Something about the entrance of the United States into the present world conflict is strangely reminiscent of the outbreak of our own Civil War.
In that case attack came directly at Fort Sumter, although after apprehension aplenty, and with a shock to the nation quite as jarring in its time as Pearl Harbor now. In that case initial blows at Bull Run and elsewhere rocked Federal forces by quick thrusts, depriving the North of the initiative for some time, as the fleet was so deprived in the Pacific last December. In that case, as in this, we were not completely prepared.
It is only hoped, however, that with examples behind us, we shall this time escape some of the hysteria which inevitably pervaded the people and Congress in 1861 and even found its way to some leaders of the armed forces. Hope of avoidance of that very thing accounts for allusion to a rather obscure happening of history by way of introducing a subject, which, regardless of prior thorough discussion, still needs cold, clear realism.
Should any of today’s extreme advocates of so-called air power as the “be all and end all” of modern warfare desire additional ammunition for charges of overcautious conservatism on the part of older services, the example set by the generals of the Army of Sambre-Meuse during the First French Republic might serve them well.
To that army goes credit for first using aircraft in battle. Far from rejoicing at such signal honor, however, its staff only sent their balloon aloft to reconnoiter Austrian positions at Fleurus in 1794 upon strict and apparently unwelcome orders from Carnot and the more air-minded Committee at Paris.
Nor were the officers impressed with the contrivance if we can believe one of them, Napoleon’s Marshal Soult, who wrote many years later that the “sole causes of the victory were the valor of the troops, the wise arrangements of the commander during the battle and the unshakable firmness of the other generals.”1 No allusion was made either to the ascent or to just how “unshakable” were the few generals who went aloft to see for themselves. Soult’s entire statement is somewhat like a commentary by Caesar upon a battle against the Nervii—quite in keeping with some estimates of current judgment.
Granting the historical importance of the event, and notwithstanding the military sophistry with which it was greeted, it may be taken as the beginning of 150 years of intense argument over the import of the flying machine to military strategy. And if the subject was for long academic, the World War preview and subsequent development of aviation in actual battle has given it telling point.
While apparently sensible and acceptable views of the true place of the plane in modem warfare are currently forthcoming, sudden events on the world-wide scene frequently serve to rekindle the fire of controversy. Within a few weeks of December 7, 1941, there appeared several articles on the subject, each pointing to the absolute necessity of correlating the activities in the air with those of other mediums2—evidently in answer to those who believe the plane has supplemented rather than added to older strategy.
When the Axis offensive launched our war in the Pacific, fanning out on the long front from Pearl Harbor to Singapore, without attention to customary decency or international law, it could not have completely surprised professionals whom history has taught to expect just such an arrant, although energetic, attack. But, by its very nature, this assault did reawaken general interest in air potentialities and recommence controversy.
Of course land forces were employed in Thailand, the Philippines, and at Hongkong; submarines, orthodox and new, and surface support were definitely in evidence, but the first two blows against American-British sea strength came from the air. And the United States lost one capital ship and the British lost two at a time when not only the full fighting complement of both fleets was needed, but also when a juncture of such units in Far Eastern waters seemed highly important to waging an immediate offensive against Japan and her southward movement.
In this, those who vehemently espouse the air as the entire answer to modem war see complete vindication of their views, their criticism, and their prediction.
Regardless of losses to date and any popular recrimination we must, especially in these times, keep our sense of values. It is in this connection that two major considerations, usually overlooked insofar as they supplement each other, are believed highly important:
(1) Thorough realization of the meaning of “sea power” and “air power.” Are the terms similar in that they lend basis for comparison? Or should they be considered apart when dealing with national defense and preparedness? Does one supplement the other? Or has the age-old “power of the sea” at last been shunted aside by man’s ingenuity?
(2) Complete and constant understanding that the security of the United States is traditionally and vitally based upon offensive power. One side of the debate seems to question seriously this tradition and argues that, either defense by air bombers may passively remain on our shores, or fleets of long-range planes might carry the attack and ultimate victory to the coasts of the enemy. The other draws upon all history to deny the first claim and practical considerations to doubt the latter.
As to the first, sea power must be understood in aspect as infinitely larger than ships, bases, fire power, or armament, for it embraces geographic conditions, ethnical characteristics, matters of trade and economics—thus entering the very lifeblood of the nation.
For the latter, reference is of course made to the earliest and most consistent policy of the Navy—now a national maxim—that security can be best attained by carrying the attack to the enemy, thus maintaining inviolate our own shores and those of other lands whence attack might be launched against us. That the long range of the plane has widened our interests in this respect, none may gainsay.
When history is written with its more distinctly accurate perspective, it may seem strange indeed that any confusion of thought or ideas should have arisen with regard to the relation of air and sea, especially among Americans. For no nation owes more to the sea or has such thorough appreciation of both progress and innovation as the United States.
The sea power of Spain, England, Holland, and France gave discovery to North America. Upon the sea, the earliest colonists subsisted by fisheries and trade, with the unlimited forest behind them and the Atlantic in front. They achieved freedom in no small sense when naval strength isolated British troops at Yorktown. Before subjugation of the wilderness and hostile tribes, the sea was the connecting link between now united coast lines whence flows that water-borne commerce upon which depends so much of the prosperity and security of twentieth-century America.
So, too, is this the nation which brought into being the first successful written Constitution, rigid enough to insure liberty, elastic to permit growth; which fostered the steamboat, great networks of railroads, the cotton gin and other industrial invention as well as social reform; and which brought the airplane to its present high state of performance.
Perhaps, in the great effort which brought about the pioneer, the winning of the West, manufacturing expansion and growth, many Americans have forgotten this invaluable role which the sea has played and will continue to perform in national greatness. Perhaps, like many another young people, we have been swept away by the stratospheric possibilities of aviation, forgetting that each may complement the other, not only in peaceful commerce, but in war as well.
Considering this, it may be natural that the real place of sea power in our entire scheme has thus far been alluded to “sometimes with respect, sometimes with contumely, seldom with real understanding,” to use the words of William James.
That no satisfactory definition of sea power seems extant only adds to a certain amount of confusion, particularly in current discussion, when “air power” is loosely compared. Actually, the term has “two distinct, yet cognate” meanings, the one concerning a state with a considerable navy, but small army; and the other inclusive of all elements of the sea strength of a nation. The latter is here referred to, and is likely “to be exclusively attached to the term, owing to the brilliant way in which it has been elucidated by Captain A. T. Mahan of the United States Navy.”3
Nor did Mahan define sea power, but rather estimated its results historically, its weight internationally, and its impact upon the future, leaving no doubt in the mind of the reader as to how broad the definition might be. Nowhere in the whole sea power series did he limit the subject, so far as its elements are concerned, to his famous “ships, bases, and men,” instead pointing out that:
The history of the seaboard nations has been less determined by the shrewdness and foresight of governments than by conditions of position, extent, configuration, number, and character of their people—by what are called, in a word, natural conditions. . ..
The growth of sea power in the broad sense . . . includes not only military strength afloat . . . , but also peaceful commerce and shipping from which alone a military fleet naturally and healthfully springs, and on which it securely rests.4
Lest there be superficial doubt of the application of that to the United States, one must recall history with care. That our periods of naval decadence pretty closely follow merchant marine weakness is evident. Emergence of naval strength during the past two generations is the result of threats abroad coupled with “shrewdness and foresight” of government and, by many, is believed to foreshadow renewed American shipping activity when peace returns.
In any event, it is this maj'or premise which is too often overlooked in daily controversy about the true place of sea power in modem action. At the same time we must remember that Mahan discovered nothing new. Twenty-three centuries before he wrote, the same high values were placed on the subj'ect by Attic Greeks, the following having put in the mouth of Pericles by Thucydides at the outset of the Peloponnesian War:
If they [the Peloponnesians] attack our country by land, we shall attack theirs by sea; and the devastation, even of part of Peloponnesus, will be far different from that of all Attica. We have much territory, both on the mainland and amongst the islands, so great is the power of the sea.5
Brief though this is, coupled with recollection of the trade and commerce of the Athenian state and her many offshore possessions, it shows essential grasp, in the days of oars, of deep facts which Elizabethan England well understood in those of sail—facts which Mahan elaborated after steam had supplanted both and the paths of trade extended throughout the Seven Seas.
This aspect of sea power does not end at shore lines, but influences agricultural and industrial conditions far from tidewater. Its roots may be in history. Its growth may be influenced by geography. Its attainment may cause world conflict in the desire for world trade and markets and certainly influences, often determines, the results.
It is not, moreover, the narrow view taken in current comparisons of air and sea power. That the terms, if correctly used, form no common meeting ground in a strict sense is, perhaps, the result of both loose-thinking and earnest advocacy, of which the following serves as an example:
They [our military monitors] are busily engaged in constructing a two-ocean Navy with the same smug self-assurance with which French leaders once built an “impregnable” Maginot Line along their frontiers. Despite the exploits of Air Power, even in its present primitive form—let alone the indications for the expanding role of Air Power in the immediate future—they still rest back on holy writ out of Captain Mahan.6
Nothing could better prove the author, regardless of his sincere belief in the future of air transportation and warfare, unfamiliar with this so-termed “holy writ.” Parenthetically, Mahan would have been the first to decry, from his understanding of military theory and disparagement of the “Fortress Fleet” school of thought, any such passive defense as contemplated by the Maginot Line.
More than this, he appreciated before his time how profound are the influences of new methods and of man’s inventive genius upon both the tactics and strategy demanded by continued maritime strength. His entire career, as well as his writings, emphasized modernization. He was also equally swift to warn against abandoning tried methods and known postulates.
And added to that, sea power as he understood it “always comprehended and required much more than a preponderant surface fleet.”7
Air power is not really thought of in any such broad sense. It is certainly conceivable that, with the world fast becoming linked in widespread systems of air transportation, the term will gather added significance as it draws nations and continents closer together, speeds up intercourse, and shrinks the boundaries of the world. Such larger meaning is more in keeping with the American idea of what aviation is to be; and, it is hoped, largely by means of American leadership.
On the other hand, in current debate, the term more nearly approximates a kindred phrase—“fire-power”; thus expressing certain military significance and tactical advantage or disadvantage. That such strict limitation may well be open to future enlargement in nowise changes present consideration.
Naturally, such questions as superiority of the airplane over the capital ship, greatly added range for bombing enemy territory and ships, security against invasion by reason of air efficiency over narrow or coastal waters, or of separate command are not academic. They are, however, ancillary to the greater problem of whether to the air alone, or to the air primarily with support from sea or land, may be entrusted matters of national defense, protection of sea lanes of traffic and control of far-off positions which threaten both the home land and its commerce.
That the answer must always consider commerce upon the sea is obvious. Even the most vehment extremist makes no pretense that the heavy goods of the world are to be shipped otherwise than by water. It must also keep in mind the geographic position of this continent and the United States proper, its offshore bases acquired and armed to forestall hostile approach by sea or air.
The temper and character of our people must be remembered, particularly with reference to their nonaggressive policy, deeply rooted in history. The entire gamut of our foreign relations has a distinct bearing upon this answer, too; not only as it concerns hemispheric measures of today and the Monroe Doctrine, but also with regard to commitments in the Far East and a definite dislike, more often stomached than not, of getting too close to the affairs of Europe.
There can be no doubt but that the time is ripe for re-examination of sea power in the light of all these phases of national policy, but, at the same time, any consideration of aviation as the major force which it is, must also take these same basic elements into account. Too much is at stake to do the job half-way.
Thorough understanding of geographic position, along with all the other attributes of sea power, including natural resources and commerce, as it is amended and supplemented by the progress of aviation is, therefore, only part of the story. Especially is this true in a world periodically torn by warfare, whatever may be the desires and inclination of the people of the United States.
We must further constantly re-examine our military defenses with a view toward the most effective strategy—that most likely to succeed—and in the light of every new weapon and means of waging war. Since the beginning, in the Mediterranean basin, wise strategists, sometimes through study, often by instinct, have held a full realization of the utter value of striking first and hardest. Especially does this seem to have been true at sea.
Thus, neither mere ostentation nor a desire to refute all human standards impelled the Japanese to launch their submarines and bomb-carrying planes against Oahu early one Sunday morning. They were not following, but a step ahead of their own Admiral Togo and, flouting all other rules of conduct, were blindly applying basic science of naval warfare. It is hoped the example may be an isolated one, but it strikingly shows what quick offensive may bring in initial success.
Be that as it may, the entire past shows that continued offense, sometimes of months, more often of years, brings final victory. There is no doubt that this is true for the future. Action upon such firm knowledge has always characterized the United States Navy, born in such spirit and living today as the chief protagonist of such a mission for its men, its ships, and so using its outlying bases.
Commodore Esek Hopkins, commanding Continental Congress’ first naval squadron, struck directly at the British base in the Bahamas. In the War of 1812, American frigates took the action to the enemy wherever this could be done with any chance of advantage. Victory over England’s sea might may have come partially by reason of Napoleon’s threat to Europe, but it could never have come at all had we tried gunboat shore-line defense.
Such was the strategy which sent Commodore David Porter in the Essex, with Midshipman David Farragut aboard, to wage war against the English in the South Pacific. The pupil learned the lesson well, for, under him, 50 years later, the Federal Navy paved the way in splitting the Confederacy by similar active measures; the tradition being handed down through Farragut’s juniors to reap world recognition at Manila Bay and Santiago.
To fully grasp this most outstanding quality of the Navy, one needs only to recall that in the 167 years since Hopkins sailed, better than 70 per cent of our naval engagements and operations in nine declared and undeclared wars have been offensive in action. Nothing can be more significant than the bare figures which show our ships in 71 battles and operations, of which 52 have carried the initiative completely, two more being partly offensive, and only 17 seeing the vessels on the defensive.8
Coupling action with results, the utmost importance of all this to our power in the world today is clear. Nor can even the most disinterested suspect the tradition as a colorful habit of sailors who love a fight or are imbued with an overwhelming desire to utter slogans which may serve in later wars or thrill schoolchildren.
That the same long-range plan can be equally effective when the defensive is forced upon us is perfectly evident since Pearl Harbor. Without that bastion in the Pacific, it seems certain that a similarly vicious attack would have been attempted against the life line of Panama, or directly at the California coast.9
Hand in hand with this tradition there has ever been another trait of the Navy, possibly less advertised. It can best be described as a propensity toward new weapons and the novel methods which they bring about. Not only the Navy Department, but President Madison himself took great interest in and fostered Robert Fulton’s submarine and mine experiments. That incident is cited only as an indication of a policy which, starting with David Bushnell’s abortive attempt to mine British warships in New York Harbor, has continued through adoption of every worth-while naval improvement including the torpedo-carrying plane and the dive bomber.
Indeed, the navies of the world owe much to American leadership in this respect. For example, the U.S.S. Michigan actually preceded the English Dreadnought class—a fact sometimes forgotten. Perhaps this is because we are, as indicated above, less impervious to change, more eager to try better ways; but perhaps, too, our professional sailors have always grasped at each innovation which can better be utilized in offensive warfare.
The airplane must assuredly be considered the modem prototype of this category. No one with even the faintest idea of the emphasis placed upon naval aviation by the United States can have the least doubt about this. Entirely aside from numbers of aircraft, no service arm in the modem world is more air-efficient and airconscious. And any reference to our capacity to build would be trite.
In the face of all this, the people whose country may be at stake are regaled with charges that pursuance of this course is guided by “smug indifference” to the impact of air power. If that is so, the sooner we know it the better, for we are proceeding vigorously along the same lines of thought which have guided defensive measures from the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine, the annexation of Hawaii, through the building of the Panama Canal down to the destroyer-base agreement of 1940.
If, on the one hand, aviation has made passive defense more than likely to succeed, we have diminishing need for offshore bases and long-range battleships. However, if others are correct in their belief that the use of the plane has so extended hostile striking power that we are in greater and more imminent danger of swift attack from distant shores or carrier decks, those remote frontiers had better be extended.
Strangely enough, air power advocates are not in agreement upon either score. Some have faith in security behind a wall of bombs rained down by shore-based aircraft from continental United States. The now classic examples of Norway and Crete are used for such points as this:
Invasion across the sea against ample land- based air power no longer is in the book of possibilities. Almost no other event in the history of warfare equals this in importance for the United States. If this country takes advantage of the defensive powers given it by the bombing plane, its impregnability to invasion is assured in the foreseeable future. And by building a suitable air base and airways system we can insure the impregnability of all North and South America.10
Equally typical, but certainly not consistent, is the following:
There are already in existence aircraft which will enable Air Power to bridge oceans as easily as it now bridges narrower bodies of water. Strategically speaking, the North American continent will then be as vulnerable to aerial attack as the British Isles; our last margin of immunity and physical “isolation” will have been wiped out.11
Elements of fractional truth in each statement lead to confusion. It would seem that such and similar views should be tested not only in the clear light of known values, but by the varied uses of aircraft themselves and by the demands of broad expanses of sea and land, of distant archipelagoes and far-flung trade routes which characterize the many “fronts” seen in world-wide conflict.
In the first place, in the hands of a guiding force so steeped in offensive tradition as the Navy, every airplane has a major part in such mission of attack.
Scouting is the oldest use to which aviation has been put in a military sense. From the beginning of time, reconnoitering of enemy movement and distribution, on land or sea, has been of first importance. The field of vision and speed of communication has so tremendously enlarged this phase of war that, weather permitting, the next great sea battle will not be characterized by the occurrences of Jutland, when Jellico and Beatty lost touch with the enemy and with each other. The stress placed upon this branch of flying by the Navy indicates that future commanders will have more immediate comprehension of the entire field of battle than even in the days of Lepanto and Trafalgar, when smaller ships and closer ranges were the order.12
Such offensive use of scouting planes before and during active combat is even overshadowed by their utility on patrol, keeping open the sea lanes of supply, seeking out hostile raiders on and under the surface and generally giving wide and speedy help to patrolling vessels and convoys. In this, too, the real mission is one of offensive strategy, to which fact the so-called “Battle of the Atlantic” daily bears striking testimony.
The attack value of the bomb and torpedo-carrying plane for initial power blows needs no advocate since the early days of December, 1941. As has been pointed out, until further facts are forthcoming, the quick blows against England and the United States close to or at their bases of Singapore and Pearl Harbor seem to have effectually delayed offensives on the part of both navies.
That the airplane was mainly responsible in each instance actually serves to bear out preparations made by the Navy in planes and carriers alike. The manner in which the maneuver was launched will certainly be the subject of untold discussion lasting from the present to infinity, but the tactical execution has ended for all time several much-debated questions.
The argument about the vulnerability of the capital ship to air attack commenced when the guns were hardly silent in 1918 and almost as the last German man-of-war settled in the rocks of Scapa Flow. The answer has apparently been long known to the Navy, which has insisted, sometimes against long odds, upon a navy-trained and navy-operated air force under whose wings the capital ship and other surface craft may bring to bear the tremendous might of heavy ordnance.
The Prince of Wales and Repulse should serve as grisly illustration of this answer, now known to all. Presumably Japanese torpedo planes responsible for the sinking were land-based from Thailand or elsewhere. They may have come from carriers. The result is the same and points to greater co-operation between all fleet units under correlated orders.
Everyone has expected the present war to bring many new problems as the result of advancing aviation. They have not been disappointed to date, nor are they likely to be as the conflict progresses. Certain armor changes and protections will be forthcoming. Some are not in existence since one cannot prepare for unknown contingencies. Our movements will be better known to an opposing commander by reason of his air reconnaissance. Our ships will be subject to added fire from bombs and torpedoes, expected and surprising, and from the third dimension. Our lines of supply will be open to increased harassment. On the other hand, this works both ways. The air arm of the Navy, coupled with the other ships, will continue to be an increasingly important offensive weapon. Balancing new threats from the skies against infinitely greater striking power, it thus is clear that aviation, far from detracting from the long hitting force of the Navy, has increased the speed and effectiveness of such reaching blows.
Science has provided additional and new tools for our offensive strategy. National policy places the responsibility for their use upon the Navy.
But advocates of air power believe such responsibility and duty are, even now, properly within control of air strategy. Tomorrow’s policies and campaigns of the immediate future, they urge, belong to aviation. They predict great fleets of long- range bombers, amply protected by fighters of equally long range, the latter still to be developed, and visualize additional destructive havoc in our ports, among our closely-knit industrial areas.
At the same time, they are convinced that no actual invasion can be accomplished so long as we meet attacking surface fleets and troop transports with bombing planes operating from our coasts and offshore stations.
Both the claims and predictions must be treated upon the basis of what it is we are defending and the methods best expected to carry out this defense—in short with sea power and active defense in mind.
Despite terrific damage to civilian population and valuable property, as well as military objectives, decisive results have not thus far been obtained by bombing. British and German cities and port facilities have been severely wrecked, but truly telling advantage on either side is wanting, and with the bolstering of air defenses, especially with planes, the attacks decrease in intensity and frequency, until the opinion that direct invasion is impossible seems correct.
But is direct invasion the real danger? Does not the safety and security of the United States depend more largely and more especially upon circumvention of our influence in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Caribbean Sea, and in South America?
The history of all war seems to combine to answer such questions. For examples, we need delve no further than the events of the past two years. German attack was launched upon France, not at the Fortress of the Maginot Line, but rather through the lowlands once more, exactly as many experts predicted. The real threat to England is not coming across the Channel. And enemy subjugation of the Dutch East Indies would provide no comfort for the United States; while our chief, if not most immediately seen danger, remains, very likely, on the line of Africa, the South Atlantic, South America, and the Caribbean Sea.
Conversely, there are those who believe that Germany’s vulnerable heel stands immersed in the great reaches of the North Atlantic, not upon the soil of Europe. There, and possibly in the Mediterranean, certainly upon the Pacific and the South China Sea ought to stand our defenses of ships and planes.
No matter how wide the approach or how narrow the target, and taking into account every new weapon from the time of Pericles to the present, all strategy ought to be governed by “natural conditions.” With every wish to avoid the dogmatic, any reappraisal of sea power in its broadest sense and of the effective measures which it pre-empts, especially in view of aviation’s sharp and lasting contribution, brings two clear conclusions:
(1) Every innovation in warfare is cumulative and does not provide for substitution.
Regardless of expense, and only measured by shipyard capacities, this is no time for any curtailment of construction of capital ships, as indicated by reports of mid-December hearings before the House Naval Affairs Committee. With entire deference to the gentlemen of the committee, if ubiquitous conflicts at sea, forthright offensive, or occurrences of recent weeks show anything, they mean that, just as the coming of gunpowder did not cast aside the bayonet or cutlass, just as the submarine and mine did not bring about abandonment of the surface vessel, but rather laid greater stress upon size and armament, so, too, the airplane is and will prove an added weapon and carrier of weapons—not one which does away with existing means of carrying the fight to the enemy.
(2) High command must be closer knit and there must be more complete joinder of forces and weapons.
Conception of a single general staff, combining Army, Navy, and the air forces of both, while simpler than the accomplishment, actually has deep roots in American military tradition and pattern.
History provides no better examples of planned co-operation between forces of land and sea than that of Washington’s carefully considered employment of French naval power in the final checkmate of British armies in Tidewater Virginia; nor than that of Grant’s skillful use of naval forces in the Mississippi campaigns from Donelson to Vicksburg.
Of equal significance today is the firm foundation for precisely this sort of thing laid by the emphasis upon interchange of technique and strategy in the graduate schools of both services, by the Joint Army Navy Board, the Army Navy Munitions Board, and the many other similar groups.
Instead of current demonstrations of air strength pointing toward separation of its command, as frequently urged, it is quite evident that present correlation of planes with troops or planes with ships may point the way for that greater unity of command which timely strategy suggests, sometimes demands.
And with the speed of all modern action due to faster ships, mechanized land forces and the air arms of each service, there must be some greater elasticity provided for greater unity of aim and action. That neither the manner nor means to such end can here be suggested is obvious.
The recent elevation of aviators to positions of highest rank in both services certainly shows steps in this direction. It also serves as a complete negation to any comparison of either the Navy or Army with the command of French Republican armies of long ago.
Today’s Germany is hardly a sea power, by any definition of the term. Italy occupies a peninsula and Japan an island, both particularly susceptible to naval aggression. But all three will finally succumb to well-co-ordinated offensive assault, wide-ringed blockade, and constant control of sea lanes.
It is here believed that such is primarily an undertaking of sea power, but, certainly, it can only be accomplished by employment of every useful weapon in conjunction with others, not each new one as it comes along to the detriment of those which have come before.
Continued development of man’s conquest of the air may reach the time when primary motivation for keeping the seas and the air above them free for the United States in her peaceful pursuits may be peculiarly the province of flyers. If so, we shall be the better for understanding age- old and never-changing principles of sea power and for appreciation of the defense of action.
1. R. R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled (Princeton, 1941), pp. 355-56. At least French troops were impressed, believing the ascent “new proof of the enlightenment of the age,” but the Austrian command agreed with French militarists, turning the balloon over to a museum when they later captured it.
2. For instance, articles of Rear Admiral Harry E. Yamell, U.S.N. (Ret.), “Where the R.A.F. Failed,” Collier’s, November 15, 1941, and Hanson Baldwin, “Airpower,” Life, December 1, 1941.
3. Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridges, R.N., “Sea-Power,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. Note the hyphenated use of the term.
4. Admiral A. T. Mahan, U.S.N., Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 28.
5. Thucydides, Book I, Chap. 143, sections 4-5.
6. Major Alexander de Seversky, “Air Power Ends Isolation,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 168, p. 408 ff. (October 1941).
7. Capt. W. D. Puleston, U.S.N. (Ret.), “A Re-examination of Mahan’s Concept of Sea Power,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 66, p. 1236 (September 1940).
8. Indebtedness is acknowledged to Lieut, (j.g.) Waldo Chamberlain, U.S.N.R., “The Tradition of the Offensive in the U. S. Navy,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 67, table pp. 1383-84 (October 1941). Obviously, no part of the present war is included.
9. Hector C. Bywater, Sea-Power in the Pacific (Boston, 1921), pp. 246 and 280, predicted such likelihood.
10. Lt. Col. Thomas R. Phillips, U.S.A., “The Bombing Plane Has Made America Invasion Proof,” Army Ordnance, September-October 1941.
11. Major de Seversky, “America’s Town Meeting of the Air,” October 27, 1941, speaking on the subject, "Will Land, Air or Sea Power Win This War?"
12. An interesting suggestion was recently made that, under proper conditions, a fleet commander might transfer his flag to a large plane, whence, high above the surface, he could readily visualize his forces and direct them in a manner not unmindful of Homeric legend. Lt. Comdr. Arnold E. True, U.S.N., “The Commander in Chief,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 67, pp. 337-43 (March 1941).