TO DENY A SHIP A BASE would be to deny its existence. It would soon exhaust its fuel and become immobile. The crew would die of starvation or thirst. Even if means were improvised to supply fuel and food at sea, the ship could operate only at constantly reduced efficiency through fouling of her bottom and deterioration of hull and machinery. In time she would be stranded or sunk.
Thus a navy of ships without bases would soon become impotent. It would count for nothing against an opposing fleet with bases at its disposal. These elementary facts are too often overlooked and we are prone to assume that merely well- manned and efficient ships (including aircraft) constitute a navy. Only the ships with bases at their disposal are the ships that count. Since bases multiply the number and power of usable ships, in many respects, which will be considered in more detail later, they are genuine equivalents of ships. Aside from personnel the main components of a navy are ships and bases.
Bases and battles.—At the conclusion of the great Battle of Jutland, the availability and power of both fleets in the immediate future were almost entirely matters of ship rescue, resupply, and repair. Some ships were at the bottom and no longer counted; others, such as the battle cruiser Lutzow and cruiser Warrior, vainly endeavored to reach a base before sinking. With a nearer base they would have been saved to count in future operations. Still other ships, while badly damaged, succeeded in gaining the security and succor of their bases and therefore did count in the future. Among these latter were such important units as the battleships Marlborough, War spite, and Ostfriesland, and the battle cruiser Seydlitz, which was in so critical a condition from a damaged bow that she had to be docked immediately, stern first. A greater number of cruisers and destroyers were similarly rescued only through the good fortune of near-by bases.
The return to port was marked by Trojan efforts to restore fleet readiness for battle. Besides the severely damaged ships many others required repairs of minor injuries before they could again be in prime condition to meet a hostile fleet. Employing the vast facilities at Wilhelmshaven, Hamburg, and Kiel, the German fleet was not ready for battle until mid- August, or two and a half months after Jutland and even then the battle cruisers Seydlitz and Derflinger had to be excepted from readiness.
The British had correspondingly extensive facilities at numerous bases so that the Grand Fleet was able to match the Germans in point of readiness after Jutland. Besides vast repair work, the British were faced with the urgent need of making alterations to prevent magazine explosions from shells bursting within turrets, and to correct other important defects brought out by battle experience. It is obvious that had either fleet lacked such superb assets for restoration, many of its ships would have counted for little in the succeeding operations ushered in by Admiral Scheer’s major sortie on August 18.
The rescue and repair of ships are two of the functions of bases, intimately affecting the power of the fleet, which are strikingly illustrated by the Jutland campaign. There is yet another. Admiral Jellicoe has recorded that his “Fleet arrived at its bases on June 2, fuelled, and was reported ready for sea at four hours’ notice at 9:45 p.m. on that date.” While doubtless applying only to ships remaining in a reasonable state of repair, this extraordinary feat of resupply, which presumably included ammunition and personnel replacements, had to depend upon base facilities. Without them the fleet would have been virtually demobilized and completely ineffective for a long period of time. Here again bases meant ships that counted. They were genuine equivalents of ships.
It would be a simple matter to cull from naval history many other convincing examples of the outstanding importance of bases after battle and of the way in which bases mean ships in those circumstances. The campaign about Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War is a recent instance. Jutland, however, is sufficiently convincing to serve our purpose and modern enough to satisfy the most up-to-date minded.
Before battle, bases are in some respects even more important than afterwards. While the elements of rescue and emergency repair on a great scale only become acute subsequent to major action, the preliminaries to such an occasion require the constant and immediate readiness of as many units as possible. The concentration of superior force at the critical time and point—that cardinal principle upon which all naval success depends—is not merely a matter of tactics and strategy; it is also a question of bases with their equipment.
With all the facilities available to the Grand Fleet during the World War, Admiral Jellicoe states that “We usually had at least two battleships, one or two light cruisers, six destroyers, one or two cruisers, and perhaps one battle cruiser under refit, in addition to any other vessels that might be temporarily disabled.” These normal reductions from paper strength amounted to nearly 15 per cent of the British fleet in the North Sea, operating from home bases in near-by waters. With less capable base facilities, this percentage of noneffective strength would obviously have been higher, as would also have been the case had the operations been conducted at a greater distance from the bases.
The Germans, on the other hand, could plan a sortie at a time when none of their ships would be refitting. On the selected occasion they could count on meeting their opponent with the full strength of ships which their superb bases made available to them.
The number and power of the ships which the bases can maintain in operation or in readiness is a major element in the principle of concentration. Inevitably, poorly equipped bases will reduce the power which can be applied at the critical time and place. Good facilities can be directly transformed into terms of power when and where needed most. At the critical time and place, regardless of tactical and strategic skill, absent ships and those so badly served by bases as to be in a poor state of supply or repair obviously will count for little.
As a final relationship between bases and battles, we should mention the power represented by bases themselves, which may be sufficiently formidable virtually to forbid a comparatively large adjacent area to hostile forces. As Admiral Jellicoe states: “No large ship could cruise constantly in the vicinity of enemy bases without the certainty that she would fall an early victim to the attacks of submarines,” or destroyers. These, with corresponding dangers from aircraft, mines, and guns, are sufficient to make bases count as an important substitute for large ships over a considerable extent of water, which may well be in a location of great strategic value. Gibraltar is an excellent example of this.
Location of bases.—In establishing the number and power of the ships which may count effectively during war operations, few factors equal in importance the position of naval bases. Mere distance from a theater of activity is one vital aspect of this question; position relative to hostile bases, navigational channels, trade routes, etc., is another.
The North Sea campaign in the late war well illustrates this latter phase. It is truly astonishing that when war broke in 1914 the Grand Fleet, operating from home ports, had no prepared base in the immediately wanted North Sea locations. For centuries the great dockyards in and near the Channel had well served the purposes of the Royal Navy, and now continued to care for the “Channel Fleet” in its mission of watching that vital area. But in addition German escape “north- about” to the open sea communications of the Allies had to be guarded against. Control of the North Sea by the Grand Fleet was, therefore, necessary, and could be accomplished only from east coast bases, of which there were none, in the fleet sense.
Thus the main British fleet—the force especially matched against the German High Seas Fleet—began the greatest war in history without bases where they were most urgently needed, and this despite the fact that the operations were conducted from the home coast of the most highly industrialized and developed country on earth.
The advent of the submarine and large- scale mining persuaded the Admiralty to choose Scapa Flow, the most northerly port available, as the initial Grand Fleet base. The complete absence at Scapa Flow of defenses against attacks by destroyers and submarines on the fleet at anchor, led to a temporary shift of base to Loch Ewe (north coast of Scotland) and subsequently even to Lough Swilly in North Ireland. Even here the menace was serious, as evidenced by the loss of the battleship Audacious.
But such northerly and westerly positions failed to satisfy the cardinal conditions of the campaign. The great cross-channel movement of troops and supplies to France could not be adequately supported by the Grand Fleet. The east coast could not be duly defended against raids or invasion. Battleships and cruisers, during their frequent “sweeps” into the North Sea in accordance with the “watch-keeping” policy, could not be sufficiently well protected against submarines by destroyer screens. The distances to be steamed forced the destroyers to return to base constantly, and the heavy ships were confronted with the necessity of returning with them or of remaining at sea without screens.
These considerations forced the use of Cromarty and Rosyth as cruiser and destroyer bases. Near the end of 1915 the disadvantages of Scapa Flow, from its position so far north, led to the decision to base the main fleet at Rosyth as soon as a great project for its defense against submarine attack could be completed. The defensive works were not finished until July, 1917, nearly three years after war began. During this long period, the Grand Fleet was denied the great advantage of a base from which its ships could have counted most against the enemy. Otherwise the opportunities would have been greater to prevent German raids on the east coast or to bring on a fleet action in consequence of them, and the Battle of Jutland might well have been a different story, especially as it was influenced by the bunkers of British destroyers depleted from the long distances they had to cover.
When we turn from the comparatively miniature area of the North Sea, which has illustrated so clearly the principles involved, to the vast expanses of ocean with which the American Navy is more accustomed to deal, it is rather appalling to think of our necessities and deficiencies of bases.
It has long been recognized, for example, that a fleet bent on attacking us from Europe would necessarily have to establish a base on this side of the Atlantic—most probably in the Caribbean. Automatically this would draw our own fleet to that region, not only to defend the Panama Canal but also the coastal commerce and the territory of the United States itself. A position at or near Puerto Rico would be urgently called for, yet while we have owned this position for a generation no fleet base has even been started there.
Under present conditions, with our fleet compelled to operate in the Puerto Rico vicinity, the nearest facilities for capital ships would be at Colon and Norfolk, more than a thousand miles away. At such a distance from main bases the power of the fleet would be substantially reduced, probably as much as 30 per cent. With fifteen battleships in the fleet we would have to count on four or five of them normally being absent during extended operations.
Since the construction of a main base near Puerto Rico, at an approximate cost of one battleship, would automatically increase the constant power of the fleet in that vitally strategic area by at least two battleships plus innumerable smaller vessels and aircraft, the wisdom of such a course is apparent. This is a clear case whereby the number and strength of ships available for the defense of the great canal and our coastal interests at home may be multiplied by building a northeast Caribbean base. The fleet would count for much more in that area through the construction of a base there than through spending the same money for additional ships.
Turning to the Pacific, with its vast distances, our deficiency of bases is even more striking. A great expansion of the modest facilities of Oahu is urgently called for, if our fleet is to be capable of maintaining a reasonable proportion of its theoretical fighting power in that highly strategic vicinity.
But Oahu, more than 2,000 miles from the home coast, is only one-third of the way to the China Sea. For the protection of our extensive interests in the Orient a fleet base there is indispensable, yet in the face of this acute need the moderate beginnings of a base which we had in 1922 have since steadily diminished through the restrictions of the Washington naval treaty. That treaty was reasonably equitable in the limitations placed upon the three fleets, but it was unreasonably inequitable in its limitations of total sea power, since only the United States suffered any substantially effective restrictions on oriental bases. This inequity is all the more arresting when we consider that no corresponding restrictions were placed upon bases in the Atlantic where in principle our situation was much worse than that upon which the Japanese based their contentions respecting the Orient.
Even under the assumption of an adequate base at Oahu, the American fleet could scarcely operate in Philippine or Chinese waters at 50 per cent of its theoretical strength. Thus the measure of our sea power in the Orient today is about half, probably much less than half, of the strength of our fleet. The main remedy does not lie in building more ships. That would serve still further to unbalance our sea power in the Far East, since the greater the number of ships we have, the greater will be our embarrassment in keeping them in trim without the necessary facilities. The best and by far the most economical rectification of our deficient sea power there lies in building a fleet base. We could multiply ship power much faster through a new base than through new ships.
There is, of course, every sound reason for building up our fleet to treaty strength, but we should clearly recognize the fundamental relationship between bases and ships which will prevent our having treaty proportions of strength in sea power until we possess bases comparable to those of the other maritime nations. Their home bases are ample. Our strength in home waters requires a main base in the northeast Caribbean and at Oahu if we are to match their strength at home. American power in the Orient urgently requires a fleet base there before we can equal British and Japanese strength in those waters.
Bases and trade.—So far we have considered bases principally from the standpoint of their utility in relation to the main fleet. Such operations are admittedly important, but we are inclined to overestimate this importance and to overlook the fact that general control of sea communications is the cardinal object of naval warfare. A whole war may be fought without a major action while meantime the command of ocean communications may be imperative. Fleet battles and the operations pertaining thereto are necessarily incidental to this main objective.
While the two opposing fleets watched and fought each other in the North Sea during the late war, with but a single indecisive fleet battle, a world-wide contest was waged by lighter forces to the same general end of control over ocean trade routes. In this, bases played a dominant r61e.
From the outset the British relied upon two principal methods for the protection of allied commerce against German raiders. In the first place cruiser squadrons were employed “to search for the enemy according to information of, or in anticipation of, his movements” (Richmond). It was possible to cover all the important sea lanes and focal areas in this way with comparatively few ships because Britain was “provided with a chain of accessible and defensible bases in almost every sea” (Fayle).
The second fundamental method of the British was to capture German colonies, in order to deny bases to commerce raiders. As early as August 6, 1914, British colonial governments were invited to send expeditions against New Guinea and Samoa. The mother country undertook similar operations in East and West Africa. As soon as Japan entered the war she was encouraged to capture Tsingtao and to control the Caroline and Marshall Islands.
Thus, early in the war the German raiders were denied all bases. Material upkeep, together with fuel and other supplies, soon became acute problems for them. Fayle considers that
during the most active periods of their career, at least half the time was spent by them either actually in coaling, or in steaming to and from the rendezvous at which supply ships were to be met or the transfer of fuel effected.
The same authority points to other severe handicaps imposed on the raiders from want of bases. They dared not cruise where British patrols were likely to be met, nor to devote much attention to faster liners, because every use of high speed, either for pursuit or escape would unduly deplete their precious fuel supply. Damage from hostile gunfire or other causes might be impossible to repair. Steady depreciation of machinery and fouling of bottoms meant constantly increasing fuel consumption.
Under such conditions it is very questionable whether the Germans could have doubled the effectiveness of their commerce war by doubling the number of ships so engaged. This result, however, would undoubtedly have been accomplished without any increase in the number of ships, merely by providing one or more bases suitably located.
Admiral Richmond, R.N., in his excellent book National Policy and Naval Strength, expresses the opinion that “Luck and the lack on the part of the enemy of well-placed and provided bases were the principal reasons for the disappearance of the first (German) commerce raiders.” Instead of “luck” the present writer would substitute “British bases” as one of the two “principal reasons” for this result.
Considering the immense extent of ocean and the great volume of trade to be guarded, the number of British cruisers employed seems very small, but their effective strength and number were very largely increased by the superb system of naval bases at their command. Herein lies the secret of their success, especially when opposed by forces operating without bases. The ships with bases are the ships that count.
The same principles were well illustrated also by the German submarine campaign, which was in reality but another phase of the general attack on the sea communications of the Allies. Only 15 or 20 submarines could be kept operating in the critical area at the English Channel approaches, even though more than 100 submarines were theoretically available. Could the Germans have based this force on Brest or Queenstown, instead of the comparatively distant German bases, its effectiveness would have doubled without the addition of a single U-boat.
But it was the American anti-submarine forces which used Brest and Queenstown, besides many other ports close to the operating ground of the German submarines. Moreover, the German routes to and from their bases were lined with ports from which British and French effort was directed against them.
What would the American naval effort in the World War have amounted to had we been denied over-sea bases? Obviously, nothing. Except for stops at Bermuda or the Azores most of our smaller vessels could not even have reached the other side. Based only on the home coast our battleships would have been forced to return almost immediately after arrival in European waters. Without bases available to us there, however numerous and strong at home, our ships would have counted for little in the effort to keep the sea communications open.
American naval officers should be the last to overlook this elementary fact, and the first to recognize the deplorable deficiency in American over-sea bases, which makes it extremely difficult for us to defend American over-sea trade, however strong the navy which is placed in our hands.
The need of over-seas bases has been driven home to us by the experience of every war in which we have engaged. In the Revolution, Paul Jones was able to operate in Europe only because of the availability of bases in France. In 1799- 1801 our extensive operations in the Caribbean had to be based largely on British-colonial ports. To protect American commerce against the Barbary pirates, a temporary Mediterranean base was indispensable. During the War of 1812, Porter’s success in the South Pacific depended upon his use of the Marquesas Islands and Spanish ports as bases. His final failure was principally due to the want of an adequate base. In the Mexican War, the capture of Vera Cruz was a necessary prelude to decisive success afloat.
The experience of the Civil War emphasized the need of outlying naval bases near our own coast. Without them we had found it extremely difficult to protect American commerce and to enforce a blockade of the Confederacy. It was for these reasons that President Grant was so earnest in his subsequent efforts to acquire American bases in Santo Domingo and St. Thomas. Again in the Spanish- American War we felt a similar need very acutely.
There is little excuse for overlooking these plain lessons from our experience, especially since they are amply supported by the teachings of Mahan. His writings are filled with the emphasis upon the value of bases in all of the many naval wars which he has taken such pains to analyze. In no phase of naval operations was Mahan more insistent upon the need of bases than in commerce protection, or raiding.
Referring to commerce raiding he says, “Such a war . . . cannot stand alone; . . . insubstantial and evanescent in itself, it cannot reach far from its base.” With respect to commerce protection he maintains that
If the war . . . extends to distant parts of the globe, there will be needed in each of those distant regions secure ports for the shipping, to serve as secondary, or contingent, bases of the local war. Between these secondary and the principal, or home, bases there must be reasonably secure communication which will depend upon military control of the intervening sea exercised by the navy, . . . the communications will doubtless be strengthened by the military holding of good harbors properly spaced . . . along the routes. . . . Stations of this kind have always been necessary, but are doubly so now, as fuel needs renewing more frequently than did the provisions and supplies in former days.
Again Mahan says
A perfect line of communications required . . . several such harbors, properly spaced, adequately defended, and with abundant supplies, such as England in the present day holds on some of her main commercial routes, acquisitions of her past wars.
This gives to England a great advantage both in the protection of her own commerce and in raiding enemy trade. In our case, as Mahan points out, “The Republic has no ports very near the great centers of trade abroad. Her geographical position is therefore singularly disadvantageous for carrying on successful commerce destroying.” For precisely the same reason the defense of our over-sea commerce is particularly difficult.
Along our great trade route to Europe we have no outlying base. Even the suitable positions near our coast are in foreign hands. For the protection of the large United States trade with Brazil and Argentina we have no position beyond Puerto Rico, and even that remains undeveloped as a naval base. Our third main commercial lane runs to the Orient where the treaty restrictions regarding bases place us under a serious handicap compared with other powers.
For the protection of commerce in the China Sea, British cruisers can base on Singapore and Japanese cruisers on their home ports, while American cruisers cannot count on any base nearer than Pearl Harbor. Taking the treaty allowances of 8-inch-gun cruisers and calculating the number of units which each nation can maintain constantly in the China Sea from these bases, we find that the relative strength is in the proportion of 37 for Great Britain, 25 for Japan, and only 18 for the United States. Where is the 10:10:7 ratio of strength? For us it has vanished; because of a deficiency of bases, not ships. The ships with bases are the ships that count. Bases make ships.
If the American navy is to fulfill its principal mission of defending the economic life of the country, it cannot continue to think and plan almost exclusively in terms of ships. The importance of bases, and with them obviously our Marine Corps, greatly need magnification in our vision.
Bases and national policy.—The development of the United States has already outrun historical precedent. But so far it has been principally internal and our virility, resources, and world-insular position all point to something much greater, with major interests and influences far beyond continental boundaries. Similar developments of the past have been closely associated with sea power, including not merely navies, but also merchant marines, and large-scale, over-seas commerce. These have been the foundation of power, influence, wealth, and culture, of the first magnitude. Britain is but one of many cases of this in history.
As Admiral Richmond has pointed out, sea power also includes “ports” in which “ships can repair, store themselves and refresh their men in security; which we call bases.” In a most interesting chapter on “Sea Power and the Empire” (National Policy and Naval Strength) he shows the very close relationship between the development of the British Empire and the establishment of over-seas bases for British ships. Behind both, as the fundamental influence at work, was the development and protection of trade, upon which the power, wealth, and culture of the mother-country depended.
Even great colonies began in this way. India is an example. Until menaced by French military operations, the British land activity in that huge territory was confined to the possession of a few good harbors as bases for the merchant fleet and the protection of naval vessels. When Bombay came into British hands it was a very small place, but important because as Richmond says,
nowhere else on the extensive coast of India until the Hoogli is reached was there another enclosed harbor. . . . Without Bombay, the story of the Indian Empire would have been very different. It was the support of the shipping which was at once the reason for our being in India and the means by which we remained there.
Essential bases for trade were also established in other rich commercial areas which did not subsequently become great colonial empires. Hongkong is one illustration of this, and another is furnished by the carefully selected points in the Caribbean.
As previously stated, Mahan has emphasized the need not only of strong footholds in important distant regions but also properly spaced auxiliary bases along the homeward route. Herein lies the reason and the justification for so many minor elements of the British Empire scattered throughout the world oceans.
In any case, the acquisition of good bases in distant regions of commercial importance, together with convenient points between them and the homeland, is an object of great consequence to the natural development of the economic life, power, and influence of the United States. Many nations have found this to be necessary in the past, even though their great markets were not almost exclusively transoceanic, as ours are.
Conclusion
For us the sinews of world greatness are peculiarly associated with broad oceans, upon which shipping to and from our ports must pass in security. Our Merchant Marine needs the aid, comfort, and refuge of American bases along all main traffic lanes. So also our Navy, which exists principally to support maritime commerce, needs such bases in order to insure that support.
There is further the more exclusively naval need of adequate fleet bases in localities where concentrated fleet operations will be called for. Minor hostile raiding is one thing. Control of the nation’s sea communications by a numerous and powerful enemy fleet is a far more serious matter, which can be provided against only through bringing our own fleet to bear successfully against the hostile fleet.
For this work our fleet must have bases which are not only well placed but well defended and amply provided with supplies and facilities for upkeep and repair. In many ways such bases mean ships. Before battle they enable greater numbers of better prepared and more efficient ships to concentrate against the enemy at the critical times and places. After battle they mean battered ships quickly restored to fighting trim, again to dispute control of the sea or to exercise the control which has been gained.
In a genuine sense bases are ships. They are part and parcel of the fleet, as well as of the sea power which they represent jointly with the fleet and the merchant marine—the sea power which is intimately a member of our national structure and indispensable to the national economic life.