Rear Admiral Oscar F. Stanton, New London, Conn., class of 1849, by virtue of being the oldest living graduate, will be president, according to the association’s by-laws. He will be ninety years old June 18.
Colonel Robert M. Thompson, 1868, was elected chairman of the Board of Control. Others chosen on this body are Rear Admiral W. W. Phelps, 1889; Rear Admiral R. M. Watt, 1891; Captain D. M. Garrison, 1895 (also re-elected secretary-treasurer) ; Commander Byron McCandless, 1905, and Lieutenant Commander S. A. Clements, 1907.
The reunion was the first since 1916 and the suggestion of Secretary of War Weeks, in his toast urging continuance of such gatherings annually met with hearty accord. The class of 1907 had the largest representation at the banquet—thirty-seven.
The big throng of graduates represented practically every class from the Civil War days of ’63 up to and including the ensigns of last year’s class.
The spirit of good fellowship prevailed. The oldest living graduate present was Colby M. Chester, retired, while the youngest, W. S. Ginn, 1923, acted as adjutant at the battalion formation for the march to the banquet room in Bancroft Hall. It was the largest reunion and banquet of the Naval Academy Graduates’ Association that has ever taken place.
Gray-haired admirals long on the retired list and others doing active duty mingled with the youngest of 1923. Conspicuous in the throng were Secretary of the Navy Wilbur and Secretary of War Weeks, the former an alumnus of 1888 and the latter of 1881.
Colonel Robert M. Thompson, 1868, of New York, long in civil life, but one of the Academy’s staunchest friends and benefactors of athletics, acted as toastmaster. The following toasts were responded to:
"The President,” Secretary of War Weeks; "The Navy," Secretary of Navy Wilbur; “The Naval Academy,” Rear Admiral Henry B. Wilson, Superintendent, class of 1881; “Naval History and Naval Traditions," Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves, 1887; "Graduates Out of the Service,” Homer L. Ferguson, 1892; “Youngsters of the Service," Lieutenant F. S. Witherspoon, 1915; “Athletics," Commander Byron McCandless, 1905; “Sweethearts and Wives," Captain Watt Tyler Cluverius.
Alterations Delayed on U. S. Battleships
Army and Navy Journal, 14 June, 1924.—The passage of a bill, H. R. 8687, authorizing alterations for the battleships New York, Texas, Florida, Utah, Arkansas and Wyoming at a total cost not to exceed $18,360,000 and further authorizing the construction prior to July 1, 1927, of eight scout cruisers to cost $11,100,000 each and six river gunboats to cost $700,000 each, was opposed in the House by Mr. McClintock, Republican, of Oklahoma, who was the only member of the House Naval Committee to oppose the bill.
The features of the passage of the bill in the House, which passed on May 28, was an attempt by Representative Britten, of Illinois, to add on to the bill an amendment authorizing $6,500,000 for the elevation of the guns of certain older battleships of the fleet. Special hearings were held by the Senate Naval Committee by Chairman Hale, and on May 29 the bill was reported favorably to the Senate without amendments.
The bill was passed by the Senate but its reconsideration was asked by Senator King of Utah. During the closing hours of the Senate it was impossible to again get the bill up for reconsideration. All the preliminary work has been done on the bill and when Congress convenes in December it will be brought up again, at which time it is expected that the bill will be enacted into law.
No War-Navy Department Merger
Army and Navy Register, 7 June, 1924.—It is gratifying to observe that sanity and sagacity have attended the final deliberations of senators and representatives concerned with the project of reorganizing the executive branches and reforming the executive functions of this Government, with the result that there has been abandonment of the proposal, originating with the so-called Brown commission, to amalgamate the War and Navy Departments into a huge department of defense, with a minister or some such personage at its head and with sub-secretaries or under-secretaries, operating in the place of the present cabinet officers now serving as Secretaries of War and the Navy, respectively. There was nothing more visionary and impractical than that suggestion. It was the creation of theorists and it met the deserved fate of extinction when it was realized what it meant in the form of increased mechanism, frustration of official effort and downright extravagance. Nothing appears along that mischievous line in the latest congressional observations on the subject of departmental reorganization. Definite recommendations for reorganization of the administrative branch of the Federal Government to be effective March 4, 1925, were made this week to Congress by the joint committee on reorganization created under the joint resolution adopted December 17, 1920. The report of this joint committee was laid before the Senate by Senator Reed Smoot, of Utah, and before the House of Representatives by Representative Carl E. Mapes, of Michigan. The report is signed by Senators Smoot and Wadsworth and by Representatives Mapes and Temple, of Pennsylvania, all republicans. Senator Pat Harrison, of Mississippi, and Representative R. Walton Moore, cf Virginia, the democratic members of the joint committee, made certain reservations. The recommendations made do not involve material change in the existing organizations of the War or Navy Departments.
Loaned to Treasury Department
Army and Navy Register, 24 May, 1924.—The following vessels have been turned over by the Navy Department to the Treasury Department for the use of the Coast Guard: destroyers Jouett, Patterson, Beale, Cassin, Downes, Paulding and Ammen. The following vessels are to be turned over to the Treasury Department for the use of the Coast Guard: destroyers Porter, Conyngham, McDougal, Cummings, Ericsson, Monaghan, McCall, Trippe, Burrows, Terry, Fanning, Roe, Henley; mine sweeper Radwing and the sea-going tug Carrabassett.
MERCHANT MARINE
British Fears of Germany's New Marine
The Literary Digest, 31 May, 1924.—The paralysis of shipbuilding, said to be evident in all parts of the world, is ascribed to the low freights which now rule and they result from the fact that there are more ships available than there are cargoes to he carried. As a symptom of what it terms this paralytic condition, the London Daily Telegraph points out that while in 1919, 7,144,549 tons were launched, in 1923 the figure was only 1,643,181. In every country, with one exception, says this daily, the associated marine industries are depressed and the excepted country is Germany which, it avers, “bankrupt though she is represented to be, sent to sea last year more ships than all the other maritime nations of the continent of Europe." With about 3,000,000 tons of merchant ships built or building, and with wages at a very low level in her shipyards and engine-shops as well as afloat, we are told that Germany is becoming a “serious competitor” in the sea carrying trade. This London newspaper recalls that—
“Five years ago the German flag was not seen at sea, as all her seagoing vessels had been surrendered under the Treaty of Versailles ; now it is to be met with everywhere. Great passenger liners and also cargo carriers are being constructed in complete confidence that the German people are again going to play a considerable part in the economic affairs of the world. It was stated recently that the ship-building movement in Germany has received a severe check owing to unfavorable industrial and economic conditions but there is no indication of any such tendency in the latest returns of Lloyd’s Register. On the contrary, there is more tonnage in hand in German establishments at the moment than in all the shipyards of France Italy and Norway combined. Last quarter vessels of 25,000 tons were put into the water but German shipowners had come forward with fresh orders and ships of 33,300 tons were begun so that there was not a decrease but a gain. Though the Germans plead poverty when there is talk of paying reparations, they are managing somehow to obtain the money for the restoration of their mercantile fleet and, as our Berlin correspondent has frequently reminded us, for the re-equipment on a lavish scale of their factories and workshops. Of all the mysteries associated with the economic condition of that country none is more arresting than Germany’s rise once more as a great sea power with a large and expanding mercantile marine.”
The Daily telegraph goes on to say ominously that apparently it is not yet generally realized how great is the extent of Germany’s recovery on the seas and cites the remark of a lecturer before the Institution of Naval Architects, who declared: “It is an anomaly that, at a time when about 7,000,000 gross tons of shipping are lying idle in the ports of the world, the Germans have been able to find steady and remunerative employment for the whole of their merchant fleet, consisting, in the main, of newly constructed and highly efficient ships. Freights have been earned in the immediate past on the gold or dollar basis and wages and most of the other charges have been dispersed in the depreciated mark. Even today the wage of German seamen is not more than about one third that which is paid to British seamen.” Pondering this observation, The Daily Telegraph expresses the opinion that while it would be an act of extreme rashness to attempt to foretell how the course of political and economic events in Germany may react on shipbuilding and ship operating, the possibility must nevertheless be kept in mind that Germany will once again be “the most serious rival of Britain" in these twin industries as well as in sea transport. We read then:
“Germany now possesses a highly efficient fleet, consisting mainly of new ships, and month by month further additions are being made to it That German shipowners believe that the motor ship is destined speedily to supersede the familiar steamer is suggested by the policy which they are pursuing. More than half the vessels which are now building are to be equipped with the new propulsive agent whereas in this country the percentage is less than half as great. It is recognized that, though the initial expenditure on a motor ship is far greater than on a steamer, the former will earn profits where the latter incurs only losses. The progress of the evolution is recognized as inevitable and the Germans, unembarrassed by the possession of a great volume of steam tonnage, are taking time by the forelock and are concentrating on the new type, their example in that respect being emulated in Holland, Sweden and Denmark.
"On this side of the North Sea the outlook for shipbuilding and ship operating is overcast owing to the high cost of production which must prove an obstacle in securing foreign orders. Lloyd's Register recently remarked that 'it may reasonably be hoped that, in the absence of unforeseen adverse circumstances, an improvement may shortly become apparent in the condition of the shipbuilding industry.’ But there is nothing to justify the belief that we shall soon see the day when all the shipyard workers will be provided with work, however extensively advantage may be taken of the Trade Facilities Act to finance new construction."
Britain must face the fact, we are further told, that immediately after the war the number of employees in her shipyards and engine-shops was increased far beyond the permanent needs of the industry. In 1920, it is recalled, 618 vessels of just above 2,000,000 tons were launched, while in 1923 the output was 222 vessels of 645,000 tons. There is no present prospect, we are assured, that half as much shipping will be launched annually in the future as was done in 1920, even when shipowners as a body are convinced that the profit-earning capacity of the motor ship is so conspicuous that it will pay them to scrap steamers which in normal circumstances would be regarded as efficient carriers of passengers or goods. So, this journal concludes:
“We are thus brought face to face with a problem to which little attention has yet been given. What is to happen to the surplus workers in the shipyards and engine shops? It is sad that the confession must be made that work can not be found for anything like all of them but it is a conclusion to which the shipbuilding industry, in common with the nation as a whole, will be driven by the course of events. Our yards will be confronted in future with more serious competition than before the war, especially on the part of Germany, while Holland and Sweden are not to be ignored as rivals."
On the other hand, we read in the London Economic Review that the restoration of Germany’s commercial fleet in 1923 was handicapped by the comparatively small amount of compensation the Reich was in a position to pay for expropriations and by the capital shortage of the shipowners, which was accentuated by the depreciation of the money paid them by the Reich. This weekly quotes a German mercantile authority, Wirtschaft und Statistik, as saying that “a number of ships were bought back front Entente, and whereas in the middle of 1920 the German merchant service comprised 672,671 gross registered tonnage of shipping, the figure had risen to 717,450 gross registered tonnage by the middle of 1921, to 1,887,408 gross registered tonnage by the middle of 1922 and to 2,590,073 gross registered tonnage by the middle of 1923 (according to the figures of Lloyd’s Register). By way of comparisons with pre-war days, the figure at the beginning of 1914 was 5,238,937 gross registered tonnage."
Shipping Board. Inquiry to be Continued Abroad
Baltimore Sun, 8 June, 1924.—Washington, June 7.—A first-hand investigation of American shipping interests in European ports, including alleged foreign discriminatory practices and functions of this Government’s marine officials, will be made by the House committee investigating the Shipping Board during a six weeks’ tour of Europe. The committee announced tonight it would sail from New York July 4 on the George Washington first going to London.
The committee will make the trip at the suggestion of the Shipping Board and will be accompanied by Vice-chairman Plummer and several other officials of the board and fleet corporation.
Some of the questions to be gone into will be the practicability of establishing domestic-owned fueling stations, improvement of docking facilities direct solicitation of freight for importation instead of through foreign agents employed by managing operators of board tonnage and the letting of stevedoring and supply contracts by competitive bidding instead of by private contract.
375 U. S. Vessels to be Modernized
Philadelphia Public Ledger, 15 June, 1924.—Twelve ships of 8,800 and 9,400 deadweight tons, out of a fleet of 375 idle vessels, all available for installation of Diesel type electric-drive engines, have been selected by the Shipping Board for reconditioning under recent congressional authorization which permits modernization of government merchant ships from the construction loan fund of the Merchant Marine Act.
Announcement of the move, which will be the first step in the board's program of placing its idle tonnage in operation, once it is equipped to compete with foreign motor ships, was made today by T. V O’Connor chairman. An advisory committee headed by Admiral Benson will meet soon to consider the selection of the engines with which the twelve test vessels will be equipped. Present indications are that the twelve will be reconditioned with single Diesel engines of about 2,600 shaft horsepower to obtain an average service speed of 11 knots an hour fully loaded.
As soon as completed, Mr. O’Connor said, the ships will be placed in “essential long-distance routes,” where they are expected to develop into remunerative ventures.
The fund, derived from the sale of ships and surplus material and originally intended to be loaned to private citizens for the construction of vessels in American shipyards, totals $67,000,000. The amendment allots $25,000,000 for reconditioning government ships.
According to Mr. O’Connor, 375 vessels are suitable for rejuvenation of their machinery with modern Diesel engines. The saving in fuel and reduction of wages, due to the smaller crews necessary to handle the vessels, will absorb the cost of conversion in six or seven years, he said. Such a move also would make the American Fleet more salable, as the bulk of the American merchant ships are hardly more than five years old.
Lloyd’s latest statistics show that about fifty per cent of Great Britain’s cargo fleet is composed of steamers ten years old, which means the United States holds a preponderance of 3,000,000 tons of newer vessels.
Influence of Type of Propelling Machinery on the Punning Costs of Ships
By W. G. A. Perring, The Shipbuilder, May, 1924.— (North-East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders; January, 1924.)—The present paper attempts to set out the various items that go to make up the running costs of a ship and to ascertain how these are affected by the type of propelling machinery. The main inquiry has been based on the ship specified by the North-East Coast Institution for the “Review of Different Types of Marine Internal-combustion Engines,” January, 1923. The principal dimensions of the vessel specified were as follows:
Length overall | 371 feet | 0 inches |
Length between perpendiculars | 360 feet | 0 inches |
Breadth, extreme (including plating) | 51 feet | 0 inches |
Breadth, moulded | 50 feet | 9 inches |
Depth, moulded | 28 feet | 0 inches |
Draught of water (summer) | 23 feet | 0 inches |
Displacement to 23 feet | 9,220 tons | |
Speed | 10.75 knots |
In making a comparison the running expenses for twelve months (330 service days) have been estimated and the freight rates necessary for a ten per cent profit on the initial cost have been calculated.
The cargo deadweight has been estimated adopting the weights and fuel consumption per B.H.P. for different types of machinery as set out in Table I; the weight of fuel, stores, etc., carried being taken as that necessary for a single trip and the discharge period in port, together with a ten per cent extra allowance for emergency.
Initial costs are very hard to fix definitely. The figures given in Table II are representative of ships built and engined by established firms.
The running costs of a ship in service may be broadly subdivided into the following groups:
- Wages and sustenance of officers and crew.
- Power expenses involving: fuel consumption, lubricating oil, feed water.
- Stevedoring charges. Loading and discharging.
- Repairs, maintenance, overhaul, painting, depreciation and insurance.
- Brokerage and management.
- Pilot, towing, tonnage, port charges, etc. Dockage.
Of these items the most important ones are groups (b) and (c). Group (b) is settled by the type of engine and assuming the personal element the same for every type is fixed as soon as the type of machinery is fixed. The stevedoring charges, however, depend very much on the appliances on board for handling the cargo and also on the facilities ashore. It is very seldom realized that rapid loading and discharging greatly increase the earning power of a ship, or that stevedoring charges (for a 2,000-mile voyage) are usually twenty per cent of the total running cost and very often exceed the fuel bill.
Table I | |||||||||
Type of Machinery | Reciprocating Engine. Scotch Boilers. | Reciprocating Engine.Water-tube Boilers. | Geared Turbine. Scotch Boilers. | Geared Turbine.Wrater-tube Boilers. | Turbo-electric.Water-tube Boilers. | Marine Diesel, 4-Stroke. | Marine Diesel, 2-Stroke. | Diesel-electric. | |
Weight of Engine, tons | 490 | 415 | 440 | 370 | 410 | 500 | 430 | 480 | |
B. H. P. of Engines | 1,820 | 1,820 | 1,810 | 1,810 | 1,810 | 1,860 | 1,830 | 1,810 | |
R. P. M | 80 | 80 | 75 | 75 | 75 | 100 | 85 | 75 | |
Deadweight of Ship | 6,510 | 6,585 | 6,560 | 6,630 | 6,590 | 6,500 | 6,570 | 6,520 | |
Oil | Fuel Consumption lb/B.H.P. hour | 1.15 | 1.15 | .95 | .95 | 1.02 | .44 | .42 | .48 |
Fuel Consumption/Day at 10.75 knots | 22.4 | 22.4 | 18.4 | 18.4 | 19 8 | 8 75 | 8.22 | 9.30 | |
Fuel Consumption/Day in port | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 1 | |
Coal | Fuel Consumption lb/B.H.P. hour | 1.60 | 1.60 | 1.28 | 1.28 | — | — | — | — |
Fuel Consumption/Day at 10.75 knots | 31.2 | 31.2 | 24.8 | 24.8 | — | — | — | — | |
Fuel Consumption/Day in port | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 | — | — | — | — | |
Lubricating Oil/Day in gallons at 10¾ knots | 8.0 | 8.0 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 12 | 15 | 18 | |
Make up Feed Water/Day at 10¾ knots, tons | 8.5 | 8.5 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 | — | — | — |
Table II | ||||||||||||
Type of Machinery | Coal-Burning | Oil-Burning | ||||||||||
Reciprocating Engine. Scotch Boilers. | Reciprocating Engine. Water-tube Boilers. | Geared Turbine. Scotch Boilers. | Geared Turbine. Water-tube Boilers. | Reciprocating Engine. Scotch Boilers. | Reciprocating Engine. Water-tube Boilers. | Geared Turbine. Scotch Boilers. | Geared Turbine. Water-tube Boilers. | Turbo-electric.Water-tube Boilers. | Marine Diesel, 4-Stroke | Marine Diesel, 2-Stroke | Diesel Electric | |
| £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ |
Initial Cost | 62,000 | 61,000 | 63,000 | 62,000 | 62,000 | 61,000 | 63,000 | 62,000 | 84,000 | 81,500 | 82,500 | 75,000 |
Wages of Crew per annum | 6,020 | 6,020 | 6,020 | 6,020 | 5,560 | 5,560 | 5,560 | 5,560 | 5,560 | 5,560 | 5,560 | 5,560 |
Sustenance of Crew per annum | 1,840 | 1,840 | 1,840 | 1,840 | 1,660 | 1,660 | 1,660 | 1,660 | 1,660 | 1,660 | 1,660 | 1,660 |
Repairs, Insurance, Depreciation | 9,300 | 9,150 | 9,450 | 9,300 | 9,300 | 9,150 | 9,450 | 9,300 | 13,400 | 14,250 | 14,430 | 13,110 |
Profit at 10% Initial Cost | 6,200 | 6,100 | 6,300 | 6,200 | 6,200 | 6,100 | 6,300 | 6,200 | 8,400 | 8,150 | 8,250 | 7,500 |
For comparison it has been assumed that the rate of loading and discharging is the same in each case considered and that 1,200 tons are handled per day. To illustrate the great effect of time in port upon the earning power, however, a comparison has been made in the case of the two-stroke Diesel-engined ship at three rates of discharge.
Table II shows the constant yearly expenses for each type of ship.
ENGINEERING
Valuable Speed 3-Phase Motors
Engineering, 23 May, 1924.—Before full advantage could be taken of the economic possibilities of the polyphase alternating-current system, as compared with the direct-current system, for generation, transmission and distribution of electrical energy, it was necessary that motors should be available to meet the varied motive power requirements of modern industry. In many instances, where a constant or practically constant speed drive is required, the simple, robust and efficient induction motor meets the case admirably, while in particular instances, where one or two definite speeds are necessary, induction motors with double windings giving different numbers of poles are sometimes provided. Other methods are to arrange the windings for connection in different groups, so that different numbers of poles are obtained, or to use two or more induction motors in cascade connection.
In order to obtain a speed which can be varied over a wide range, alternating-current commutator motors with adjustable tappings or movable brushes have been used. Motors provided with adjustable tappings, however, give only a limited number of speeds, and those with movable brushes usually have a speed-torque characteristic similar to that of the direct-current series motor, i.e., the speed decreases as the torque increases. For many applications, such motors are unsuitable, and often it has been necessary to convert an alternating-current supply to direct current so that direct current, shunt or compound wound motors, with adjustable speed characteristics could be used.
To avoid this conversion, and at the same time to obtain a motor the speed of which is infinitely variable at will from zero to a maximum under any load conditions, the British Thomson-Houston Co. Limited, of Rugby, have developed and patented a machine, the speed of which also remains practically constant under changing load. The first was set to work in 1916, and together with many others since built has proved its value and reliability in actual operation. Today, motors of this type, aggregating approximately 4,500 h.p., are operating satisfactorily. The speed of this type of motor is under perfect control throughout the normal speed range, usually 3-1, the commutator and brushes acting as a controller with an infinite number of steps. It is also a simple matter to obtain very low speeds for "inching” purposes. These features have made the motor very successful in such applications as paper-making, reeling, cutting, calendering and drying, also in paper and calico printing, as well as in the production of textile materials. The motor is also very suitable for machine tool drives, as in addition to the easy and efficient speed control over the whole speed range, there is a very small increase in speed when the load is taken off. Another application for which the motor has been successful is that of driving hydraulic pumping equipments, where the rise and fall of the accumulator lowers and raises automatically the speed of the motor, thus maintaining maximum storage capacity without frequent and objectionable starting and stopping. Other applications for which the motor which is known by the makers as their type C.H., is well adapted include exhausters, chain-grate stokers, rubber manufacturing machinery, and, in fact, any duty where efficient speed variation is required.
A motor of this class is shown by the British Thomson-Houston Company on their stand in the Palace of Engineering, at the British Empire Exhibition. The motor, which is illustrated in Fig. 1, below, is a 400-440-volt, 3-phase, 50-cycle machine which has a speed range varying from 1,350 r.p.m. to 350 r.p.m. The output between these speeds varies from 25 h.p. to 8 h.p. In order to obtain a constant torque at any speed between these limits, the motor at the Exhibition is direct-coupled to a differential compound-wound generator with separately excited shunt so as to simulate the conditions of constant resisting torque usually met with in commercial applications. The speed of the three-phase motor is varied by alternating the position of the brushes, the principle of the method being described below. As will be gathered from Fig. 1, the brushes are actually shifted by a small motor mounted on top of the frame of the main motor. Control is effected from a panel which contains triple pole contactors for the primary (rotor) and secondary (stator) circuits. There are also two double-pole reversing contactors for the brush-shifting motor and a push button control to give "start,” “stop,” “creep,” “raise speed,” and “lower speed.” The speed at any moment is indicated on a British Thomson-Houston electric tachometer.
The constructional features of motors of this class are simple and robust, being somewhat similar to those of the familiar induction motor. On the rotor are two windings, the primary and the regulating, wound in the same slots. The supply leads are connected to slip rings, and thence the current goes to the primary winding, which is wound in the bottom of the slots. The regulating winding is of the closed drum type, and is connected to the commutator bars. On the stator is the secondary winding, which is arranged in a number of phases, both ends of each phase being brought out and connected to the commutator brush gear, which consists of two separate rings capable of being moved in opposite directions by rack and pinion mechanism. The starting ends of all the secondary phases are connected to the corresponding brush arms on one ring, while all the finishing ends are connected to similar brush arms on the Other ring. Fig. 6 represents the windings diagrammatically and shows how they are connected, while Fig. 7 is a Vector diagram for the motor running below synchronism.
As is well known, the slip of an induction motor depends on the torque developed, therefore the secondary E.M.F., which is zero at synchronous speed and maximum at standstill, must be of such magnitude as is required to produce the necessary current in the secondary circuit. If another E.M.F. in phase with this secondary E.M.F. were injected into this circuit, the slip would have to increase in order that the latter should be capable not only of producing the necessary current, but also of overcoming this injected E.M.F. In the Type C.H. motor this injected E.M.F. is obtained from the commutator and can be varied in value from a maximum in one direction to a maximum in the opposite direction, thus giving the minimum and maximum running speeds of the motor. When the brushes connected to the ends of each phase are opposite one another axially, the starting windings are short-circuited on the segments of the commutator, and the motor runs near its synchronous speed, like an ordinary induction motor. The injected E. M. F. is obtained by moving the brush gear by means of the mechanism already described, and it is evident that the direction of this E.M.F. will be determined by the direction of the movement, and its magnitude by the extent of the movement. Thus the speed above or below synchronism at which the motor operates may be adjusted as required.
The position on the commutator at which the brushes are coincident has a great effect on the characteristics of the machine. As the phase of the E.M.F. injected from the regulating into the secondary circuit is determined by this brush position, and the phase of the E.M.F. induced in the secondary winding is determined by the arrangement of the winding in the stator slots the angle between the two E.M.F. components in this closed circuit can be altered at will simply by displacing the brush axis. By judicious choice of the brush position, high power factor, overload capacity and starting torque can be maintained at all speeds. This choice is carefully made and the position fixed while the machines are being built. The brush axis can be altered by suitable gearing at the same time as the brushes are being separated, so that power factor improvement can be obtained at all speeds of the motor. In every instance the operator only has to turn the handwheel, or control the brush shifting motor, in those installations where one is provided, in order to obtain the desired speed, which will be given under the most efficient and satisfactory conditions. Curves showing the relationship of power factor to torque at various speeds of a C.H. type motor rated at 80 h.p. to 27 h.p., 720 r.p.m. to 240 r.p.m., 440 volts, 50 cycles, are reproduced in Fig. 8, no attempt having been made in this case to improve the power factor at synchronous speed (500 r.p.m.). It will be observed that the power factor is practically unity at top speed over a considerable range of load. Moreover, it remains substantially at this figure over a large part of the range between top speed and synchronous speed.
The efficiency of the motor is high over the whole speed range, as may be noted from the curves in Fig. 9, while Fig. 10, below, enables an interesting comparison to be made of the losses involved at constant torque in obtaining the speed range by this B.T.H. motor and by the ordinary induction motor controlled by rotor resistance. The induction motor takes the same input at any speed, while the C.H. type motor takes only an amount which is approximately proportional to the speed, and thereby effects a large saving in power. These facts are graphically represented in Fig. 10. Further, the speed-torque characteristics of the induction motor with rotor resistances are very steep, as the light running speed, whatever be the value of the resistance connected in the secondary circuit, is always practically its synchronous speed. Thus, for variations in load, corresponding variations in speed result.
From the speed-torque characteristics of the motor, of which an example is given in Fig. II, it can be seen that any light running speed between zero and the limit for which the machine is designed can be obtained, and also that only slight change in speed results from a change of load (between light load and full load) with a fixed brush position. As previously stated, the standard speed range is usually 3-1, but lower speeds can be made available if desired. Very low speeds for “inching” purposes can be obtained by inserting resistance in the secondary circuit. A most important feature of this type of motor with a 3-1 speed range lies in the fact that it can be started up without the use of starting resistances.
From the foregoing description it will be noted that, if the brushes are set for minimum speed, the machine may be thrown straight on the line, as there will be present a regulating E.M.F., which will reduce the starting current. Actually, it is possible for a motor to exert a torque of one and a half times the full load torque, when switched straight on the supply mains, and yet take only a current of approximately full load value. Greater starting torque than this can be provided if desired. The commutation of this type of motor is good. The power dealt with by the commutator is only a fraction of the total developed by the motor (being in every case the “slip power”), so that the commutator can be designed very liberally, both E.M.F.s and currents being kept low. Thus the likelihood of insulation and commutation troubles is reduced to a minimum, and it is almost impossible to produce a flash-over under any working conditions.
Power and Weight of Diesel Engines
By Dr. Carl Commentz, The Nautical Gazette, 10 May, 1924.—In considering the adoption of the Diesel-engined vessel, the main question that the shipowner has to face is in what branches of ocean transportation the motor ship is most likely to supersede the steamer but before a conclusion can be reached on the matter it is necessary to study the fundamental conditions underlying those operating costs which are dependent upon the technical development of the Diesel engine. Such a study must be limited to the freight traffic and to broad average values, for individual details from special cases are not very reliable as a guide to shipowners. The present study, therefore, is concerned with such average values and this will explain any discrepancy between the findings arrived at and certain individual details which apply only to special cases.
In the case of the power necessary for propelling a ship it should be noted that in steamers fitted with reciprocating engines it is the rule to calculate the indicated power in the cylinder, which is from 10 to 25 per cent greater than the brake horsepower at the propeller shaft. In turbines and Diesel engines it is the practice to measure the brake horsepower but where this practice is not followed it is necessary to deduct from the indicated performance of Diesel engines about 24 to 30 per cent in order to arrive at an equal basis of comparison. But even the brake horsepower can only serve as an equal basis of comparison when the number of revolutions of the engine correspond. If the number of revolutions of the Diesel engine is greater than normal the efficiency of the propeller is reduced and the performance of the engines must be increased accordingly. Figures on the relation between increased number of revolutions and propeller efficiency have been prepared and the average result shows that an increase of 25 per cent in the propeller revolutions causes a loss in efficiency of 4.1 per cent. For increases in the number of propeller revolutions of 50, 75 and 100 per cent, the corresponding efficiency losses are 7.9, 11.4 and 14.6 per cent, respectively.
Practical experience has shown that these losses are too heavy and that it is more economical to use slow-running rather than high-speed engines. Therefore, the general development of Diesel engine construction is along the lines of the number of revolutions which correspond more nearly with that of the steam engine.
When estimating the power of a Diesel engine, however, another factor must be taken into consideration; that is, that the performance of the Diesel engine is much more consistent than that of the steam engine. One reason for this is the cleaning of fires under the boilers which results in a loss of steam pressure about six times a day. Another reason is the difference in the quality of the coal used. Investigations made recently on a steamer during about twenty voyages showed that the average performance was 13 per cent smaller than the nominal maximum power. Also, in bad weather the power of the steam plant tends to decrease. These are drawbacks which are not encountered with the Diesel engine, the regularity of the performance of which is equal to about 10 per cent superiority in power over the steam engine. In order, however, that undue favor may not be shown the motor ship, a superiority of only 5 per cent is calculated in the following investigation of weight conditions.
The weight of Diesel engine plants can only be compared with that of steam plants on an equal basis; that is, by comparing engines with a similar number of revolutions and taking into consideration the total weight for the whole of the engineering plant, including the main engine, shafting, propeller, pipings, auxiliaries, engine room equipment, reserve parts, the water in the boiler and the water used for cooling purposes. Figures that embrace only the weight of the main engine are not of much use in making comparisons and are very misleading.
In the case of reciprocating engines and slow-speed Diesel engines the weight per horsepower is but slowly decreasing with the increasing engine power. With steam engines there is not much difference between the weight of engines of similar size but with Diesel engines the weight varies greatly with the different types.
The weight of slow-running Diesel engines is comparatively heavy considering the fact that there is no boiler plant included but it is probable that these weights will soon be reduced by increasing the power by the supercharging of combustion air by means of double action and solid injection. The following table shows the weight comparison of six ordinary freighters of varying sizes:
| Weight of Engines | D.W. Capacity | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Displacement (tons) |
| Average Sea Speed (knots) | I.H.P. of Steamer | Mechanical Efficiency | B.H.P. of Steamer | B.H.P. of Motor ship | Steamer (tons) | Motor ship (tons) | Steamer (tons) | Motor ship (tons) |
1,800 | … | 9 | 460 | 0.765 | 352 | 334 | 125 | 91 | 1,135 | 1,169 |
3,000 | … | 9½ | 800 | 0.785 | 625 | 591 | 208 | 157 | 1,927 | 1,978 |
5,000 | … | 9¾ | 1,260 | 0.805 | 1,010 | 960 | 322 | 238 | 3,304 | 3,388 |
8,000 | … | 10¼ | 1,880 | 0.830 | 1,560 | 1,482 | 467 | 346 | 5,348 | 5,505 |
13,000 | … | 11 | 3,000 | 0.870 | 2,610 | 2,480 | 720 | 546 | 8,890 | 9,064 |
20,000 | … | 12 | 4,600 | 0.910 | 4,180 | 3,935 | 1,073 | 825 | 13,707 | 13,955 |
This table shows that the advantage in weight of the motor ship is in engines with the smaller nominal horsepower. The deadweight capacity of small motor ships is about 3 per cent superior to that of steamers, while with the larger vessels the advantage amounts to only about 1.8 per cent.
One of the causes of the hesitancy of shipowners to adopt motor ships is the higher first cost. As a general rule, it can be calculated that Diesel plants are from 25 to 28 per cent more costly than steam engines if the auxiliaries are driven by steam and from 34 to 37 per cent more expensive if the auxiliaries are electrically driven. If, however, the entire cost of the vessels are estimated, small motor ships are from 9½ to 12½ per cent more expensive than steamers of the same displacement and dimensions, and the larger vessels are from 8½ to 11½ per cent higher in cost. If, however, the deadweight capacity is made the basis of comparison the motor ship, both large and small, costs only from 6½ to 9½ per cent more than the steam vessel. These comparisons apply to engines of a normal number of revolutions and if high-speed Diesel engines and gearings are considered the price relation is more favorable to the motor ship.
Taking into consideration the weight of fuel and water for operation and for reserve, the following table shows the cargo capacity of the steam and motor ships:
Displacement (tons) | Net Cargo Capacity | Superiority of Motorship | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Steamer (tons) | Motorship (tons) | ||||
(tons) | (P.C.) | ||||
1,800 | 1,059 | 1,157 | 98 | 9.3 | |
3,000 | 1,745 | 1,950 | 205 | 11.8 | |
5,000 | 2,911 | 3,319 | 408 | 14.0 | |
8,000 | 4,581 | 5,456 | 775 | 16.9 | |
13,000 | 7,279 | 8,731 | 1,452 | 19.9 | |
20,000 | 11,671 | 13,326 | 2,655 | 24.8 |
From this table it will be seen that the higher first cost of motor ships is more than outweighed by the gain in the net cargo capacity.
Warship Design
By Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir F. C. Doveton Sturdee, Bt., G.C.B., K.C.M.G., C.V.O., (Institution of Naval Architects; April, 1924.) The Shipbuilder, May, 1924.—The well-recognized strength of the British Navy from 1815 until 1914 insured for this country naval peace for a century. This superiority we have, with our eyes open, abandoned so far as battleships and aircraft carriers are concerned; therefore, strategically, we have placed ourselves at a disadvantage with any great Power that has an equal force of battleships, particularly if that Power is a continental nation and is self-contained, while we, with our communications to our overseas dominions, have some 80,000 miles of ocean routes to defend.
The late war was mostly confined to the North Sea. Any future trouble is likely to be on the ocean and would be a repetition of our ocean conflicts of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, for which sea-keeping ships with good radius of action were proved to be essential.
Concerning the relative value of offensive weapons, all indications are that the gun will maintain its pre-eminence but torpedoes, bombs and mines will still be a serious menace to the vessel carrying the premier weapon.
The vulnerability of our battle cruisers to destruction from concentrated gunfire and of our pre-dreadnaught battleships to torpedo explosion was shown in the late war. The first appeared to indicate that there was a lack of sufficient appreciation of the effect of plunging fire.
With aircraft spotting, the gun range will be further increased, rendering protection from plunging fire still more imperative. This will also help to protect the vitals of a ship from air attack; thus horizontal armor will become more a feature protection than vertical armor.
The necessity for all surface ships being protected from gun, torpedo and air attack so far as their displacement will allow, is imperative.
In the late war we were always able to reckon on having a battle fleet superiority but this cannot be reckoned on in the future; we must therefore, anticipate the possibility of having to fight against odds, like Nelson in his final grand battle. In the design of new ships this possibility must be kept in view.
The war showed the need of better protection from torpedoes; this comes next in importance to protection from gunfire. Experience in the war showed that bulges were very effective; they should be included in the design of all battleships and embodied so far as practicable in other classes. The increased safety obtained by having complete water-tight bulkheads, unpierced by doors, was fully demonstrated.
With the amount of thought now being given to weapons of destruction, mines of a more dangerous and elusive character will be devised; therefore more efficient means will be required to clear them away or render them innocuous before a ship has to pass over them. It does not seem possible to design a ship that will be immune from being seriously damaged by the explosion of a mine in contact with its bottom.
Clause V of the Washington Treaty for preventing the use of noxious gases states that the prohibition of poisonous gases shall be universally accepted by all civilized Powers but this clause still awaits the signature of many Powers. In view of our recent experience on the Western Front, can means be adopted in the design to prevent heavy gases of this nature finding their way into the lower compartments of a ship?
The designs of the only two battleships that we are permitted to construct until the year 1931 having been settled and their construction commenced, no remarks at this stage seem to be called for; a great deal may happen in the intervening seven years!
In accordance with the Washington Agreement, there will be no class of ship except the aircraft carrier between the 35,000-ton battleship with its 16-inch guns and the 10,000-ton cruiser with its 8-inch guns.
No limit of number has been assigned for the cruisers. They may become the most important class of ship; therefore too much attention cannot be given to their design.
With the scrapping of all the battle cruisers except the Tiger, and all the armored and protected cruisers, the Empire has been left with a great deficiency of suitable cruisers of the power and size allowed by the treaty.
The late war only emphasized our previous war experience—the great need of cruisers and the varied services that they were called on to fulfill.
It cannot be too often repeated that our internal communications are across the ocean, while those of all other nations except Japan—another island Power—are across their own land. Ample cruiser power is essential for our very existence as an Empire.
The requirements for a British cruiser may be briefly summarized as follows:
1. Sea-keeping is probably the most important, also to carry the guns at such a height and in such a manner that they can be used effectively in most weathers.
2. Steadiness of platform becomes of increasing importance with the increase of gun range.
3. A good radius of action is essential.
4. A higher maximum speed than that of possible enemy battleships.
5. Good offensive power.
6. Vertical armor must be sacrified in order to obtain as much horizontal armor as possible over the vital parts of gun positions.
7. Submerged torpedo tubes probably not being possible on such a limited tonnage, armored above-water tubes may be fitted in cruisers designed to accompany a fleet, but for other cruisers this weight might be better utilized.
8. Each cruiser should carry and be able to launch two aeroplanes.
9. Anti-air defense guns, particularly for cruisers intended to accompany battle fleets.
For aircraft carriers the Washington Treaty specially lays down a limit to the total tonnage of each ship, also a limit to their size, besides not permitting them to be armed with guns of over 8-inch caliber.
Their vulnerability to attack from gunfire, torpedoes and the air is their most serious disadvantage and protection from any of these sources would, of necessity, reduce their usefulness for their avowed purpose.
Our total allowance for this class is 135,000 tons, of which we possess six ships aggregating 77,440 tons.
For the moment probably no new designs will be constructed. This will allow experience to be obtained as to the most suitable design for the purpose desired.
Steadiness of platform and a good clear deck for flying off and landing must be the great desiderata.
The best manner in which these vessels can be used in war has still to be found and appears to depend largely on the operation in hand. Owing to their vulnerability, they will not be able to cruise alone.
Battle fleets will no doubt have one or more aircraft carriers with them; therefore the latter will require to have a speed equal to that of the fleet.
Incidentally it may be mentioned that the limited radius of action of aeroplanes reduces their value for ocean warfare, thus rendering them unable to replace the surface cruiser for the protection of our extensive trade routes.
Destroyers will be largely required for ocean work; therefore ocean-keeping qualities will be essential. This will mean some increase in size, more attention being paid to the position and construction of the bridge. The number of times, even in North Sea waters, that either the fleet had to ease speed or the destroyers had to be detached showed a need for better sea-going qualities.
The construction of submarines depends largely on what future policy the Empire is going to follow.
At Washington the representatives of our government recommended the abolition of submarines and requested the other Powers to agree. This proposal met with no response from the other representatives.
The question naturally arises, Can any nation rely on such rules being kept by all its possible opponents? No limit has been placed on the size or number of submarines that any State may construct.
Should we lead in the increase of size and power, or follow other nations?
We have a very clear indication of the effect of our forcing the pace before 1914.
The Germans evidently felt the threat of our submarines to be such a menace that they were unwillingly forced to reply. The effect of our precipitate action was shown in the war.
The war showed the value of submarines for surprise and attack but they have small value for the defense of surface vessels, which for us with our very large mercantile marine is a necessity.
Is it not our true policy to follow but not to lead in this type of ship but in the meantime not to neglect any opportunity to ensure that our war anchorages and ships are safe from their menace?
If, however, other nations are determined to construct larger and more formidable submarines, we must reply to this threat to our internal communications by building similar vessels.
This will mean submarine cruisers—a type of vessel that requires deep water to operate in, and therefore suitable for ocean warfare
To counteract the menace of the submarine cruisers of the enemy on the outbreak of war, our submarine cruisers should be distributed as necessary on foreign stations. That would mean that some, if not all, should be designed so as to be habitable in tropical waters.
The introduction of ocean submarines will necessitate some special form of submarine hunter—cruisers of superior gunfire to that of the submarine.
Submarines do possess one undoubted advantage: They are an evident threat to transports attempting to land troops for the invasion of a hostile country.
Owing to our geographical position our ships will have to keep the sea for longer periods than those of a naval continental Power. That Power, if it wishes to attack our trade routes, need only proceed to sea for short spurts, returning to harbor to prepare for another swift raid. It is obvious that ships protecting a trade route have not this freedom and therefore our long-established principle of arranging for a large radius of action will still hold good.
This means that the maximum tonnage of our ships, complete with fuel, as allowed by the agreement, will exceed that of other nations’ ships. This will put us to the disadvantage of having to provide extra horsepower and consequently increase weight of machinery in order to obtain equal speed. This disadvantage must be faced.
To ensure the mobility of our ships there must be ample docking facilities suitably placed on our main trade routes. The well-known loss of speed and excess of fuel expenditure, due to a foul bottom through lack of frequent cleaning, are other reasons for these docking facilities.
With the introduction of oil instead of coal, supplying ships at sea with fuel will be a future possibility; oilers suitable for this purpose should be provided.
The late war showed that, so long as ships are under way, air attack is not serious and there seems no reason to modify this experience However, defense from the air is essential for ships assembled at a base within air-striking distance of an enemy.
With our reduced Navy, in the unfortunate event of the outbreak of hostilities a rapid increase of ships of all classes will be the first necessity. This should be anticipated and designs kept up to date for immediate execution.
First American Installation of Contrapropeller
The Nautical Gazette, 17 May, 1924.—A contrapropeller has been attached to the American steamer Norfolk, of the Coastwise Transportation Company, to improve her steering and effect fuel economies. This is probably the first installation of this device in an American shipyard. The work was done at the Robins plant of the Todd Shipyards Corporation, and the performance of the Norfolk with her new equipment will be watched with interest by marine engineers
As will be seen from the photograph on the next page the contrapropeller is a device consisting of six blades fitted behind the main propeller. The two vertical arms are of cast steel and are electrically welded to the stern frame. The two center pieces, which include the side blades are made of cast iron and are secured to the vertical arms by bolts and flames. The side blades being of cast iron prevent the vessel from being crippled by striking a submerged obstacle. In such an event these blades would break off and not bend so as to foul the main wheel.
Aside from improving the handling of a vessel, the contrapropeller greatly reduces the vibration caused by the main wheel. The revolving propeller of a vessel under way imparts two motions to the water, the axial acceleration which is transmitted to the mass of water in a backward direction by the propeller, on which, in turn, a reaction is obtained, i. e., effective thrust of the propeller. The tangential velocity of the water is due to the fact that the energy required for moving the ship is transferred to the water by the revolving propeller. The road traversed by the water particles has therefore the shape of a screw. The turning impulse contained in the jet behind the propeller is not utilized any further for providing movement to the ship, the energy corresponding to it is therefore wasted.
The radial blades of the contrapropeller intercept this turning motion and divert the water into axial acceleration while its absolute speed remains constant. This increased backward thrust is pure gain and serves to increase the speed of the vessel or inversely if normal speed is maintained the fuel consumption is decreased.
Seven-League Camera
Time, 2 June, 1924.—In a Manhattan skyscraper on lower Broadway, an engineer pulled a switch. Simultaneously two cylinders began to turn, one in New York, and one in the Discount Building, Cleveland. Two hundred seventy-six seconds later a photographic film of President and Mrs. Coolidge, the original of which was 600 miles away, was ready for development in Manhattan. This was the first public demonstration by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company of the most successful method of electrically transmitting photographs yet developed.
It is by no means the first time the feat has been done, however. The best-known previous method is probably that of Edouard Belin (Time, April 7, 1923), who, on November 14, 1920, transmitted photographs from St. Louis to New York. The New York World owns the American rights of the Belin system which it has improved in private research but has not yet used commercially. The Belin principle is quite different from the American Telephone and Telegraph process. The photograph becomes a relief map, the elevations and depressions causing the variations in the electrical current, instead of a beam of light.
The Radio Corporation of America owns the Alexanderson method (Time, November 12), very similar to the Telephone method, by which photographs have been transmitted from New York to Poland and back again. C. Francis Jenkins, a Washington inventor (Time, June 25), has also transmitted photographs at a distance by radio, instead of by telephone wires, and has even sent simple motion pictures by radio within a building. The American Telephone and Telegraph engineers say, however, that the possibility of transmitting action pictures of ball games, riots, prize-fights, parades, etc., directly is almost negligible.
Fifteen photographs in all were transmitted from Cleveland to New York on the first day of the test—all within two hours. The actual time of transmission for a 5×7 picture was only four and one half minutes. There were several portraits, including a group of three men in the Cleveland office. This picture was taken by flashlight (owing to a cloudy day) at 3:59 p. m. The film was developed, a positive print made, and it was “put on the wire.” In forty-four minutes from the time the flash was snapped, a fully developed negative of it was available in New York. There were also several pictures of street scenes, buildings and bridges in Cleveland, which were reproduced with fair distinctness. The New York newspapers, contrary to their usual custom, did not retouch the prints, so that the cuts were somewhat inferior to ordinary newspaper half-tones.
The process, in brief, is as follows: The photographic film (it can be used wet, direct from the developing bath) is held taut and curved in the form of a cylinder, like an old-fashioned phonograph record. Light from an ordinary automobile lamp is passed through a lens and concentrated in a small spot at one corner of the film. At the receiving station a blank film is formed into a similar cylinder. By a device known as a synchronizer, the cylinders at both ends are started simultaneously and turned at the same rate of speed. The light beam travels in a continuous line over the picture, until it reaches the opposite side. In the center of the cylinder is a “photo-electric cell,” consisting of a rod of potassium in a vacuum tube. It is so sensitive to light that any ray falling on it causes the electrons to fly from its surface, generating an electric current. As the cylinder revolves, the point of light passes through the transparent film and falls upon the potassium. In the dark parts of the picture less light gets through and in the light parts, more. The current initiated by the photo-electric cell varies in strength exactly as the intensity of the light that reaches it. The fluctuations of the current are shunted onto the telephone wire and added to the uniform direct current. This is billions of times as powerful as the original current but it carries the variations in the same proportions. The current is then carried over the long-distance telephone wires. At certain relay stations (Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in this case), the current is “stepped up” by vacuum tubes to make up for any loss in transmission.
At the New York end the receiving apparatus consists of an electric lamp behind a thin metal wall, placed in a strong magnetic field. The wall forms one side of a narrow slot shrough which the light passes. The fluctuations in the current passing through the magnetic field move the metal wall back and forth according to their intensity, making the slot wider or narrower. The light beam, passing through the slot, falls on the revolving cylinder, printing broader or narrower lines of light on the film. With each revolution the cylinder is jerked one sixty-fifth of an inch to the right, and the snot traces another line exactly parallel. This interval was found the best for newspaper pictures but the machine can be set for any degree of fineness or coarseness, according to the type of engraving to be reproduced.
The present process is not a new invention in itself but a combination of a series of inventions, refined and perfected by the Telephone Company’s engineers. No one man is especially responsible and the company prefers not to apportion credit but to keep it anonymous. The experimental work was started only about a year ago, with the definite aim of producing a commercially feasible process of picture transmission.
The sending apparatus was installed at Cleveland in order to transmit pictures of the Republican National Convention this month.
AERONAUTICS
Admiral Moffett Claims All Sea Flying for Navy
Aviation, 26 May, 1924.—The testimony of Rear Admiral W. A. Moffett, chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, before the joint Military and Naval Affairs Committee of the House on the duplication of functions of the Army and Navy Air Services was largely in the form of a prepared statement. It states very clearly and forcefully the Navy’s air policy. Owing to the importance of some of the statements made, it is desired to print it very fully and to do so it is printed, owing to lack of space, almost in its complete form in smaller type than would be required were it abbreviated:
“A great deal of testimony has been given by officers of the Army upon the mission of the Navy in case of war, with particular reference to the employment of naval aircraft. This testimony may tend to mislead the committee as to the mission of the Navy in the conduct of naval warfare and may work to the embarrassment of the Navy in the future operations on the sea and in appropriations that may be made in the future by Congress.
“Aviation in the two services is co-ordinated first by the Aeronautical Board, whose recommendations are acted on by the Joint Board, subject to the final approval of the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy. The Joint Board acts as a co-ordinator of all fighting arms of both services. This board is composed of the highest ranking and most experienced officers of the two services—General Pershing is present chairman of the Joint Board.
“The record of the hearings would make it appear that the missions and duties defined in the pamphlet ‘Joint Army and Navy Action in Coast Defense’ which were drawn up by the Joint Army and Navy Board and approved by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy were promulgated before the passage of the law affecting the two services. This is not in accordance with the facts. That pamphlet was prepared and the forwarding letter was dated June 5, 1920. This pamphlet was drawn up for the purpose of avoiding duplication of effort and securing co-operation and co-ordination of the various forces involved and the Bureau of Aeronautics has strictly complied with these regulations and has never questioned them in any way, nor contemplated doing so.”
It is desired to emphasize that the fleet consists not only of the high seas fleet, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers, but all naval vessels, including submarines, subchasers, fuel ships, transports, convoy and patrol vessels. This being a fact the contention that it is legal for the Navy to have shore stations whose maintenance is necessary only for operations connected solely with the main battle fleet is untenable and is based on a misconception of the functions and requirements of the Navy and what the fleet really is.
The regulations of the Joint Board were drawn up in the light of the existing state of aviation and of all of the other elements of national defense at that time and have since been revised from time to time by the Joint Board. The Navy has adhered to these regulations and has been governed by them in the development of its aircraft, of its training and of its naval doctrine. The Navy is at a loss to understand why this point has been raised at this time, or at any other time, because from the navy point of view the very object of these regulations has been to prevent unnecessary duplication of the primary functions and facilities of the operating forces of the Army and the Navy.
These regulations specifically provide that the Navy shall control all shipping, including convoys, radio communications relative thereto, the coastal seaplanes and scouting. This is necessary because the experience of past wars has clearly demonstrated that the Navy must be responsible for and therefore must control all shipping on the seas.
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For the purpose of protecting the allied lines of communication, the United States Navy sent abroad many of its seaplanes which maintained a continuous air patrol over the coastal sea lanes on the converging lines of the shipping of the world. Engaged in this work were not only the naval seaplanes but also the mine layers, mine sweepers, subchasers, the submarines, shore radio and signal stations.
During all of this time the combined aviation forces of the allied armies were engaged on the battlefronts of the continent.
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Should a strong enemy aircraft offense escape our fleet at sea and be pressed home against our shores, we would rely upon all of the available agencies both of the Army and the Navy to repel it. This is quite in accordance with the existing instructions of the Joint Army and Navy Board which I will quote.
Co-operation between army and navy officers directing operations against enemy attacks will be governed by the following principles:
“(a) When an enemy force of a strength greatly superior to that of the naval force available for use against it approaches the coast, the naval officer will inform the Army officer of the situation and shall assume that the Army has a paramount interest in the operation and shall co-ordinate the operations of the naval forces with those of the military forces.
“(b) If, however, the conditions are such that the enemy is or can be engaged by a naval force approximating in strength that of the enemy, the Army officers shall be so informed and shall assume that the Navy has a paramount interest in the operation and shall co-ordinate the operations of the military forces with those of the naval forces.
“(c) In the application of these principles, it is assumed that both the Army and the Navy have forces suitable for operating against enemy attacking forces, one service obviously could not be given a predominating interest in frustrating an enemy attack, if it did not have available forces which were suitable for operations against the attacking forces, even though the other service were greatly inferior in strength to the attacking force.”
Planes attacking our coasts must be brought overseas in ships, as no airplane that has been built, or that is likely to be built for years to come, could fly across the ocean with its military load and much less return to its own shores after the attack. The situation among the European Powers is quite different, for they are within easy flying distance of one another but even in Europe where the conditions are so favorable to hostile air attacks, the defense of the coast is more generally allocated to the Navy than to the Army.
The Army Air Service questions the necessity of naval air bases and intimates duplication therein. Seaplane bases must be on the water and have runways for handling seaplanes. The Army air bases are inland. It is impossible to land seaplanes safely on the ground and impracticable to transport them from the coast by rail to inland Army air stations. Naval air bases are needed not only for the planes of the high seas fleet but for the planes of the Naval District forces engaged in convoy, patrol and scouting. Naval aircraft bases on shore are as necessary to naval aircraft as navy yards are to ships.
The Army Air Service, it appears from the testimony, also desires to restrict Naval Aviation to the high seas fleet and to take over convoy, patrol and scouting, using landplanes for these purposes. If a landplane lands on the water, the plane will be destroyed and even at best will float but a short time, involving the death of the personnel unless picked up by a passing vessel. A seaplane will not only float but can take off again. Minor repairs may be effected on the water and the plane can continue its mission. It is necessary in time of war for planes to land on the water and actually send boarding officers on board surface craft to determine their character.
To send flying personnel several hundrel miles to sea in landplanes to patrol the extensive sea areas that must be covered daily, month in and month out, in routine patrolling, even in a war of comparatively short duration, would involve an unnecessary sacrifice of lives in work that could be just as well done without such sacrifice, to say nothing of the loss of planes when most needed. Even in time of war, this routine patrolling in landplanes without the incentive of an immediate engagement with the enemy would have a demoralizing effect on the personnel.
In the summer of 1921 the Navy Department carried on a series of problems involving the use of aircraft in an attack by a supposedly hostile naval force against our shores. For this purpose the U. S. S. Iowa was used. The problem was a search for, and attack upon, the Iowa by aircraft. There were available in the Chesapeake Bay area for this purpose about twenty naval seaplanes and about eighty-five army landplanes. The Iowa was to be somewhere in a belt extending from Cape May to Cape Hatteras, not less than fifty miles and not more than one hundred miles from the shore.
For the safety of the personnel, twenty destroyers were assigned to the commander of the defending naval air force, which he could place in such position as to best cover this water area for the purpose of rescuing land aircraft that might come down.
The Navy Department invited the Army Air Service to participate in this problem, but the commander of the Provisional Air Brigade at Langley Field declined to take part in the search on the ground that flying so far from shore in time of peace would not be justified by the results obtained and the risks involved. On this occasion the weather was fine and naval vessels were in the vicinity to afford assistance if needed. In war the problem would be more difficult. Yet it is necessary to train in this kind of work during peace if we are to do the work well in war.
In patrol, scouting and convoy work, unity of command and control is absolutely essential, with personnel trained and indoctrinated in naval methods, tactics, seamanship, navigation and familiar with the characteristics of all types of naval and merchant craft. They must also be proficient in naval radio and signals, including recognition signals, otherwise they become a menace and danger to our vessels. Furthermore, the air personnel of the aircraft and planes should be under the control of the naval commander at all times to insure their preparation, efficiency and readiness. If under another branch of the Government, who would decide what planes and personnel were needed for any operation? Who would be held responsible for inefficiency, or even failure of planes to arrive on time, or at all, when needed? Would not divided responsibility result in delay in sailing of convoys, inefficiency and perhaps disaster?
Referring to the question of possible duplication in training and experimentation, there is very little duplication. Teaching a man to fly is but a small part of the training necessary. The Navy Department’s policy is first to train the man to be a naval officer. He spends four years at the Naval Academy and then goes to sea with the fleet for three years to acquire the practical naval training deemed necessary before he is eligible to take up the additional training to become a naval aviator. He is then selected from volunteers at the end of his sea cruise and, if he has passed the required physical examination is sent to Pensacola, where for at least six months he is instructed in the Art of flying the various types of naval aircraft, after which, if found proficient, he is again sent to sea in the Naval Operating Units before he is considered to be of real value as a navy pilot. Please note that we consider that it takes about eight years to make an efficient naval pilot. The training, therefore, is fundamentally different from that of the Army Air Service and it is believed that each of the existing systems of training meets the requirements of the respective services. Should a consolidation of that part of the training as involves only flying be considered, attention is invited to the fact that this training still differs considerably in the types of aircraft flown and also to the fact that Pensacola, the only naval flying school, is situated on the seaboard, whereas the army flying schools are, I believe, not on the seacoast. It would be a great waste of money to do away with Pensacola because of the investment already there. At one time the Army trained our personnel in flying landplanes but this is now done at Pensacola to avoid the necessity of sending our men to two places. At Lakehurst, N. J., several army officers and men are receiving training in dirigibles.
The question of duplication with regard to experimentation is already answered and is briefly contained in my hearings before the Senate Committee on Appropriations. If we were just beginning, it might be practical and economical to combine our experimental plant at Philadelphia with the army plant at McCook Field.
There is, however, already a large investment in both plants and there is no suitable place available to join them. Their requirements are different for one pertains to the sea and the other to the land. A joint station must be on water with large land facilities. This is a question of appropriations for a joint station suitable to the needs of the two services. It involves a loss in investments in the present plants and enormous reinvestment in a combined plant.
One of the basic reasons for discussing this matter at all was the question of duplication between the Army Air Service and the Naval Air Service. There is considerable misconception with regard to this matter. It is quite possible to have legitimate duplication. In some cases a certain amount of duplication is absolutely essential in order that progress may be made, because it engenders a spirit of rivalry which is not only productive of increased efficiency on the part of both services but is productive of marked improvement in procedure, design, construction and operation. I believe in economy in every particular but it is quite possible to obtain false economy by a lack of understanding of fundamentals. Take, for example, the blocks of buildings now occupied by the Navy Department and the War Department on B Street between 17th and 21st Streets, N. W. It is quite conceivable that by combining these buildings under one head, a certain amount of overhead could be eliminated and a certain amount of economy obtained so far as actual expense involved is concerned. On the other hand, the net result would be inefficiency and in some cases a veritable Tower of Babel condition would obtain.
With human nature constituted as it is, it has been, and apparently will be, it is absolutely essential to have unity of command in any military operation or any of the primary functions thereof. It therefore seems to me that if there is any duplication on any of the matters which have been so ably discussed before this committee, that the duplication is on the part of the Army Air Service, as it is inherently and naturally and logically the function of the Navy and the Naval Air Service to perform the duties outlined and to have under their jurisdiction the facilities pertaining to these duties.
The design features of airplanes have been referred to casually. There may be an impression that army planes and navy planes are one and the same thing. This is not correct. Naval requirements are that the Navy must have planes capable of landing on the water, on the deck of a carrier, of being launched from catapults and of taking off from the water or from the deck of a carrier. One only need mention the subjects of single pontoons, twin pontoons, triple pontoons, flying boats, wing tip pontoons, wooden floats, metal floats and similar purely naval plane fittings, to indicate to you the inherent differences between army planes and navy planes. Furthermore, there are amphibian planes capable of landing both on the deck of a carrier and on water without any conversion whatsoever. Of course the plane which lands on the deck of a carrier can land on land but it does not necessarily follow that the reverse is true. With the greater loads that navy planes are required to carry, due to their essential naval purposes, specifications for a plane suitable for normal land work must be radically changed throughout to make that plane suitable for normal naval work.
Naval Aviation should possess scout planes, bombing planes, torpedo planes, observation planes, training planes, patrol planes and fighting planes of types suitable for their naval work.
On the carriers the Navy will have fighting planes for the protection against aerial attack, observation planes for observation of the gunfire of the fleet; and a combined bombing and scouting and torpedo plane for obtaining information for the fleet, torpedoing and bombing the enemy surface craft and bases.
In the Naval District the Navy will have patrol planes and torpedo and bombing planes. The patrol planes will be used for the purpose of insuring the presence or absence of the enemy forces within certain area; the torpedo and bombing planes will be used to attack enemy surface vessels lying within the area. All the duties enumerated above are in accordance with the approved policies of the War and the Navy Departments.
The aircraft carried on carriers are all what is termed convertible land or seaplanes or what is termed amphibian land or seaplanes. It is necessary in naval design during peace time and war time to have a plane that can land on water and insure to the personnel a reasonable chance of safety. In time of war, in an emergency when the highest performance is necessary sary, it is contemplated putting on the land wheels and operating certain aircraft as landplanes only. From the Naval Districts it is contemplated having seaplanes only, as it is considered essential among other duties, that the seaplane be capable of landing on the water to enable sending a boarding officer aboard surface craft.
There is no duplication whatsoever between the functions and missions of naval aircraft and army aircraft, nor is there a material duplication. The naval aircraft constitute what might be termed the first line coastal defense. The army aviation with their faster planes would constitute what might be termed the second line of coastal defense. In other words, the army aviation aircraft would be utilized as a reserve force for the Navy if the enemy penetrated the navy first line of defense. This shows that there is no duplication of missions.
Naval aircraft, by virtue of the fact that on carriers they have to be made heavier and stronger than army aircraft, due to additional strains of landing on board and catapulting, have as a consequence a lower performance. The naval aircraft operating in Naval Districts with their pontoons or boat equipped are also of lower performance. It is therefore important, to insure perfect protection of coast, that we have a reserve force that under all circumstances would be equal to or better than any enemy attacking force of aircraft and it is there that the country would depend on the landplane operated by the Army Air Service.
The history of the present law governing the Army Air Service and the Navy’s aviation in coast defense has been partly disclosed before this committee by an officer of the Army Air Service. It was the evident intent of the influences behind the passage of the part of the law as it first passed the House: namely, “that the Army Air Service shall control all aerial operations from land bases and Naval Aviation all aerial operations attached to a fleet” to absolutely separate the navy’s aviation from the shore, and for the Army Air Service to automatically take over the navy’s shore aviation bases, stations and activities. It has been shown that this legislation (above) was proposed and passed without the knowledge of the Secretary of War, Navy, Joint Board and presumably without consulting this committee. As originally passed, this legislation would have wiped out Naval Aviation, stopped all naval aviation development, and would, had war come, meanwhile, have seriously crippled the fleet. The Navy without adequate Naval Aviation would have no chance whatever against a fleet adequately equipped with naval aviation material and trained naval aviation personnel.
Fortunately, the Navy Department discovered the passage of this legislation on an army appropriation bill in time and after energetic protests on the part of the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, the legislation was amended in conference by members of the Congress who appreciated what effect it would have and in a way it may be presumed satisfactory to both heads of the two great departments.
If there is any possibility of the present law being construed to mean that the Navy can only have shore bases for the operation of planes attached to the high seas fleet, eliminating scouting, convoy and patrol planes, then I say new or additional legislation should be passed at once, or this law should be repealed. This committee can best decide this question. Otherwise, I concur with the Assistant Secretary of the Navy that no additional legislation is needed at the present time.
As regards co-operation, I am glad to be able to testify as to the cooperation that has existed between army and navy aviation since General Patrick has been chief of the Air Service and I heartily concur in what he has said on this subject. I have known that his opinion differed from mine to some extent as to the necessity for naval air bases. I believe that these hearings will prove of great value, that Congress will be better able to appreciate the problems both the Army and Navy are trying to solve in aviation, that you will be convinced that duplication in material, experimentation and training does not exist except to a minor and unavoidable degree; that the two services are co-operating harmoniously and effectively for the common good of the two services aviation and our country.
These extensive hearings originated in a discussion on the question as to the Navy’s acquiring a site at Sand Point. The Navy has never attempted to establish numerous airplane stations along the coasts but it is vitally essential that the Navy have fleet air bases located at such localities as are necessary to insure the security of our lines of communication in war and protection of our coastwise and seaborne commerce. The appropriation bill provides that no part of the appropriation shall be expended for maintenance of more than six heavier-than-air stations on the coast of the continental United States. We have asked for legislation to secure an aviation site at Sand Point, Wash., which is needed by Naval Aviation on the Pacific coast.
I am in entire agreement with the committee in its desire to spend as little money as practicable on shore and to keep the number of shore stations to a minimum. It has been the constant endeavor of the Bureau of Aeronautics to keep its shore activities to a minimum and to spend what money is appropriated at sea, especially with the fleet.
In conclusion, there are four points which I should like to stress so far as aviation is concerned.
(a) Naval Aviation is an integral part of the Navy. We have no Naval Air Corps.
(b) The defense of the coast itself may rest with the Army Air Service but the offense of the coast should rest with the Naval Aviation.
(c) It is admitted by all that our first line of defense is the main fleet. It has been thoroughly brought out here and, I believe, accepted that the second line of defense would be auxiliary vessels of the fleet and the third line of defense is our coast fortifications, augmented by the Army Air Service.
(d) If no legislation means that the Army Air Service is to continue questioning the rules of the Joint Board, then I say a new law should be passed. Our whole program of aircraft, types, functions and so forth, is based upon the present rules, approved by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy. Radical changes in them, as suggested by the Army Air Service officials, would be not only disastrous to the naval defense of the country but would result in great waste of money.
We of the Navy are trying to carry out the regulations of the Joint Board. My feeling is only that we are trying to carry out the regulations of the Joint Board and trying to carry out what we think is the function of the Navy. We very much want to be left alone in our endeavors. I feel that we are being interfered with. I have no personal feeling in the matter.
I do not question the integrity of the Army Air Service but I do question their knowledge and I do especially question their knowledge of nautical affairs. They have never been to sea except as passengers. I have spent twenty years at sea and we of the Navy do know sea conditions. We know that many of the things stated here cannot be done. We know that the employment of landplanes over the sea will break down the morale of the service and it should not be done. When landplanes go to sea they always want convoys. Such should not go to sea and they can not do it successfully. If their engines go down on them, they stop and there is trouble. Their stand in regard to the possible employment of landplanes is due to ignorance. They do not know sea conditions. Again, we have not raised this question. If the Army Air Service wishes to raise it, they are at perfect liberty to do so.
If there should be a joint congressional committee created to investigate the subject of aviation, a representative of the Navy, in my opinion, should be on that committee or commission. The great trouble is that it is hard to get the proper viewpoint when the questions are passed upon by people on shore.
From 1920-24 we have spent a total of only five per cent of our appropriations in buildings and improvements. In one year we spent nothing. That refers to our appropriation for aviation. It amounts to $5,000,000.
I do not think the airplane carriers cost should be charged to aviation any more than the cost of a battleship should be charged to the Bureau of Ordnance.
Pacific First Crossed by U. S. Army Flyers
World Flight Progress from April 19 to May 22, by Lieutenant Robert J. Brown, Jr., Chairman, World Flight Committee, U. S. Air Services, June, 1924.—History has been made during the month by the airplanes of the United States Army Air Service now flying around the world. After enduring extreme cold weather and surviving unprecedented bad weather for six weeks and losing one of the four airplanes in the Alaskan Peninsula, the remaining three airplanes landed in Japanese territory on May 17, 1924, thereby completing for the first time in history a flight across the Pacific Ocean.
The flight’s experiences until April 19 were depicted in the previous issue of this magazine. During the ensuing month the flyers have been in a constant maelstrom of bad weather including rain, snow and high windstorms. It will be recalled that on April 19 three airplanes of the flight reached Dutch Harbor and started to refit while they awaited the arrival of the flight commander, Major Frederick L. Martin, who had been forced down in Portage Bay on April 15 when his oil leaked out through a hole in the crank case evidently caused by a broken connecting rod.
The U. S. Destroyer Hull located the flagplane Seattle on the morning of the sixteenth and towed it up the bay to the small town of Kanatak. A new engine was rushed to Kanatak on the U. S. Coast Guard Cutter Algonquin. On the nineteenth the new engine arrived and was immediately installed but with great difficulty due to high winds and severe storms which persisted during that week.
The severe weather forced Major Martin and his mechanic, Sergeant Alva L. Harvey, to remain at Kanatak, “the cauldron of winds,” until April 25; on that date during a lull in the storm they took off at 1 :15 and flew in a snow storm against strong head winds until 4 :45, when they were forced to land in Kumluck Bay to get bearings and allow the storm to abate. At 5:15 they again left the water and landed at Chignik, Alaska, the next scheduled stop, at 5:50 the same afternoon. Continuing storms and high winds forced the Seattle to remain at Chignik and the other three airplanes to remain at Dutch Harbor for several days, although the overhaul of the airplanes was completed on the twenty-fifth, including the installation of a new engine in Plane No. 3, the Boston, flown by Lieutenant Wade. Finally, on April 30 at 11 :10 a. m., the Seattle left Chignik bound for Dutch Harbor.
That was the last ever seen of this airplane. Meager and varying reports reached the chief of Air Service concerning the fate of Major Martin and his companion. The North Pacific Ocean was reported as being lashed by terrific northeast gales which might have blown the airplane out to sea. For several days no trace was found of the missing aviator. The south shore of the Alaskan Peninsula was combed by the U. S. Coast Guard Cutters, the Algonquin and the Haida and by numerous small fishing boats with no results.
Then a white trapper reported that he had seen the airplane headed northwest over Chignik lagoon. This clue turned the search inland as it raised the supposition that the flight commander had endeavored to reach the Bering Sea side of the Peninsula, hoping to find better weather to continue his flight to Dutch Harbor and had been forced down inland.
Encouraged by this report, several searching parties were organized at Chignik and started inland by dogsled. In the meantime, the news that the aviators were missing had been broadcast to all vessels on both sides of the Peninsula and the search was continued with renewed vigor on both coasts. Ice jams in the Bering Sea slowed up the search and many anxious days passed. After a week of untiring but fruitless search, an airplane with a pilot and mechanic was ordered from the United States to Chignik to assist in combing the desolate interior of the barren mountainous peninsula.
The North American Newspaper Alliance patriotically offered a reward of one thousand dollars to any one who could find Major Martin or Sergeant Harvey or the airplane Seattle or who would give any information leading to the discovery of their whereabouts.
All plans for continuing the search were halted on May to when a wire was received from Major Martin himself. The cryptic message stated that he had struck a mountain in a fog about an hour after leaving Chignik, that the Seattle was hopelessly wrecked but that neither of the men was injured. After ploughing their way through deep snow for seven days, existing on nerve and a concentrated liquid food ration which had been supplied them for just such emergencies, they finally reached a trapper’s cabin on the Bering Coast and continued to Port Moller after a two days’ rest, from which point they were able to wire their safety.
The nation, as well as people all over the world, was relieved and overjoyed to know that the aviators had survived this terrible ordeal. The chief of Air Service immediately wired to Major Martin assuring him of his joy at his safety, informing him that plans were being laid to send him to Europe with a new airplane to rejoin the flight and directing him to proceed to Washington.
Major Martin and his mechanic immediately sailed from Port Moller on board the Pacific American Fisheries vessel, the Catherine, due to arrive at Bellingham, Wash., on May 25.
The flight commander and Sergeant Harvey have had more than their share of difficulties and it is to be regretted that they were forced to withdraw from the flight even temporarily.
In the meantime, the world flight, now reduced to three airplanes, left Dutch Harbor on May 3 at 10:10 a. m., and after flying four hours and fifteen minutes bucking strong winds, arrived at Nazan, Atka Island, 350 miles west of Dutch Harbor. The Bureau of Fisheries vessel, Eider, had previously arrived at Atka with Major William Blair of the U. S. Signal Corps on board who had radioed weather reports and forecasts to the flight.
As soon as the flight reached Nazan, the Eider again sailed westward to Attu, the last of the Aleutian Islands, and the Haida left Dutch Harbor for Atka. Two days later these vessels were in place but continuing sleet storms and high winds delayed the departure of the flight. Until May 9, while at Atka, the flyers cooked their own meals. On this day, the flight left Atka at 10:10 a. m. and after being in the air for eight hours and fifty minutes landed at Attu Island.
The Haida again sailed westward to overtake the flyers as this vessel had on board an extra supply of fuel and spare parts for repairs to the airplane and engine if any were needed. Severe gales held the flight at Attu Island until Thursday, May 15. On the fourteenth, a sixty mile gale forced the Haida to sea to avoid the danger of being blown aground. Poor radio communication was established with the U. S. Destroyer John D. Ford, which was awaiting the flight with supplies and fuel in Kashawabara Bay, Paramushiru Island, in the Kurile Islands of Japan, about 800 miles from Attu. The Eider was again dispatched to the westward to investigate and report on weather conditions.
On Thursday morning, May 15, at 11 a. m., the flight departed westward. As soon as they rose into the air they crossed the international date line and lost a day. That is, as soon as they were off the water it was the same time on Friday, May 16. They headed northwest intending to pass the Bering or Komandorski Islands more than 300 miles away, pick up the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula 200 miles farther west, turn south and follow the coast line to the Kurile Islands.
The object of following this rather circuitous route was to be within sight of land in case of forced landing. It was fortunate that this course had been decided upon by the members of the flight as they were forced to land off shore near the Komandorski Islands at 4:30 p. m. the same day during a severe snow storm. They continued again the following morning, Saturday, May 17 (May 16 at Attu) at 8 a. m. and following the course originally selected arrived at Paramushiru Island, Japan, at 2:35 p. m. The total flying time from Attu Island to Japan was twelve hours and five minutes, and the distance covered was 860 miles.
On May 19 the flyers proceeded south to the next stop at Hihukapu on Yetorofu Island and on May 20 they arrived at Minato on Houshu, the mainland of Japan. The next stop is at the Kasumiga Ura Naval Air Station thirty miles north of Tokio where they will refit for the long flight down the Chinese coast.
On May 22 the American World Flight reached Tokio, the capital of Japan, and landed at the Japanese Naval Air Station at Kasumiga Ura, about fifty miles northwest of Tokio. The flight was to remain there several days to recondition their airplanes. On arrival at Tokio, the American flyers had completed 6,495 miles and had flown ninety hours and maintained an average speed of seventy miles an hour in crossing the Pacific; 18,836 miles remained to be flown.
Buffeted by high winds, stung by sleet and blinded by snow storms, these flyers have endured more bitter experiences in the last six weeks than were ever before encountered by aviators. They have pioneered over a route that may some day become an international airway and on their final flight from Attu Island in the western hemisphere to Paramushiru Island, Japan in the eastern hemisphere, they have linked the Occident and the Orient by air and crossed the Pacific Ocean by air for the first time in the history of the world, thereby bringing to the United States, the birthplace of aeronautics the honor and distinction of successfully accomplishing this remarkable and epoch-making achievement.
The French flight of one airplane which left Paris for Tokio on April 24 terminated on May 20 when Lieutenant D’Oisy washed out his plane at Shanghai, China. The French flyer had made the phenomenal run of about 10,580 miles in twenty-six days, averaging more than 100 miles an hour flying time.
The arrival of the British World flyers at Akyat, Burma, on May 20, brought their total up to about 7,370 miles. This flight left England on March 25.
The English flyer had completed several hundred more miles than the Americans up to May 22. The latter flight started on March 17 and the former March 25. The British airplane has passed through its best section while the Americans have completed the worst part of their journey.
Big Navy Air Circus Attended by 100,000
Army and Navy Journal, 7 June, 1924.—Navy planes, dirigibles and balloons in battle exercises and other exhibitions in the United States Navy aerial circus given at the Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, N. J., May 31, furnished intense interest and numerous thrills to close on 100,000 spectators. The occupants of one plane had a miraculous escape from death when it crashed to the earth. There was a very high wind most of the day.
The program opened at 10:30 a. m., when a kite balloon was sent up and dropped some parachutes to which some dummies were attached. An exhibition of an attack on machine gun nests followed. The airship J-i flew over the grounds nearly all day at about 700 feet altitude and demonstrated her ability to maneuver. It had been planned to have her pick up a man from the ground but this stunt was abandoned because of the danger from the high wind.
Lieutenant A. J. Williams, U. S. N., holder of the world’s speed record of 266 miles an hour, made a sensational flight in a navy plane through the hangar of the airship Shenandoah, a distance of 700 feet. After circling around the field a few times he dropped down to an altitude of about fifty feet and then shot through the tunnel-like entrance of the hangar, 300 feet wide and 200 feet high, and for a few seconds disappeared entirely from the sight of most of the spectators and then flew out at a speed of 100 miles an hour.
Captain Robert A. Kinloch, Air Service, U. S. A., of Mitchel Field, flying a DeH. Army airplane with a passenger, Henry Brockhurst, a photographer when at 300 feet the engine went dead and the plane began to fall, People on foot and in automobiles were directly underneath but Captain Kinloch with rare presence of mind, skilfully swung his plane over and managed to fall in a place where there were no people or cars. The crowd was astonished when Lieutenant Kinloch and Brockhurst, uninjured, crawled out of the plane. This was the only accident of the day. At one time eight airplanes, two dirigibles, a free balloon and an observation balloon were all in the air at the same time. The dirigibles were the monster Shenandoah and the new but smaller J-i, which looked like a baby compared to the Shenandoah.
The final event of the day, at 4 p. m., was the flight of the Shenandoah. She started off with her crew in command of Lieutenant Commander Zachary Lansdowne, U. S. N. Captain Anton Heinen, the German Zeppelin expert, was aboard.
It was 7:35 when the Shenandoah returned to the flying field. By this time the wind had died down considerably and later the big ship was safely berthed in its hangar.
Progress in Helicopters
Aviation, 9 June, 1924.—Since April 1, 1924, the International Aeronautic Federation recognizes officially records made with helicopters and the two foremost French inventors of helicopters are now engaged in a friendly duel to beat each other’s performances.
Etienne Oemichen became the first holder of an official helicopter record when on April 17, at Valentigny, France, he made a horizontal flight of 525 meters (1722 feet) in a direct line. This record was beaten by the Marquis Pateras Pescara on April 18, when at Issy-les-Moulineauz airdrome, near Paris, he made a horizontal flight in a straight line, covering a distance of 736 meters (2,550 feet). The time taken was four minutes eleven seconds, and the machine remained steadily over six feet above the ground. The best previous performance of this machine was a 600 meter flight, made last January.
On May 5 Oemichen accomplished the first circuit flight to the credit of a direct lift machine, covering a triangular one-kilometer course in seven minutes 40 seconds. With this flight, which was controlled by the technical section of the French air service, Oemichen won a prize of 90,000 francs offered by the French air department for the first one-kilometer circuit made by a helicopter.
Entries for the international helicopter competition for the British Air Ministry’s prize of £50,000 closed April 30, last. There are between fifteen and twenty entries, including some of the best known exponents of helicopter construction. It is understood that Emile Berliner, the foremost American pioneer of direct lift flying, as well as Oemichen and Pescara have entered machines. Louis Brennan, the British helicopter pioneer, whose achievements have been surrounded with considerable secrecy, is barred from the competition under a special arrangement between this inventor and the British air ministry.
The conditions of the competition are extremely difficult, considering the above records. To win the prize the following performances are required of a helicopter: Rise vertically to 2,000 feet altitude; hover there for half an hour and descend safely; make a circular flight of twenty mile length at sixty miles an hour; make a gliding flight from 300 feet altitude with the engine stopped and land in a small area. The difficulties involved in these performances will be seen from the fact that no free helicopter ever rose higher than ten feet from the ground—although the Austrian captive helicopter of Karman and Petroczy did ascend to 150 feet; that no helicopter ever made a gliding flight with the engine stopped or any kind of precision landing and that the greatest horizontal speed ever made by a helicopter is about six miles an hour, or one tenth that required in the competition.
ORDNANCE
Gun Power
By Sir Herbert Russell, Naval and Military Record, 28 May, 1924.—It is now ten years ago since the 15-inch gun battleship made her appearance in the British Fleet, which is tantamount to saying that it is at least thirteen years since she was designed. Since the Queen Elizabeth made her début by bombarding the Turkish positions on Achi Baba, thereby incidentally demonstrating the comparative futility of even the heaviest direct fire against military trench works, we have had the most complete experience of naval warware on the grand scale it is possible to conceive. Yet the 15-inch gun has remained the premier weapon for a longer period than the old 65-ton 13.5, the successive distinctive patterns of the 12-inch or the 13. 5 which followed it.
This statement requires some qualification. We have only built one big-gun warship—the Hood—since the Battle of Jutland. What the armament of the Rodney and Nelson will be I do not profess to know beyond hear-say, and even if I did it would be improper to state it. This, however, need not preclude me from expressing the opinion, based upon a knowledge of the displacement and the general requirements in the way of protective features, speed and sea-keeping capacity of the ships, that we are unlikely to witness any material advance in the size of their primary weapons.
In the light of the experience of Jutland, Sir Eustace d’Eyncourt made various modifications in the design of the Hood. But, apparently, he did not consider that there was a necessity to depart from the pre-arranged ordnance plans of the ship. Of course, our 15-inch gun outweighed and outranged anything the Germans could bring against it in that fight, although they were then constructing weapons of similar caliber for their new capital ships. The obvious question was whether a still heavier gun, with a yet longer range, would have been of any advantage to us at Jutland? This is by no means so easy to answer as to ask.
In a general way, it is true to say that the heavier the projectile the more effective it will prove but there are limitations to this rule. When an adequate means of destruction has been attained there is no useful purpose served in going beyond it. In pre-war days we heard a great deal about the advantage of striking the heaviest “smashing blow.” Since the war we have realized that a much smaller, higher-velocity, armor-piercing shell, with a delay action fuse, may do infinitely more damage than can be effected by the smashing results of superior weight.
The 15-inch gun throws a projectile of close upon a ton in weight, with an extreme range of 27,500 yards. At that range it has a trajectory of five miles. The gun that bombarded Paris is now known to have fired a projectile of about 240 pounds. It had a range of at least seventy miles and a trajectory of twelve miles. Suppose it were possible, under conditions of abnormal visibility, for two ships to fight an action at a distance of fifty miles apart, under aerial fire direction, it is clear that the vessel armed with an 8-inch gun of 120 calibers similar to that which bombarded Paris could knock out an adversary armed with the 15-inch gun without ever seeing the projectiles fired at her in return.
This is merely by way of illustrating the fact that gun power is not merely a question of weight of metal and consequent smashing power. It is essential that the primary weapon of a capital ship shall be heavy enough to throw a shell that will penetrate the armor of an opponent without normal fighting range. It is a legitimate argument to say that a ship that can penetrate enemy armor at abnormal range has a definite advantage but penetration is not a matter of weight (within limits), as “smashing” is. The Paris gun is stated to have had a muzzle velocity of nearly 5,000 foot-seconds, and it would have sent its projectile through armor against which a 15-inch shell would pulverize itself at its remaining energy.
We built some very big guns during the war, for definite purposes. The Glatton, a monitor which lies sunk in Dover Harbor, was armed with an 18-inch howitzer, for high-angle fire against the German positions near the German coast. The “Hush-Hush” ships, designed to give the coup de grace to a “lame duck,” were originally mounted with 18-inch guns for this purpose, but these proved too much for them, and they were replaced by 15-inch weapons. At the end of the war the famous Hadfield firm had completed some 20-inch naval guns, weighing 170 tons apiece, unmounted. I do not know in what manner it was proposed to employ these but they never were used and probably never will be.
All the latest United States capital ships carry a 16-inch gun but according to Mr. William Shearer, who, as an ex-technical adviser to the Navy Board, at least knows what he is talking about, it is very doubtful whether our 15-inch gun does not outrange the American weapon. The Americans are very much in favor of doing everything on the big scale in their Navy and I do not suggest that they are not right. Had there been any sufficient military advantage in an 18-inch or even a 20-inch gun, we may be pretty sure that they would have mounted it but their naval constructors probably think that the maximum of usefulness has been reached. The ratio of addition to weight of gun and ammunition for every inch of bore increases after a certain size is enormous and, as the designer is always struggling to keep down weight in any one direction, so as to get in as much of everything as he can upon displacement, he is a sturdy opponent to any increase in gun tonnage which may seem out of proportion to the fighting value it is likely to yield.
In fact to put it in a homely way, it is no good endowing a battleship with more strength than she can advantageously exert. Her surplus power has to be purchased at a price, either in vastly increased tonnage or in the sacrifice of other essential features, which render it altogether too expensive. In the earlier days of the war we soon discovered that the German secondary naval guns were much superior to our own. The German 4-inch gun had a range equal to our 6-inch gun, and in the duel between the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse and the Highflier, which were respectively armed with these weapons, the British ship, catching her adversary under the disadvantage of coaling, had to empty the contents of her 6-inch magazines in order to settle her business.
I believe the tendency among naval artillerists is toward the development of higher velocities with consequent increased ranges, rather than addition to mere weight. We have seen periods of reaction from growth of size before and may find history repeating itself in view of the increased power of high explosives. It seems a mere mockery of prophesy in this transitionary age, to predict that the capital ship action of the future will not only open at the longest possible range but be fought out at the longest possible range. Yet this is one of the inferences from our war experience.
In fact, we have arrived at a stage of artillery development when nature is taking a hand. Our old friend visibility is a determining factor in the question of fighting ranges. We know it is possible to arm ships so that they could batter one another at fifty miles apart. I might have said seventy or eighty miles apart but prefer to be conservative. Now, how often is it possible to visualize an object fifty miles away at sea? Certainly not often enough to render it worth while arming ships to do battle at this range.
Napoleon said that victory lies with the big battalions. I am not so sure that it lies with the big guns—always, as I have said before, within limitations. The Germans did more damage to our fleet at Jutland than we did to theirs, although we had the bigger guns. I am talking of results, not reasons. Our superior range was of practically no value in an environment which soon became dense with battle haze and smoke screens. Our greater “smashing” power was a poor compensation for their plunging fire and delay action fuses.
We have profited by what we learned then. But I do not really believe that the lessons will express themselves in any appreciable advance in the size and weight of guns. Development is more likely to proceed along the lines of higher velocities and wider ranges. The 15-inch shell is devastating enough in all conscience. Only if we can plump it into a ship at twenty-five miles instead of fifteen, then a more effective step will have been achieved than by any addition of further mere weight. The 18-inch gun has been built, tried, and discarded. The 20-inch gun has been built, but (as far as I am aware) not even tried. The limit of destructive utility seems to have been reached.
Stock of Naval Ammunition
Army, Navy and Air Force Gazette, 31 May, 1924.—The statement by the Geddes Committee that ammunition equivalent to twenty years’ consumption on the basis of the late war was being retained by the admiralty, was not taken from reports made to them by the admiralty. It was merely a conclusion drawn by the committee from certain data supplied to them and did not accurately represent the position. As the Geddes Committee was clearly informed, the ammunition held at that time in excess of the approved reserves was, generally speaking, of obsolete types, which could not be used in the guns with which the ships of the post-war fleet are armed. It has since been either utilized, as far as possible, in aid of other requirements, or disposed of to the best advantage. No special expenditure has been included in the estimates for the current financial year in respect of the disposal of surplus ammunition. The sum included in the Navy Estimates, 1924-25, for purchase of ammunition is £943,600, but this is mainly for ammunition for new ships and for types of ammunition not available for ships in the post-war fleet.—(Naval Parliamentary Secretary.)
More About “Big Bertha”
Army, Navy and Air Force Gazette, 31 May, 1924.—Many other people besides artillerists will be interested in the volume which Mr. Arnold Chevalier has just produced on the true dynamic flight of projectiles. He deals with the theory that projectiles, whether shells or bullets, are more effective and have a greater range when their length is increased and when they are given a long, hollow head. Most interesting is his conclusion that the Germans acted on this principle in designing the shells for the “big Berthas” with which they bombarded Paris. He gives reasons for concluding that the projectiles were fired with twice the usual velocity and that to the improved design of the shell alone was due the extraordinary ranging power obtained. It is curious that no dud shells were ever discovered, nor were the original guns ever surrendered to the Allies.
Explosion on “Mississippi”
Baltimore Sun, 13 June, 1924.—Washington, June 12.—The explosion on the battleship Mississippi occurred at one o’clock this afternoon during battle practice and is believed to have caused the death of forty-three men and three officers, Vice-admiral Wiley, commanding the battleship division, reported tonight to the Navy Department.
The message said:
To the Secretary of the Navy and Chief of Operations:
“During battle practice Mississippi at one p. m. today the powder bag of two right guns of second turret were ignited. Although number not yet fully known, believed there were forty-three men and three officers killed. Also there were several men very badly burned. When further details are received they will be forwarded.”
NAVIGATION AND RADIO
Naval Hydrographic Office
Army and Navy Register, 7 June, 1924.—The American Practical Navigator has been revised to conform to the Nautical Almanac for 1925 in which the ephemerides of the celestial bodies are registered according to the hours of the civil day instead of the astronomical day as formerly.
Investigations have been undertaken to determine position-lines from night observations of celestial bodies with the gyro-compass in a manner suitable for the practice of navigation.
The U. S. S. Niagara has been assigned to survey duty and will be fitted out as soon as possible for this duty. She will probably survey along the coast of Venezuela.
It is requested that vessels fitted with the sonic depth finder take soundings when crossing the following area: Latitude 34° 54” north and 34° 28” north, longitude 120° 48” west to 120° 54” west. It is requested further that soundings be taken in crossing the deep leading into Monterey Bay in order to afford a more exact placing of the contours shown at this point on the Barymetric Chart No. 5194.
The name Colorado Shoal will be given to the uncharted shoal discovered by the U. S. S. Colorado on February 10, 1924, using the sonic depth finder, in latitude 33° 4” north, between longitude 37° 21” west and 37° 27” west. The least depth found was 422 fathoms.
Projected Oceanographic Cruise
Army and Navy Register, 7 June, 1924.—At the suggestion of Captain Frederic B. Bassett, Jr., hydrographer of the Navy, representatives of the scientific branches of the Government and of the technical bureaus of the Navy Department will meet at that department on July 1 to discuss the practicability of organizing a scientific cruise for a thorough study of oceanography. Although more or less complete and accurate charts showing navigation data concerning routes and ports frequented by vessels of commerce and war are available, comparatively little information concerning the water-covered portions of the earth has been collected. Such information would be of great importance, not only to certain technical bureaus of the Navy, but also to other branches of the Government, such as the Bureau of Fisheries, Weather Bureau, Coast Guard, Army Signal Corps, Biological Survey, Smithsonian Institution and so on. One of the problems connected with the project is to obtain and outfit a suitable ship, which should be one that affords accommodations for a large number of scientists, laboratories tanks for marine specimens, etc.
American Goes to Set up Flag on Wrangel
Baltimore Sun, 19 June. 1924.—Nome, Alaska, June 18.—The American schooner Herman, commanded by Captain Louis Lane, of San Francisco put out from Nome for Wrangel Island at noon today, opening another chapter perhaps the most thrilling, in the island’s grim history Captain Lane will raise the “Stars and Stripes” over Wrangel and claim it for the United States.
It is known that the Soviet Government also is planning to send a ship to Wrangel this season to reaffirm its claim to the island. “Sourdough” Hans, a Nome seaman, who was with Captain Harold Noice on his relief trip to Wrangel last season and was frozen in off the coast of Siberia later in the year, corroborated this fact. He talked with the governor of Northeastern Siberia, who told him of the Russian plans and expressed great indignation that Noice had failed to obtain permission from the Russian Government to land on the island.
Asked what he would do if he encountered Russian opposition, Captain Lane made a gesture that indicated he would not leave the island without attempting to carry out his plans at any hazard.
The Herman is chartered by Lomen Brothers of Nome, who control the Alaskan reindeer industry. They have taken over the interest of Stefansson, who, for three years, has fought a losing fight to save Wrangel for the British Empire. The Canadian Parliament and the British Government have repudiated the claims he established for them.
Captain Lane is one of the best known skippers in the Arctic. He has sailed among the ice floes for a quarter of a century and took the first merchant ship to Wrangel in 1910. Harold Noice, who headed the relief party to Wrangel last year, and Lorne Knight, who died there, made their first Arctic trips with Lane. Lane found Stefansson on Banks Island in 1914 after hope for the Canadian explorer had been abandoned.
The Herman will enter the ice fields almost immediately and skirt the edges until the ice opens to permit setting a course for the island. At this time of year the ice is drifting north and west. Great herds of walrus follow it. The Herman’s crew will hunt walrus until conditions are right for the dash to Wrangel Island. Captain Lane expects this to be early in August.
The Herman plans to take off Charles Wells and thirteen Eskimos left on the island last year by Captain Noice. This party was well equipped and is composed of men inured to the rigors of an Arctic winter. Still, the party, which established itself on Wrangel three years ago, headed by Alan Crawford, of Toronto, was well equipped, and of the four men and one Eskimo woman the woman alone survived to greet Captain Noice when the relief party landed last summer. Crawford. Milton Galle. of Texas, and Frederick Maurer, of Ohio, died in an attempt to reach Siberia across the ice pack and Lorne Knight, of Oregon, succumbed to scurvy in his hunger stricken camp on the island.
If the Russians reach Wrangel before Captain Lane the chances are that Wells and his Eskimos will be prisoners and their winter’s fur and ivory catch confiscated.
Captain Lane is instructed to continue occupation of the island if conditions warrant it. Whether he will leave another party is problematic but it is certain that he will leave the American flag flying where the Canadian flag now flies. The Herman also will leave a memorial on the grave of Lorne Knight.
Transatlantic Wireless Telephony
The Engineer, 30 May, 1924. —It is well known that wireless telephony experiments between this country and America have been undertaken with a view to ascertaining whether a commercial system of communication of this kind is practicable. Wireless telephony transmissions have taken place weekly from the Long Island station and have been received and measured for signal strength in this country by the Post Office and the Western Electric Company. Encouraged by the results of these experiments the Post Office has decided to install an experimental 200-kilowatt valve transmitting plant at the new wireless station at Rugby so as to enable speech to be transmitted from this country to America. With the aid of this plant it should be possible during favorable atmospheric conditions, and particularly during the winter months, to connect telephone subscribers in London with subscribers in New York, but it is very doubtful, we think, whether the plant will prove reliable in the summer. When Dr. Nichols visited this country in 1923 in connection with the Western Electric Company’s tests he estimated that the power required for satisfactory communication during all times of the year might possibly be as high as 1000 kilowatts.
MISCELLANEOUS
New Destructive Agencies of War
By N. Sloutzki, Attaché, Disarmament Section of the League of Nations; Graduate Law School, University of Geneva; Writer on International Law, Current History Magazine, June, 1924.—The development which has taken place in the engines, weapons and methods of war in recent years has been not only amazing itself but it has brought with it an entirely new menace to civilization. This arises from the fact that whole civilian populations, as well as the combatants in the field, have become to an increasing extent open to attack and liable to complete annihilation. Since the murderous strife of the World War broke loose, all our ideas of war have been revolutionized. Aerial fighting alone would have sufficed to do that but to the new armory of lethal weapons there is added chemical warfare with its possibilities of blotting out human life over large areas by means of filling the atmosphere with poisonous gases.
Modern war is a scientific war, a war of machines. In the preface to Chemical Warfare, by Amos A. Fries, chief of the Chemical Warfare Service of the United States Army, and Major Clarence J. West, Major General W. L. Sibert says that “men are nothing in modern war unless they are equipped with the most effective devices for killing and maiming the enemy’s soldiers and thoroughly trained in the use of such implements. Of all the machines destined to kill men, the airplane is, without any doubt, the most important.” “Tanks and heavy artillery,” says General Maitrot of the French Army, in his book on the next war, “are nothing in comparison with the airplane which will reign as uncontested sovereign in future world struggles, as the submarine will reign in the sea. He who is master of the air will be master of the ground and the victory will be gained by the one best provided with air tools.” If this concerned weapons of war destined for use on the battlefield only, we should not make any objection but aviation. for which distance does not exist, becomes a tremendous danger to the security of the civil population, “What is a bombing airplane?” asks General Maitrot, and he answers the question in these words: “It is a machine that can carry a projectile hundreds of miles. And what projectiles! At the time of the Armistice the French possessed bombs each weighing 1,100 pounds, twenty of which could annihilate the entire quarter of a town.”
To emphasize how terrific the new destructive agencies of war have become, William Henry Irwin points out that in future “the gas bombardment of capitals and great towns is not only a possibility but a strong probability— almost a certainty. Military staffs have had time to think, to carry out the changes and discoveries of the great war to their logical conclusion, They see that even with the known gases, the existing airplanes, Paris, Rome or London could in one night be changed from a metropolis to a necropolis.” To reinforce this statement Mr. Irwin quotes the evidence of numerous officers of the British and United States armies; for example Brigadier General Mitchell of the United States Army, who says that “a few planes could visit New York as the central point of a territory 100 miles square every eight days and drop enough gas to keep the entire sea inundated. . . . Two hundred tons of phosgene gas could he laid every eight days and would be enough to kill every inhabitant.” Captain Brander, chief of Research of the Chemical Warfare Service, declares that “one plane carrying two tons of the liquid (a certain gas generating compound) could cover an area of 100 feet wide and seven miles long, and could deposit enough material to kill every man in that area by action on his skin.” Major General E. D. Swinton of the British Army says that “when you speak of gas you must remember that you are discussing a weapon which must be considered from the wholesale point of view and if you use it—and I do not know of any reason why you should not—you may kill hundreds of thousands of men or at any rate disable them.”
Here are further points that pin down the fact that chemical science has added incredible horrors to war. T. M. Knappen says:
“It has been calculated by the Chemical Warfare Service that 200 tons of the newer military gases would destroy or paralyze for a time all human and animal life on Manhattan Island. . . . The entire volume of life of a nation would be in danger literally of annihilation. . . . Nations would not triumph over each other but would die together.”
Captain Glasson, a French army officer, writes:
“It is against the urban agglomerations that the belligerents will be infuriated, because the large towns are the nerve centers of nations and because all sorts of industries indispensable for the working of national economy are located there. The women, old people and children will be attacked because they will be employed in the work of producing war materials. Even if they fled or were free, the most remote corners of the country would not be sheltered from destruction by the enemy.”
General Fonville, another French expert, says:
“We must resign ourselves to the fact that it is no use to veil one’s face. . . . We can never deny the place that gas has conquered in the arsenal of war. On the contrary, its importance will increase and if we consider the development that aviation will make and then reflect on the combining of these two engines of war, we can imagine fleets of airplanes charged with heavy cases of gas. . . . Towns and villages behind the lines will see poisoned clouds falling on them from the sky. Is this romance or imagination? Not so. Anticipation, no more; and so possible that one might almost call it imminent.”
Perhaps the most graphic picture of the possibilities of new warfare was given in The Manchester Guardian of December 18, 1923:
“The victory in this (the next) war will depend largely upon the destruction of helpless non-combatants far in the rear of the fighting lines and this destruction will be chiefly brought by airplanes. Poisons, including both gases and death-dealing germs, will be scattered over the cities. Incendiary bombs will start fires and explosive bombs will destroy factories and lines of communication along with the civil population. . . There is scarcely a city in America which could not be destroyed, together with every living person therein, say, within three days of the declaration of war between America and such a country as Japan on the Asiatic side or a new group, such as Russia, Germany and Bulgaria, from the European side. . . An airship leaving Europe could be attacking New York in less than forty hours from the time of her departure. . . . Assuming that the machine will be carried to within 200 miles of its objective, either by a floating aircraft carrier or an airship, it could carry two bombs of 2,000 pounds each Any such bomb could not only completely destroy the Woolworth Building, if dropped upon it, but would probably shatter any other building within a radius of 200 yards from the point where it had been dropped “
It will be said that it is impossible that men should think seriously of destroying each other by barbarous means. Quite recently, however the question was answered in the Frankfurter Zeitung, in an article by Dr. Parseval, published on January 26, 1924, in which he said:
“The airplanes will have a double task: to fight the enemy of the front and the rear. The latter part, which is very important, may be hindered by the restrictions imposed on the airplanes because of the no-combatants. . . . Happily, a more modern notion allows that the enemy’s country as a whole, with all its resources, must be considered as taking part in the war, consequently his adversary may destroy everything.”
How can we prevent the danger which threatens the civil population? The reply that immediately suggests itself is undoubtedly that of prohibiting by international conventions all air attacks on the civil population In spite of the fact that the violation of international conventions seems to be one of the characteristic traits of our present humanity, and in spite of Dr. Parseval’s disconcerting article, we are forced to confess that there seems to be at the present time no other preventive means, so that we must resign ourselves to the employment of international conventions with all the attendant difficulties of securing enforcement. Subterfuges that enable a belligerent to evade observance of international agreements are unhappily too frequent. Insufficiently clear or precise, they give to the contracting parties the possibility of violating the terms under the pretense of an elastic and often selfish interpretation. If the convention or agreement concerns an insignificant question, the misfortune is not great and can be repaired, but in the case of aerial, chemical or other forms of warfare thousands of innocent human beings are in danger of death.
Two treaties of The Hague sought to regulate air bombardment before the World War. The first, that of July 29, 1899, formally prohibited the throwing of explosives from balloons and the employment of projectiles destined only to diffuse asphyxiating gas. The treaty of 1899 was signed by all the participants in the World War. In 1907 the prohibition of aerial war was renewed but the fate of that treaty was quite changed. Aviation was beginning to advance. In 1899 only inoffensive spherical balloons were being used and they were almost useless in war. It was not difficult to agree on that point. In 1907 the usefulness of airplanes was already understood and a large number of countries considered it impossible to do without military aviation. Several countries, including France, Germany and Russia, voted against the Declaration of 1907; other countries refused to ratify it and only two great powers, Great Britain and the United States signed the treaty. It is not surprising, then, that the Declaration of 1907 failed in its purpose during the World War. Indeed, this declaration required that all the belligerents, without exception, must be parties to the treaty if it were to be valid. All the clauses of the Declaration of 1907 were therefor useless, although the Treaty of 1899 remained in force. As to the forbidding of war with gas, is should be remembered that this was provided for in the Treaty of 1899. which was signed by all belligerents, whereas the Declaration of 1907 ignored the question.
The countries that refused to sign the Declaration of 1907 or to ratify the treaty were not deceived as to the usefulness of military aviation The part played by the flying troops was important during the last war; in future wars it will, as we have seen, be greater still. Even if the writers who discuss the subject are gloomy in their forebodings, there is no doubt that the physical sufferings of the civil population under the new conditions of warfare will be far more serious than they have ever been in the past and it will be aircraft and gas that will cause their suffering
Public opinion has been deeply moved by this terrible prospect and the representatives of the governments of a number of countries have again assembled to decide the question of bombarding towns. After the conference at Washington, a body called the Commission of Jurists was appointed to examine the question of the employment of new engines of war The commission met at The Hague in 1922-23. Two plans were presented to the air subcommission relating to air-war-one by the United States the other by Great Britain, the latter being supported by France. The United States proposed that towns situated outside the “zone of combat” should not be bombarded, in order to spare the civilians the horrors of the air-war (Article 33, Chapter VIII). The bombarding of the enemy’s forces, military establishments, lines of communication and so forth were to be allowed. The French delegate in criticizing the American proposal remarked that it was impossible to state precisely what was meant by “zone of combat,” nor could the delegation of the United States supply a satisfactory and specific definition of the term. The British plan proceeded from quite another principle; that is, that air bombarding was legitimate only when directed toward a military object. Thus, the effort to regulate aerial warfare was made to hinge upon a definition of one or other of two terms—“zone of combat” and “military object.”
On the Commission of Jurists each plan had its partisans. The countries wishing to restrain the air fighting as much as possible, that is, Japan, Italy and Holland, sided with the United States. On the other hand, France, as we have already seen, supported the British proposal.
A compromise was necessary to bring about an agreement, and this was reached by the adoption of both the principles indicated by the terms “zone of combat” and “military object.” The former is incorporated in Paragraphs 3 and 4 of Article 24 of the definite plan, accepted by all parties. Paragraph 3 forbids bombarding of towns which are not in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of the land forces. Paragraph 4 allows such bombarding when the town lies in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of the land forces, provided that there is sufficient reason to suppose that the military concentration is important enough to justify the bombardment, at the same time considering the danger incurred by the civil population. The principle of the “military object” is shown in Paragraph 1, which provides that air bombarding is legitimate only when directed against a military object. Paragraph 2 enumerates these objects.
The scheme as it left the hand of the Commission of Jurists cannot be considered satisfactory for the security of the civil population. The greatest objection to the first scheme of the United States, that is, the impossibility of defining the “zone of combat,” is repeated in the definite plan. Further, it is questionable if the term “military object” can be clearly defined, even when different military objects such as military forces, works, depots and establishments are enumerated. When the French delegate was asked to define precisely what was a “military object,” he explained that it was one the total or partial destruction of which would hinder the enemy in the pursuit of the war. Paragraph 1 of Article 24 in the definite plan defines a “military object” as one “whose total or partial destruction will give the aggressor a decided military advantage,” but the notion of an “advantage” is extremely elastic and it is to be feared that with such a vague definition the aggressor might be tempted to bombard the military works of a town, no matter how slight the “advantage” might be. Instead of estimating the “advantage” by the loss of life among the civil population, he would consider the cost of the ammunition that the bombardment required, being always able to fall back upon the excuse made possible by the expression “decided military advantage.” The good faith of the belligerent might be at fault; he might have false information about the importance of the military works in a town bombarded or about the military forces therein or about any other relevant matter.
Paragraph 2 of Article 24 speaks of works for the manufacture of military implements. This also is a very vague expression. A plant can manufacture colors for domestic use that may at the same time serve for gas-war. The motors that are produced for a private automobile can serve perfectly well for military airplanes. A cloth factory can at the same time make fine cloth for civilian attire and fabrics to clothe troops. Lodz, in Poland, for example, is just such a local center. How could the enemy know if the factories which in time of peace produce cloth for ordinary use, do not, in time of war, make military uniforms? Numerous examples of the same kind can be quoted. Paragraph 2 speaks of lines of communication or transport used for military purposes. Yet a railway of great importance may not only be used for military purposes but also for civil purposes. The military point of view, it may be said, is more important in time of war than the civil but in modern war the two are intimately related and if there be rivalry between the two, and one attributes more importance to the military standpoint in time of war, there is the risk of completely ignoring the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. If we examine the other paragraphs of Article 24, we get the same result. For instance, Paragraph 4 allows the bombardment of towns in the immediate vicinity of the battle front. But when can a town be considered to be in the “immediate vicinity”? In fact we come back to the expression “zone of combat” in the original plan put forward by the United States. Neither term is sufficiently clear and leaves the belligerents to judge for themselves.
The impression one receives in studying the plan of the Commission of Jurists is that the security of the civil population is far from being assured by the provisions it contains. Why is the result so poor? Because two contradictory aims were pursued—to derive as much profit as possible from the aerial warfare and at the same time to shelter the civil population from its risks and dangers. Only severely restrictive measures, however, can guarantee the security of the civil population. Such measures were proposed by the Dutch delegation by adding to Article 33 of the original American plan which prohibited the bombardment of towns outside the theater of war, the words, “even if in these localities military objects are to be found.” If it is not possible to return to the Declaration of The Hague of 1907, which prohibited all air war even against combatants, we must at least have the unqualified prohibition of the bombardment of towns. In other words, military airplanes should have the same character as the tank; they should be employed only on the battlefield between the combatants. Yet, even if military aviation is limited to the theater of war, abuses on the part of the belligerents will not be found wanting. The elastic expression “theater of war” will no doubt allow them to bombard certain localities and towns which should be spared because of their distance.
However, if a certain number of towns and other centers of population are victims of the wide interpretation of the expression “theater of war” or any other similar expression, yet all the rest of the territory will be spared the horrors of bombardment from the air. Although, according to the plan of the Commission of Jurists, all towns, even the most distant, may be bombarded if they contain military objects, Article 33 of the original proposals made by the United States, amended by the Dutch proposal, would protect almost all the civil population from air bombardment, exposing only a limited number; that is, the population of towns and places near the front, or near enough to be at the mercy of a wide interpretation of the expression “theater of war.”
League to Study Americans’ Arms Limitation Views
Baltimore Sun, 18 June, 1924.—Geneva, June 17.—Official discussion of control and reduction of armaments suddenly took on an American angle here today when the Council of the League of Nations, in private session, voted to distribute to all the governments represented in the council a report on limitation of armaments being prepared by two American experts—Professor J. T. Shotwell, of Columbia, and General Tasker H. Bliss.
Sir Eric Drummond, secretary-general of the league, specified the council that this report, which he considered a serious and probably exceedingly useful study of the armaments problem, would soon reach President Benes of the League of Nations Council. He proposed its immediate circulation as an official document and his recommendation was unanimously approved.
The council in public session took steps which are considered to have as their ultimate goal the taking over of the control of the military situation in Germany from the Interallied Mission.
Following the announcement of Premier Herriot, of France, that he was determined to utilize the League of Nations in assuring the peace of Europe, the greatest importance was given the public statement made by Henri de Jouvenel, representing France on the council, when he approved on behalf of his nation a British proposal for an immediate inquiry into the responsibility of the council for the military of the Central European states, as outlined in the various treaties.
M. de Jouvenel made it clear that, although the council was officially discussing its military responsibilities toward Bulgaria, Austria and Hungary, its action paved the way for similar treatment of Germany.
France, said M. Jouvenel, deemed the council’s investigation exceedingly opportune, for it was obvious that the powers must look forward to the time when the interallied control was passed to the league.
On his motion two resolutions were adopted. One of these called for an appointment of a committee of jurists to interpret Paragraph 3, Article 4, of the league’s covenant, which declares that any member of the league not represented in the council shall he invited to send a representative to sit as a member of any council meeting during the consideration of matters especially affecting its interests.
Several of the slates, including Rumania and Czecho-Slovakia, have already requested the right to be represented when the council discusses the military control of the former enemy powers, viewing this qustion of far-reaching importance as involving the future peace of Europe. The council wishes to move slowly and cautiously and have expert advice concerning the rights of members under the covenant.
The second resolution asks the permanent league Advisory Commission on Armaments to draw up a technical plan for control, which the council could adopt when the proper time arrives. Article 213 of the Treaty of Versailles, which is duplicated in articles in the other peace treaties, declares Germany undertakes to submit to any investigation which the Council of the League of Nations, acting, if need be, by majority vote, may consider necessary.
Lord Parmoor, of Great Britain, said his nation deemed the questions involved to be of immediate urgency. He pointed out that the interallied control set up under the treaty was still operative hut matters had advanced so far that Great Britain believed the time had come to examine the situation which would arise when such control was finally abandoned.
Great Britain, he added, felt full confidence in the ability of the council successfully to assume its responsibility to carry out investigations. He remarked that he understood that the other Allies favored the investigations suggested.
The impression exists at Geneva that the questions pending between the Allies and Germany will be settled rapidly, such solution being taken to mean without doubt Germany’s early entrance into the league. Before leaving Geneva for Berlin, Dr. Heinrich Brauns, the German Labor Minister, who came here for the International Labor Bureau meeting, informally discussed the situation with Secretary Drummond.
The question of approving Great Britain’s mandate for Mesopotamia was postponed by the council until the September session. Great Britain drafted her mandatory obligations in the bilateral treaty, which King Feisel’s Parliament recently approved after a bitter struggle, but the council desires time to study its contents.
The council authorized a new investigation of the quantities of opium and cocaine necessary for the world’s medical and scientific needs, which the United States believes should be the basis of the proposed opium convention. The experts will apply to hospitals and life insurance companies for information.
The council asked the Permanent Court of International Justice to give a decision on the Albanian-Jugo-Slavian frontier dispute, referred to the league by the Council of Ambassadors as a matter possibly endangering peace.
Fascinating Possibilities of Fused Quartz
Literary Digest, 24 May, 1924.—Cartoonists are now amusing themselves with the possibilities of shooting light around a corner, a feat made possible by bent rods of fused quartz. As shown in the accompanying picture, a bent rod of quartz will carry the rays from an ordinary flash light held under a table up around the edge of the table and down upon a newspaper so that it can be easily read. The humorous possibilities of shooting light here and there into unexpected places by means of a bent quartz tube are being fully explored and exploited by the artists of the comic page The important thing about fused quartz, however, is its scientific value It is something that scientists have been at work upon for years. Small pieces have been melted before at a cost that made them worth more than gold, but too small to be of general commercial use. Large scale production of fused quartz is now possible, we are told by the Boston correspondent of the New York Times, describing a demonstration made on April 28 last to press representatives in the Lynn works of the General Electric Company Quartz, not long ago described in school-books as infusible, was successfully melted several decades since and is now used in certain delicate scientific apparatus; but the difficulty of preparing it and the small scale on which it has been available have made it very costly and nearly unattainable for most purposes. Now we are told it can be turned out in such masses as to be available for Window-glass, optical lenses and all sorts of articles for which ordinary glass has hitherto been depended upon Its qualities make it far more valuable than glass for many uses It is the most transparent solid that man has ever known. In appearance we are told, it is like ordinary window-glass but it is far more transparent and it is said to have qualities which will make it the world’s Standard of length and pitch, replacing the metals now in use. We read:
“Because of its extraordinarily slight expansion and contraction, it will be available for perfect thermometer readings, accurate telescope lenses and a large number of uses.
“A meter of fused quartz rod transmits ninety-two per cent of the light passed through one end. The best optical glass transmits sixty-five per cent and ordinary glass transmits thirty-five per cent
“Light from a match or pocket flash lamp applied at one end of a quartz rod twenty-five feet long passes through the tube without any appreciable loss of illumination. In fact, the light is transmitted through the quartz tube even when the tube is bent or twisted. As a rubber hose imprisons water, the quartz imprisons light which passes through its interior and is expelled at the other end, no matter how long the tube”
The discovery of the process of making clear fused quartz is credited to Edward R. Berry, assistant director of the Thomson Research Laboratory of the General Electric Company, who has been at work on the problem for nearly ten years, with the assistance of L. B. Miller, P. K. Devers and and Wallace Wright. The fused quartz is made possible by especially constructed electric furnaces operating at times in a vacuum and again under a gas pressure of 1,000,000 pounds. To quote further:
“Tubes of fused quartz can he worked more easily than glass and can be twisted or molded into any shape. The ease with which curved rods can be made and the fact that the material is so remarkably transparent to ultra-violet rays had led to the belief that heat rays can be transmitted to ordinarily inaccessible cavities in the body which have hitherto been inaccessible to them.
“It has been suggested that diseased areas of the throat, nose cavity and ears can thus he exposed to the action of the ultra-violet and infra-red rays.
“Manufactured from a fine quality of rock crystals, imported from Brazil and Madagascar, the fused quartz can be obtained in unlimited quantity, in any part of the world if necessary. Its development has now reached the stage where it is said to be possible to make it commercially and in quantity at a price far below that of the fused quartz formerly turned out by hand in minute quantities. The latter, indeed, has been worth several times the price of gold.
“Visitors at the laboratory today saw a thousand times more fused quartz than exists anywhere else in the world. They saw the electric crucible which turns out the finished product in about eighteen minutes, an achievement when it is considered that fusing steel takes days.
“One possible use of the fused quartz is in making window glass for sun rooms. As window glass transmits only the heat rays of the sun and the quarts glass transmits the ultra-violet rays as well, it is believed that quartz windows for hospitals or sanitariums will have the same effect as sunlight.
“Unlike ordinary glass, which cracks under a sudden change in temperature, quarts can be welded without such a risk. A tuning fork from the material vibrated several minutes and it is said to give out a note which does not change in pitch, regardless of temperature.
“Among the half-dozen furnaces used to make the fuse quartz is the largest electric vacuum furnace in the world. The furnace is like a vat, four feet in diameter, in which the quartz crystals are melted under pressure. There is now in the course of construction an electric furnace which will exert a pressure of 3,000 pounds to the square inch, substantially a bomb of such extraordinary pressure that its force, if unloosed, would wreak havoc.
“According to Mr. Berry and his associates, fused quartz is particularly applicable to lenses for astronomical and motion picture purposes. Chemists are reported to be impressed with the use of the new material for chemical apparatus.
“The intense heat behind motion-picture projector lenses cause them to crack almost the first time they are put into use but they are kept in the machine until a part drops out. By means of the fused quarts lens, scientists are of the opinion that breakage will he virtually an exception rather than the rule.
” ’Fused quartz opens up fascinating possibilities,’ declared Mr. Berry. ‘I believe the work has now reached the stage where the material can be turned out cheaply in quantity production.’
“Although it has been known for 100 years that quartz has remarkable properties, it was not until twenty years ago that intensive work was begun with it. It was at about that time that interest was attracted to its use through the placing on the market of the so-called quartz lamp. For nearly ten years Mr. Berry, in the face of many difficulties and discouragements, kept at his task until he was able to bring the development of fused quartz to the point where a public announcement might be made.”
CURRENT NAVAL AND PROFESSIONAL PAPERS
“Leadership.”—By Brigadier General Harry A. Smith, U. S. A. Infantry Journal, June, 1924.
“Light Airplanes—How Light arc They.”—Charles I. Stanton, U. S. Air Service, June, 1924.
“Aerial Bombing.”—Major A. H. Hobley and H. B. Inglis, Mechanical Engineering, June, 1924.
“Fluid Friction and Heat Transference.”—By Thomas B. Morley, D.Sc., M.I. Mech.E., The Engineer, 30 May, 1924.
Interesting articles on the following subjects appear in the Annual Number of the Shipbuilder, May, 1924:
“Warship Design.”
“Merchant Shipbuilding and Sea Transport.”
“Stability and Rolling.”
“Strength of Ships.”
“Steering of Ships.”
“Watertight Subdivisions.”
“Life saving Appliances.”
“Resistance and Propulsion.”
“Fuels.”
“Marine Steam Engines.”
“Marine Diesel Engines.”