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To March 31, 1942
United States .................................................................................................. 715
Wake and Marcus—Dramatic Rescue—General MacArthur’s Voyage—Submarine Operations—Bullets X-Rayed
Great Britain................................................................................................... 721
Mediterranean Battle—Air Power and the Navy—Exit the Engadine —The Escape from Brest, German Account
France.............................................................................................................. 726
Daladier’s Statement
U.S.S.R.. .......................................................................................................... 727
Development of the Army—Rocket Aerial Bomb
Other Countries.............................................................................................. 729
Australia—Madagascar
Aviation........................................................................................................... 732
A Review of Rotating Wing Aircraft, 1941—“Manta” Long Range Fighter
Merchant Marine. :.......................................................................................... 738
38-Day Voyage in Open Boat—Changes Recommended in Lifeboat Equipment
UNITED STATES Wake and Marcus
Chicago Tribune, March 26.—Striking at the flank of Japanese supply lines into the southwest Pacific, an American task force raiding within 1,000 miles of Yokohama has virtually wiped out enemy installations on Marcus and Wake Islands, the Navy announced today. Although the operations thrust ships and planes of the Pacific Fleet deep into enemy territory, only light opposition was encountered and the American losses were only two aircraft. The action, conducted by Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, 59 years old, who was awarded the distinguished service medal for similar attacks on the Marshall and Gilbert Islands January 31, was hailed by naval authorities here as weakening the protection which the Japanese can afford their vital supply routes.
A navy communique said the attack on Wake, which the Japanese captured from defending marines December 23, was carried out February 24, by ships and planes and that it wrecked defenses which “the enemy has worked feverishly to strengthen.” A few prisoners were taken. Shells from cruisers and destroyers and 219 aerial bombs sank two enemy patrol boats, demolished two 4-engined seaplanes—a third was shot down—tore craters in aircraft runways, and damaged defense batteries. One American aircraft was lost at Wake. A week after the Wake bombardment, units of the task force, including an aircraft earner, swept within aerial range of Marcus Island before dawn on March 4. Over the island bombing squadrons released flares which illuminated the targets.
The enemy went into action with heavy anti-aircraft fire but had neither aircraft nor ships to aid his defense. The United States squadrons dropped 96 bombs which Wrecked hangars, ammunition, fuel, and gasoline storages, and a radio station. The bombs also damaged an airfield the Japanese were building. The second American plane was lost here, shot down by anti-aircraft fire. In terms of enemy shipping destroyed, the Marcus-Wake action fell short of the Marshall-Gilbert raid in which 16 enemy ships and 41 planes were wrecked, in addition to damage done to ground installations. But the actions were comparable in that the Marshall-Gilbert operations knocked out bases menacing American supply lines to New Zealand and Australia while the Marcus-Wake attack knocked out positions defending Japanese routes. The navy communique reporting on the raids was issued simultaneously with release of news dispatches from the fleet base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, giving first hand accounts of the attacks. Navy spokesmen said the Marcus raid was “swift and cleanly completed.” A high naval oflicer who saw the attack at Wake said the big seaplane shot down there was caught “in the direct line of gunfire from our ships and planes.” It “exploded and disintegrated when a third burst from a ship’s batteries struck it,” he added, “and parts of the plane were found embedded in the wings of an American fighter. That was coming pretty close.”
“Two enemy patrol boats of the small cutter class also were sunk,” this officer said. “Fuel barges, dredges, and similar equipment were destroyed, and a few prisoners were brought back. They were taken from the water. [Presumably they were men from the destroyed boats.] Wake was quite well defended by coastal batteries. Our surface bombardment group, of considerable gun power, silenced a large part, and air bombardment accounted for a large part of the remainder.”
Despite the duel between ships and shore batteries, no American ships were hit, the naval officer said. The Japanese thus fell far short of the American marines in their defense of Wake. In the 17-day period beginning December 7, during which the marines held Wake—losing it only when the enemy moved in with overwhelming forces —they destroyed seven Japanese warships by plane and artillery action. Destruction of the enemy installations there indicated there was little possibility that the island, lying 2,000 miles west of Pearl Harbor, would prove very useful to the Japanese. They apparently were trying to develop it as an airplane supply base but the impossibility of protecting it adequately would appear to make it more a liability than an asset. Naval authorities here described Marcus also as primarily a supply base, with the added possibility that its radio station may have served the Japanese in detecting American ship and plane movements in that section of the Pacific.
Marcus is 760 miles west-northwest of Wake and 990 miles southeast of Yokohama, Japan’s greatest port and the gateway to Tokyo. But strategically its importance was described as being chiefly in its geographical relation to the island chain— the Bonin and Mariana groups—stretching south from Yokohama to Guam. These islands—known as the Guam-Bonin line— constitute Japan’s principal protection for her supply lines through the China Sea and also are an important supply route for the Japanese mandated islands extending into the central Pacific. Marcus Island stands before this line as an outpost from which planes and small patrol surface vessels may operate. Advices from Pearl Harbor said the raids threw such a scare into Tokyo that it was blacked out for several nights.
Both raids previously had been reported by the Japanese. On February 28, four days after the attack at Wake, Japanese imperial headquarters reported shore guns there had repulsed an unidentified naval squadron composed of an aircraft carrier, two cruisers, and six destroyers. Tokyo’s communique claimed one cruiser was set afire and the other hit by bombs, one destroyer was hit by a bomb, and five planes were shot down. Loss of one patrol boat and some casualties to the Japanese defenders were admitted. Minamitori Shima (Marcus Island) was reported by the Tokyo radio on March 5 to have been attacked by 30 planes of unspecified nationality which were said to have set one building afire and caused eight casualties. Seven raiders were claimed shot down.
Here is the box score of the two raids:
Wake Island (February 24)
Sunk.—Two patrol boats, dredges, fuel barges.
Shot down.—One 4-engined seaplane.
Destroyed.—Two other 4-engined seaplanes, fuel oil, and gasoline storages, underground hangars, magazines, and storehouses.
Captured.—A few prisoners.
United States losses.—One plane.
Marcus Island (March 4)
Destroyed.—Radio station, hangars, storage houses, ammunition, fuel, and gasoline storages.
Damaged.—Nearly completed air base.
United States losses.—One plane.
Dramatic Rescue
New York Herald Tribune, March 25.— The dramatic story of how 20 civilian workers and a naval officer chopped through the hull of the battleship Oklahoma, which capsized during the Pearl Harbor attack, December 7, to rescue 32 sailors trapped inside was revealed for the first time today by the Navy. The workers and the officers received citations for “heroic and efficient work with utter disregard for personal safety in assisting the rescue. It wTas due to their untiring efforts in the face of great hazards that the rescue was continued until all known survivors had been released from the hull of that ship.” The workmen, all from the Navy Yard, braved fumes and rising water inside the hull of the stricken vessel and a rain of spent anti-aircraft shrapnel outside to save the sailors who passed^ almost 24 hours, with the water rising up to their waists, inside the “black hole.” The citations said the rescue was “successful because of the resourcefulness and courage of the rescuers and the patience and level-headedness of the trapped men.”
The Oklahoma, a 29,000-ton vessel, capsized early on the morning of the Japanese “sneak attack.” Shortly after the second Japanese attack, men in a motor launch passing close to the overturned hull reported about 11:00 a.m. that they thought they had heard tapping coming from it.
A crew of men with acetylene cutters was rushed to the Oklahoma. However, after a few hours of cutting, the danger from the fire and smoke of the torches appeared to be too great so pneumatic cutting equipment, slower but safer, was rushed into action. Julio de Castro, a Honolulu-born worker, was placed in charge of the cutting crew and he told the following story:
When I got to the ship I saw that the acetylene cutters had tried one hole in the stem but hadn’t cut through to any space in which they could work. I went up amidships where they had another hole cut through the outer shell. I dropped down into this hole and found them cutting into the fireroom where they’d heard some voices. I climbed out and took my crew aft near a hole they had started back there.
There were still some indications that men were alive somewhere in that section. We drilled a test bole through—just a small hole—and water started spouting out under a lot of pressure. It was fresh and I knew we’d gone into one of the freshwater tanks. I figured this was a good place to get through to the inside.
By that time, night had fallen and the near-by attleship Arizona, which was still burning, urnished light. There was anti-aircraft firing all over the place, but we kept on working. [There ave been no previous reports of any Japanese raiders over Honolulu on the night of Dec. 7 al- ough possibly anti-aircraft batteries might have een fired.] If the firing got too hot we’d flatten °ut against the hull and hope nothing hit us. After rQaking a larger hole we pumped most of the water °rn the tank and a couple of men and myself ropped into it. Here we had our first lucky reak there was a manhole right below us. This rrteant we could open it and would not have to cut another big hole. That saved us a lot of time.
De Castro said they cut a small hole through the manhole hatch in order to open it.
We found a void compartment below, on the other side of which we knew we would find the men who had been tapping. We found another hatch and we went over there and shouted. Somebody on the other side shouted back. Boy, did that sound good. Those sailors in there were shouting like hell. I yelled “are you all right?”
They yelled back, “Yeah, so far, but the water seems to be coming up faster here. It’s up to our waists now.”
They kept shouting “For God’s sake hurry.” ... I told them to keep steady and listen to what I was telling them:
Now just one of you—who’s strong and well— do the talking. The rest of you just keep quiet and keep your heads.
Say, those sailors were swell. It was early Monday morning and they’d been in that black space without lights or anything else since early Sunday but, by golly, they just quieted right down and took my instructions.
De Castro said he instructed the trapped sailors to “undo” the hatch from the inside because there was too much pressure on the rescuers’ side. He said they had to work fast because, by cutting holes in the hull they had changed pressures inside which previously had kept the water down. “Well, these boys got the dogs off the hatch. It was about six on Monday morning. They sure came piling from there, naked as the day they were born. They knockedme down and I floundered around in the water, but I didn’t care and I didn’t blame them for wanting to get out of that black hell hole.” There were six sailors in that party, De Castro said. He and his men then heard tapping from the next bulkhead so they climbed into the compartment just vacated.
“The water was rising pretty fast now and I was getting scared that we’d have to get out of there quick,” he said. “But I shouted at the bulkhead and a sailor hollered back:
‘Hurry; bum a hole through here. The water’s coming up at our waists now.’ I told them to keep
their heads . . . that we’d get them out if they’d listen to orders and not get screwy.
They said: ‘Okay, but hurry like hell, some of us are hanging onto the overhead [beam] in here.’ When we got the hole through the water was up to their arm pits. They tumbled out of that hole like a streak of lightning. Eleven men came out. . . . They’d been in there more than 24 hours. The water was too high for further work there so we returned outside the hull. Then we had to figure how far back those others were. We entered an empty oil tank where there were a lot of fumes. Three others and myself went in and felt a tapping under our feet. We cut through into another void and again found a manhole, through which sailors hollered that the water was above their waists. I released the pressure inside the compartment, where the men were trapped, by opening the testing-hole manhole, after which the sailors inside undogged the manhole. Eight came out, one with a broken finger and another with a broken arm. It was now 3:00 p.m. on Monday.
Meanwhile, another crew working near the fireroom penetrated through 150 feet of the hull and rescued five other sailors, while two more trapped men were removed from the forward section of the vessel about 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday.
About 7:00 p.m. on Monday de Castro and his crew returned to their shop from the Oklahoma.
“Somebody came up to me while I was changing clothes,” he said. “I was all in and hungry and wanted to get home. This guy asks me:
“ ‘Why didn’t you fill out this overtime slip?’ I looked at him and said: ‘Christ Almighty’!”
Then De Castro walked home five miles through the blackout.
Other men cited were Ensign F. M. P. Sexton, John F. Madura, Lawrence V. Jordan, Fred W. Taylor, J. Walter Dra- pala, Duncan S. Ellis, John K. Rasmussen, Maurice G. Engle, William K. Mahaiula, John M. Washlick, Richard A. Goings, Ghomasma Hill, Joseph Bulgo, Elerbee McCutcheon, Frederick C. Twigger, Alexander M. Smith, Vascod Ferreira, Archie
R. Pattchette, Paul J. Bakanas and Irving C. Carl.
General MacArthur’s Voyage
New York Herald Tribune, March 25.— The full story of General Douglas MacArthur’s hazardous voyage from the Philippines to Australia was told today by the General’s spokesman, who emphasized that MacArthur did not escape from Bataan, but “came through to a greater task” in compliance with a Presidential order. Colonel Legrande Diller told newspaper men that MacArthur’s race against time, darkness, and Japanese warplanes and warships was vindication for the General’s long fight for recognition of motor torpedo boats. Some advisers, Diller said, urged MacArthur to use a submarine to make his way to Australia, but the General and U. S. Navy Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley, commander of six “PT” boats which reached the Philippines shortly before the war, pinned their faith on the speedy craft. This was Diller’s story:
The sun had dipped into the China Sea out past Corregidor on March 11 when, in the deepening darkness, the forms of torpedo boats moved slowly through the mine fields toward the entrance of Manila Bay. Bulkeley, who had won the Distinguished Service Cross for the sinking of a 5,000-ton Japanese ship was at the wheel of the leading craft as the little convoy started the hazardous trip which some advisers had warned was a “fantastic venture.” The General said, however: “We go with the fall of the moon. We go during the Ides of March.”
It seemed strange, after living in blackouts for three months, to see automatic lighthouses operating. The roar of the boats was confusing even to the Japanese, and along the shore signal lights were seen, flashing the warning of the approach of what they probably thought were enemy aircraft.
Just before the departure of the Mac-
Arthur convoy the party received word of the presence of enemy warships, but they roared out into the night. The boats pounded through heavy seas. The General was unable to stand on his feet. Everyone was soaked. Many of the party were violently seasick.
The boats kept well together until early in the morning when, still before dawn, they separated in the darkness. When the rendezvous was reached at an early hour of March 12, only one boat was there at the designated hour, while the other boats pressed on individually in dangerous daylight, open prey for enemy surface ships and planes.
As the General’s boat approached one of the islands in the rendezvous group, another which had arrived earlier was so convinced the approaching craft was the enemy’s that it cleared its deck for action, and only the merest chance identified the General’s boat in time to avoid opening fire with .50-caliber guns.”
At the first rendezvous, where a submarine had arrived, many urged a transfer, but MacArthur and Bulkeley pinned their faith on the speed boats. One of the boats had to be abandoned, to continue the voyage later, so the party was distributed among three boats, two of which pressed °n m the night of the second day while the third, a late arrival, left later.
. During the second night all three boats S1ghted Japanese destroyers, but all slipped through by altering course and increasing speed, thanks to the courage and skill of the navigators. The two leading boats reached the second rendezvous at day- reak, but the third did not arrive until n°on- The party assembled inland, await- *j]g Planes from Australia, but the planes 1C1 not come that night or the next. Every moment the party feared some information 0 the voyage would reach the enemy, ^.ose planes were based only a half-hour’s ght away. Three nights and days were Passed on the island rendezvous without
enemy attacks materializing or rescue planes arriving. Finally word came that the planes were en route. Three were expected, but only two came, so it was decided to place the entire party in two planes, leaving behind baggage, arms, and equipment. With little more than the clothes they wore the party stowed away in the two B-17’s and took off about midnight of March 16. They flew through the night, but daylight found the planes still over Japanese-infested areas. Gunners and observers manned their stations, searching the skies for enemy fighters, which, however, did not appear. The big bombers landed finally at Darwin, just after an airraid alarm had sounded in the northern Australian port. A hurried transfer was made there, the party had a quick bite to eat and was off again southward.
“Few not on the voyage can realize the fortitude, stamina and determination to get through with which the General imbued the entire group,” Differ said. “Mrs. MacArthur was a splendid soldier. She stood the trip very well.”
Submarine Operations
Washington Post, March 12, by Allen Raymond, copyright by New York Tribune, Inc., Perth, Australia, March 11.— The commanders and crews of American submarines in the waters of the southwest Pacific are performing feats of endurance which they "would scarcely have believed possible before December 7, and they are taking a far higher toll of the enemy than he is of them. I have been talking recently with enlisted personnel, and with some of the seven submarine commanders who have won the Navy Cross for valor in the battle going on from the China Sea to the Indian Ocean.
One of the stories told to me concerned an engagement between two enemy destroyers and a submarine. The destroyers bore down on the undersea craft at 30 knots. The submarine commander held his
fire until the enemy was only 1,000 yards away, then, submerging, he let go a torpedo at each of the destroyers and saw one of them blow up. He brought his submarine and crew safely back to their base.
This business of firing torpedoes at swiftly moving destroyers while diving, it was explained to me, is something like duck shooting. The submarine must estimate exactly how fast the target is moving and fire just ahead of it. The submarine has about two minutes to complete the operation, with the safety of the submarine and its 70 men dependent on the accuracy of the commander’s decisions.
I heard an enlisted man’s story of how one American submarine lay 20 hours in shallow water listening to Japanese destroyers patrolling the surface, seeking to locate the undersea vessel and depth charge it. Silence was so imperative that the submarine’s commander instructed his men to remove their shoes to avoid scraping sounds. The submarine escaped, but during the wait, the enlisted man said, “perspiration stuck out on the captain’s brow like rain.”
Another submarine commander told me he had seen four Japanese destroyers at close range. They were guarding a convoy of transports. He fired at the four and got one before he dived. Forty depth charges fell near his vessel, but he escaped. He explained that the depth charges “make kind of a swishing sound as they come down.” He added: “If they explode near you, they’ll knock you off your feet; at 50 yards they’ll break the paint off your bulkheads.”
Some of the American submarines have been to sea for runs up to 55 days, and one has been to sea 80 days out of the last 90. Sometimes they carry so much necessary materials aboard that there is not room for enough cots to go around for the crew. In such cases, the crew goes “hot bunk,” which means that one man drops into a bunk as soon as another leaves it. Operating around the islands of the Dutch East
Indies is difficult because all lighthouses have been blacked out and the submarines must judge land by the shadows. The strain on the eyes of the men on watch is so severe that watches are one hour on and three off.
Another officer told me that he recently penetrated a heavily patrolled harbor where the Japanese were loading gasoline. He saw two big ships at anchor, and got one within three minutes, then made his escape with depth charges falling all around his ship.
While the score of American victories and losses naturally is a military secret, it is permissible to reveal that one American submarine in these waters has sunk nine sizable Japanese transports, freighters, and tankers in the last three months—evidence that the Japanese are not having things all their own way.
Bullets X-Rayed
New York Herald Tribune, March 22.— First X-ray pictures of bullets as they crash through steel armor plate will be taken by Army laboratory technicians at the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia this month, it was disclosed yesterday by C. V. Aggers, manager of the Westinghouse X- Ray Division, builders of the equipment.
Twin X-ray units, each capable of delivering a charge of 300,000 volts in a millionth of a second, will be used for a series of army studies of the action of bullets in flight within gun barrels and when they hit targets of armor plate or other materials. This research will be directed by Lieutenant Colonel L. S. Fletcher, officer in charge of Frankford Arsenal laboratory.
Though a bullet travels at two and one- half times the speed of sound, Mr. Aggers explained, the new X-ray photographic technique developed in Westinghouse research laboratories permits making two separate exposures of film during the flight of a single bullet. The two X-ray machines will stand side by side, and the elapsed
time between two exposures can be varied from a five-hundredth of a second to a millionth of a second. Two exposures also can be made simultaneously.
Two additional ultra high-speed X-ray machines being built eventually will give research workers a battery of four units and will enable them to take four pictures of a single bullet at various stages of its flight either through a gun barrel or penetrating armor plate.
Resembling a small portable power plant, the new X-ray machine weighs 1,500 pounds and is mounted on wheels. Each mobile unit is 8 feet long, 7 feet high and 3 feet wide. Projecting from the front of the carriage is the ultra high-speed tube, 24 inches long. An intricate timing device enables operators to fire the two machines quickly enough to get two exposures of a bullet before it has moved more than a few feet.
GREAT BRITAIN Mediterranean Battle
Baltimore Sun, March 26, by Preston Grover, Associated Press Correspondent. Alexandria, March 25.—We feinted and bluffed, dodged in and out of smoke screen, ired our guns—although it was sometimes ike shooting peas at a bam—took time out or tea in the midst of battle, and got our convoy safely to Malta after a naval engagement in which valor triumphed over ^ght, as it seldom does, even in the most r°mantic of fiction. After it was all over the captain of the cruiser" which I was aboard ^ ded this statement to the brief report of the admiral:
Our admiral has fought one of the most ri liant actions against greatly superior mrces ever successfully brought off.”
And so it was. As the battle began I ncver thought I would get out alive to tell ° ^*Ur squadron of British cruisers ai? destroyers sailed headon into an over- ;V dmingly powerful Italian fleet in the central Mediterranean, three times drove it away from the convoy and ultimately delivered our supplies to the beleaguered little island of Malta. It was a battle which will go dowm in naval annals, for not in the recollection of any officer present had such a prolonged fight been won by so small a force against such great odds.
I saw the battle with another American correspondent, Richard Mowrer, of the Chicago Daily News. I was aboard one of the cruisers which charged straight into the enemy’s teeth, cuffed him off, rained shells upon and around him and finally pulled the convoy to safety right out of what had appeared to be certain destruction, not only to the freighters but to the bulk of our thin-walled fighting vessels.
The battle occurred Sunday, beginning in the early afternoon and ending only after dark when the Italian fleet withdrew, puzzled, whipped, and wounded. In the Italian fleet were one battleship of the Littorio class with 15-inch guns, two 8-inch cmisers of the Trenton class, four 6-inch cmisers of the Condottieri class and a screen of destroyers.
Against them we had a 6-inch cruiser and anti-aircraft cruisers, whose heaviest guns were five-and-a-quarter-inch, and sixteen destroyers. There wasn’t a single gun in the British squadron which could more than make a minor dent in the Italian battleship.
It was like throwing nails at a rampaging elephant. And yet at the end of the battle every British ship was afloat.
(The British Admiralty Wednesday night summarized the battle by saying the light British forces set fire to the Italian battleship with shells, rammed her amidships with a torpedo and damaged two Italian cruisers. After this, 150 Axis planes hounded the convoy for two more days but were driven off. The British suffered some damage to one cruiser and three destroyers and had light casualties among their crews.)
At the end of the battle one British destroyer reported it had slammed one torpedo into the battleship for certain and possibly more. Nor were the British ships fighting surface vessels alone. Throughout the battle and long before hand, Axis dive bombers had attacked the convoy and the escorting vessels incessantly.
Individual British ships were firing simultaneously both at the enemy battle- fleet and at diving bombers as the battle raged over a 40-mile westerly course. The convoy started from Alexandria March 20 to get munitions and other supplies to the besieged island of Malta off the toe of the Italian boot. The squadron was commanded by Rear Admiral Philip N. Vian, already several times decorated for such exploits as rescuing the British seamen from the German prison ship Altmark while the latter was hiding away in a Norway harbor. Through March 20 and until after dusk of March 21 we bucked along through increasingly heavy seas, undetected by enemy reconnaissance planes.
Then tough luck. Just at dusk March 21 five German transport planes escorted by a Messerschmitt 110 spotted us as it passed on the way from the Libyan front to Crete. They were beyond the range of our guns so they hurried on untouched to report the location of our convoy. That meant not only that on the following day we would be attacked by dive bombers, but that the Italian fleet would have time to put to sea and intercept us somewhere between Greece and Malta. Both happened.
It was a grim prospect, and none of the officers aboard could paint a rosy picture of it. Neither Mowrer nor I nor a British newsreel cameraman, David Prosser—the three “noncombatants”—gave ourselves the remotest chance of getting back to Alexandria alive.
The sea was rough, churned to frothy whitecaps by a southeast wind. In a battle at sea there is nobody to rescue you once your ship is down, and the odds were that virtually every ship in the squadron as well as the convoy would be sunk. And there was no possibility of surviving a lifebelt or small boat in that sea. The air-raiding began with torpedo bombers swinging in from all sides. One narrowly missed a destroyer, which turned in time to dodge it. Throughout the forenoon these kept coming in, but were repeatedly driven to dropping torpedoes from a high level or from a great distance. Twice more, around noon, we were attacked by high and low level bombers. Then, at 2:25 p.m., there came ominous word from a neighboring cruiser: “Four suspicious vessels to the starboard.” We were then south of the toe of Italy.
With my field glasses I looked to the starboard. There on the horizon was the Italian fleet. Without a moment’s delay four cargo vessels were sent in the opposite direction, accompanied by part of our squadron, and the rest of us headed for the enemy. This little light squadron had a tremendous task to perform. It was six hours until darkness would permit the convoy to steal away to Malta. During that 6 hours our light squadron had to hold off a vastly superior force, for already we could make out the battleship, racing through the waves straight toward us.
Our strategy was similar to that by which the cruisers Ajax, Exeter, and Achilles harassed the German pocket battleship Graf Spee to defeat off Montevideo, Uruguay. Every ship in the squadron began making a smoke screen as we charged the Italian fleet. The battleship’s long-range guns began kicking up spouts of water to the right and left of us long before we wTere in range to open fire with our lighter stuff. As we came to the point where our guns could reach the Italians we swung sharply to the left and began firing broadsides. They were little shots for so big a target, but we kept pouring them in. As the Italian guns began getting our range we abruptly doubled back, hiding behind the smoke screen we had created. From time to time we dashed through the smoke to fire a few salvos, and then ducked back.
After an hour and a half of this the Italian fleet withdrew temporarily. The enemy was afraid to break through the smoke screen, fearing that as he came near our destroyers would have plunged out with a score of torpedoes. The destroyers were all ready and set to do exactly that.
But the respite was not for long. We headed back to rejoin the convoy and give it added protection from the air bombing, which had been incessant during the naval battle. We had just reached the convoy when the enemy showed up on another quarter and we went after him again, employing the same tactics. He had every advantage of air reconnaissance and aid from dive bombers. But again we bluffed him off long enough for the convoy to get outside the range of his 15-inchers.
At this time came up that piece of British custom that even the toughest time will not shake—tea.
One man from each station was sent to the kitchen to bring a pot of tea. It is hard for Americans to understand how the English could halt for tea with an overpowering enemy seeking out a new place at which to attack, but a Briton with a spot of tea under his belt is a better fighting man. They gulped their tea hot and fast and stood back to their jobs. It was just in time.
Air Power and The Navy
Baltimore Sun, March 15, by Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, R.N. from the Manchester Guardian.—
{The arguments for and. against an independent ®,r corps, such as Britain has in the RAF, have been long and bitter. The United States has not been won 0Ver to the British system; it continues to have its ormy air corps and its naval airforces. In thefollow- UIS article Admiral Richmond adds his word to the general debate.)
Since the Security of the Commonwealth rests upon the foundation-stone of sea Power it follows that the integrity of this seapower is essential, that all the units shall be provided in the numbers and type required to fulfill the “continuous” operations of the “direct” action at sea. It has been said that if the Navy is given the air forces of its needs the Royal Air Force will be deprived of its most useful characteristic of “flexibility.” This is not so. Since sea operations are continuous all the aircraft engaged in them are, or should be, permanently in employ of the work of establishing command and control. None can be removed without detriment to the effective performance of the fundamental task. It is, therefore, a complete error to suppose that the flexibility of the air force is affected by the permanent assignment of the aircraft of its needs to the Navy.
The assumption that aircraft co-operate only by favor of an authority other than that responsible for the security at sea is dangerous in the extreme. Let a simple example illustrate this on a small scale:
An officer commanding a naval force is assigned the duty of protecting a service of convoys along a route flanked by enemy positions from which attacks can be launched by destroyers, motor-torpedo boats, and gunboats, submarines and aircraft. He must organize and dispose his forces in such a way as will meet all these attacks with the greatest economy of force.
If efficiency and economy—the words are really synonymous—are to be attained there must be the most perfect co-ordination and use of all the units. The aircraft are units as integral as the destroyers, corvettes, and gunboats. The whole scheme of defense must be nicely adjusted, and one section of the force cannot be removed without throwing out the balance.
Of the aircraft employed some may be working from the decks of the fighting ships, some from the catapults of the merchantmen, others from points on shore. The one essential thing is, that all shall have their tasks and all be available when the moment comes.
Attack on the enemy’s communications is, as we see daily in the North Sea and Mediterranean, a continuous and essential element in the sea warfare. Cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft take part in it. If the service is to be effectively performed the forces must not be subject to fluctuations in their components or suffer from uncertainty as to whether all the arms will be available. Like the convoys already referred to, co-ordination in the planning and execution and continuity of effort are essential. Aircraft are no less units of the larger concentrations which engage in battle. While these are the “normal” and continuous duties of the Navy there are also those “occasional” operations which are of a conjunct nature—expeditions to capture an enemy base or occupy some strategic position over sea. In these in the past land and sea forces have co-operated. Today, the third arm is thrown into the scale, and we see every day its importance. Besides these conjunct expeditions there are other occasions of operations in which there is the greatest advantage to be derived from co-operation between the sea and air forces in action at sea. Thus it became necessary some months ago to send a great convoy through the Mediterranean. The occasion wras not normal but exceptional; supplies were urgently needed and the time would not admit of using the longer route round the Cape. This was a major operation in which, though the naval escort of ships and aircraft would be made up to the greatest available strength, the additional aid of the Royal Air Force would have been of the utmost use. As the Germans preceded their invasion of Poland with a crushing attack on the Polish airdromes and General Wavell his into Cyrenaica with similar action, so the proper preparation for the movement of the convoy through the Sicilian Channel would have been to cripple the enemy’s air forces which inflicted on us the losses of the Illustrious and Southampton.
So, too, if a battle at sea is known or expected to be imminent—a thing that rarely but sometimes occurrs—-the co-operation of the Royal Air Force from its shore bases is to be desired. It is in these types of special occurrences, not a part of the normal proceedings, that the “flexibility” of the Air Force has its full scope. It can throw its weight with equal ease into a battle in the desert or a convoy movement or a battle at sea, provided sufficient warning can be given. That flexibility should be maintained and developed to the utmost, but for what I have called the “normal” and continuous operations of obtaining command and exercising control the Navy must possess and use in the manner best suited to their employment the air forces which are integral units of the sea forces. The distinction between the normal and the exceptional operations needs to be recognized and the most complete interchange of information on forthcoming events at sea should be organized.
Exit the “Engadine”
The Aeroplane (London), February 20. —Old hands in the Royal Naval Air Service, or what one might call the Ancient and Honorable Order of Seaflyers, will remember with respect and admiration a little ship called the Engadine. Before the outbreak of war in 1914 she and her sister-ship the Riviera, and their companion the Empress, ran as cross-channel packets between Calais and Dover, or Boulogne and Folkestone. Soon after the outbreak of warjthey were commandeered by the Air Department of the Admiralty and put under the particular care of Lieut. Cecil l’Estrange Malone, R.N., Squadron Commander R.N.A.S.
On Christmas Eve, 1914, they went up the North Sea carrying Short float seaplanes in the hangars which had been built on their decks aft. On Christmas Day the seaplanes were lowered overside, spread their wings and proceeded to bomb Cux- haven and Wilhelmshaven.
Later when the Ben-my-Chree, an Isle of Man packet, which had likewise been turned into a seaplane carrier, was sunk by Turkish artillery at Castelorizzo (or Castel Rosso), the Engadine wras sent out to the Mediterranean to go on with the job of patrolling the coast of Palestine and Syria.
Between whiles she had been at the Battle of Jutland, where small as she was, she had towed the disabled battleship Warrior out of action, and incidentally had given Flight Lieut. Rutland the opportunity of winning the Albert Medal, which he did by going down between the hulls of the two ships to rescue an injured man who had fallen into the water, with almost the certainty of being squashed between ships himself. The Albert Medal is only given when odds are ten to one against survival.
After the war the Engadine went back to the cross-channel route for some years and then disappeared.
During the first week of February, 1942, there arrived in this country copies of the American weekly magazine Time, in which ■was a description—which, as it was put, would mean little to English people—of how an inter-island boat named Corregi- dor, after the fortress at the mouth of Manila Bay, plying between Manila and other P°rts on Luzon and Mindanao, had set out from Manila laden with 800 refugees and fed by a U. S. Navy launch to take her through the mine fields. In the darkness the Corregidor overran the launch and hit a nnine. Of the 800 passengers 300 were miraculously saved in the dark from the sharks.
And that was the end of the gallant little Engadine, which had been sold out of our service to the Far East. A properly warlike end to a good little ship.—C.G.G.
The Escape from Brest, German Account
The Aeroplane, February 20.—German reports of the voyage of the three German warships through the Channel say that the expedition was planned three to four weeks before the ships left port.
The Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Engen raised steam on the afternoon of February 11 and left port immediately after a British air raid at 20.30 hours. The night was so dark that those on board the Gneisenau could not even see the outline of the ship. When the Scharnhorst slipped anchor it switched on a searchlight for a few minutes to pick up the right channel. An escort of destroyers left with the warships.
The squadron began the voyage at a speed of 25 knots. Vice-Admiral Ciliax, who was in command, aped Nelson’s famous signal when he gave the order “The Fiihrer expects every one of us to make unstinted efforts.”
As soon as dawn broke with a deep blue sky the fighter escort and a large number of E-boats joined the squadron. Types of fighter engaged were the Me 109E, the Me 109f, the He 113, the Fw 190h and the Me 110. The squadron reached the Straits of Dover apparently unnoticed and had to reduce speed to negotiate the narrows. Up to this time the weather had been excellent. The British long-range batteries opened fire, but the ships were able to take evasive action. Shortly afterwards torpedoes were fired from British motor-torpedo boats and destroyers. They were easily avoided because they were fired from a long distance. As soon as the squadron left the narrowest part of the channel they ran into a dense mist and almost at the same time intense air attack started. The alarm was sounded at twelve o’clock and the ships turned to full steam ahead.
During the course of the air attack the Germans claimed that the anti-aircraft guns of the squadron shot down at least 10 British machines. The Germans’ fighter protection was maintained incessantly until the ships reached the Helgoland Bight, where they anchored just before dark.
The German air units were under the command of Field Marshal Sperrle, who had under him General de Flieger Coler in charge of the Luftwaffe Coastal Command and Colonel Galland, who was in charge of the fighters.
FRANCE
Daladier’s Statement
New York Herald Tribune, February 28. —Former Premier Edouard Daladier asserted at his war guilt trial today that France had more tanks than Germany for the western front campaign of May, 1940, and praised General Charles de Gaulle, an advocate of mechanized warfare and now Free French leader in London, “whom I am proud to have named a general.” He said the French high command refused for years to listen to the argument of De Gaulle and other younger generals that tanks should be used as a spearhead of attack rather than as isolated units to accompany infantry advance.
France had 3,600 tanks and 500 armored cars available in 1940, whereas Germany used only 2,000 tanks in the campaign, the wartime Premier said. “But our leaders did not believe in them” he said. “They were placed way behind our troops, too far off to be of any use.” The French tanks, he said, were dispersed all over the front in small groups of three or four.
The court interrupted Daladier at this point to state that the trial was “not for the purpose of criticizing conduct of operations” of the war, but rather to dispose of charges that he and five other defendants were responsible for France’s lack of preparation for war. Answering the prosecution charge that he had opposed lengthening of military service from one to two years in 1934, Daladier said he had favored one- year service because it enabled more men to remain in vital industrial jobs. Even so, he said, he had boosted the standing army, and when war began, “we had 37,000 officers in the active army, and that is 7,000
more than Germany had.”
“A long list of comparative figures shows that more men were in training during my ministry than in any previous one,” Daladier said. “I trained 2,000,000 men.”
Questioned on the alleged inefficiency of armament, Daladier went into a financial analysis and said that the 600,000,000 francs originally appropriated for military strengthening in 1934 was reduced to 400,000,000 by Marshal Henri Petain, then Minister of War and now chief of the French state. (The franc was worth 6| cents at the time.) When he took over the ministry in 1936, Daladier said, “there was not one modem anti-tank gun in use, despite the fact that the prototype of a magnificent 57-millimeter anti-tank gun existed in 1932.”
“Nobody, I repeat, nobody, in the history of France consecrated so much money as I did to the manufacture of armaments,” Daladier said, adding that he could not be held responsible for the type of armament used in the French Army, since that was the job of the general staff, which distributed appropriations on recommendation of the high command.
Pierre Cot, Air Minister in the Daladier cabinet, who is now in Washington and is being tried here in absentia, said in a cable to Daladier that France’s lack of sufficient aviation in 1939 “came principally from the wrong military conception of the general staff.” He said that on two occasions in 1936 he had submitted plans for doubling of the French air fleet, but they were rejected unanimously by the general staff, while parachute troops, created in 1937, were “suppressed” by the general staff just before war began.
Cot said he wished to assume full responsibility for the delivery of French Army planes to the Spanish Republican government in 1936, and to relieve Daladier and former Premier Leon Blum, who also is on trial, of any blame in matters concerning aviation.
U.S.S.R.
Development of Army
London Times, February 23.—“The first commandment for those who would achieve a successful revolution is to bring about the disintegration of the old army and its replacement by a new one.” These words of Lenin might apply to a nation not engaged in a great war, but in the circumstances in which the Red Army was formed they have a special significance. For there was then no choice. The Red Army was formed under the shadow of Brest-Litovsk. The date officially recognized is February 23, 1918, and today is the twenty-fourth anniversary. The old army had already disintegrated; it had to be replaced by a new one.
Lenin himself would have been prepared to continue resistance to the Germans on a guerrilla scale if the tools then in his hand had sufficed. That was what naany members of his party desired when they urged the rejection of the German terms: the final decision in favor of signing the treaty was carried only by 116 votes against 85. But the tools were quite inadequate. From the Commander in Chief, Krylenko, came the warning: “We have no army. . . . We have no power to stop the enemy.” From the Navy came the report: We have no fleet now; it is broken up.” To the heated protests against signature Lenin replied: “Give me an army of 100,000 men and I will not sign, but it must be a strong and steadfast army.” And this was at a time when, despite the enormous casualties suffered by Russia in the course °f the war, there were still living, though n°t necessarily still with the colors, something like 10,000,000 men who had been Mobilized for war. Remolding would not bo; therefore the treaty must be signed and the work of creating an army must be be- &Un again from the very beginning.
The Bolshevists as a party had never tackled problems of national defense.
Lenin, himself a student of Clausewitz, the only military thinker who has ever completely fused the philosophical, the theoretical, and the practical in the discussion of warfare, afterwards admitted that this was a serious weakness on their part. Their activities had been limited to the spread of revolutionary propaganda, which had furthered their seizure of power but had also helped to bring about that military collapse which now made further resistance impossible.
They had made some contributions to the material side from which the Red Army was to benefit. The most important of these was the institution of the Red Guards, a comparatively old organization re-established in February, 1917, to provide the main buckler of defense against General Kornilov. The Red Army also drew large numbers of recruits from the guerrilla bands, originally formed by peasants with the object of preventing the land returning to the possession of the former owners, especially in Siberia and the Ukraine. Of these the Siberians, who opposed the Czechs and Admiral Kolchak, were the more reliable, some of the Ukrainians more than once transferring their allegiance from one side to the other or fighting independently for their own land.
The Red Army which came to birth on February 23, 1918, was recruited in the first instance from the towns, because the townsfolk displayed more revolutionary enthusiasm and less war-weariness than the peasantry. By the month of May it had reached a strength of 300,000 men. Thereafter for some time it owed its growth largely to local recruitment. This was indeed one of its most remarkable characteristics. It grew much less from a central organization than from the local organizations of the widely scattered armies. It was built up in the battle zone, under fire. But though the Red Army had to be created from the smallest beginnings, it made wide use of material from the old army which was there to its hand. The soldier of the Tsarist Army could not be turned into a Red Army man in the field, but he could be brought back to the colors as a Red Army man. In this the Red Army differed from the French revolutionary army, in which old regiments were retained all through. In other respects there were some close resemblances, notably in regard to the recruitment of officers.
A number of officers’ schools were formed at the initial stage. But their first products were mediocre in military knowledge, however satisfactory as regards keenness. Then it was decided to enroll Tsarist officers not only as instructors but also, and in greater numbers, as combatants. The French leaders of the Napoleonic Wars included men of three types, the former officer such as Davout, the former n.c.o. such as Soult, and the former civilian such as Suchet— to name only three of the very best. This was also the case with the Red Army. By the year 1920, out of 120,000 officers of the rank of lieutenant and upwards, about one-third were officers of the old army, one- third products of the new schools, and the remaining third from other sources, many of them old n.c.o.s. like Marshals Budyonny and Voroshilov, others perhaps former Red Guards, others, again like Budyonny, guerrilla leaders. Of the old officers one of the ablest and most distinguished is General Shapozhnikov, who had been a staff officer during the European War, and is now chief of the staff in the present war.
Such were the beginnings of the great military machine which is now celebrating its twenty-fourth anniversary in the midst of a victorious counter-offensive after emerging with unbroken spirit from a series of heavy reverses. Its astonishing progress during these eventful 24 years would not have been accomplished had it not been accompanied and indeed preceded by a similar evolution of the country as a whole. The early Red Army, even after it had been regularized, was perforce a semi-guerrilla force, an army of rifles, swords, and lances. No thought, no instruction, no staff work could have formed it into anything else, but for the industrialization of Russia under the successive “plans.” Industrialization has provided the weapons and, equally important, the ability to use and maintain them. A new generation has grown up with machinery behind it and with a knowledge of machinery.
The industrialization of Russian agriculture was a great contributory factor to the efficiency of the mechanized army. Peasants in civil life learnt the use of the tractor and the care of the engine. The Russian soldier, wffio was apt to ruin the simplest mechanism in 1914-17, now maintains his tank, his aircraft, and all the other delicate and intricate tools of warfare as well as the best of any nation.
Officers of high rank are on the whole younger than their equivalents in most other armies; and great stress is laid on professional training and technical efficiency both for officers and men. Every Soviet fighting man takes an oath in which he swears among other things to apply himself “conscientiously to acquiring knowledge of military affairs.” More general forms of education are not neglected, the principal function of the political commissars being instruction in political affairs and current events. This has probably had something to do with the maintenance of that indomitable spirit of national unity and solidarity which, combined with technical skill, has enabled the Red Army to emerge unbroken and triumphant from its recent ordeal.
The building up of the Red Army has been an amazing achievement, and foreign observers, including those of Germany, may be excused if up till last year they had failed to comprehend the full extent of its success. And while all the old elements have been overlaid by modem equipment and modem training, the Red Army still retains the old power to make use of the great open spaces of Russia, together with far older traditions which extend back through Brusilov, Skobolev, Kutusov, to Suvarov and beyond him.
Rocket Aerial Bomb
El Nacional (Mexico City), February 20, extracts from an article, “Aspects of the War,” from the military review Defense.—In several military reviews mention has been made of the possibility of using against tanks an aerial penetrating bomb capable of piercing the armor plate of those machines of war and of destroying them by exploding in their interior. The problem of giving to a bomb an additional velocity in excess of that due to gravity and to the momentum imparted by the airplane had been solved in theory, but nothing practical had been done in this respect.
The Russians recently have begun to employ an airplane designed especially for combating tanks. They have equipped this plane with two very effective types of weapons: four guns of 37 mm., a caliber which has been used in explosive armorpiercing or penetrating bombs. The “Stur- rnovik,” which is the plane to which we refer, carries ten 100-kilogram bombs of this type. This bomb has a reinforced head designed to pierce the armor of the tank attacked by the plane. But in order to accomplish this penetration it does not rely merely on the velocity imparted by the plane, plus the pull of gravity; it is equipped also with a rocket which for 4 °r 5 seconds gives it an additional speed. This rocket contains 5 kilograms of powder, enough to give it that extra speed needed for penetration.
The “Sturmovik” is a dive bomber which attains a speed of 300 kilometers per hour in a power dive. The penetrating bomb is released at an altitude of 300 meters, and the rocket ignites immediately upon leaving the bomb rack. The velocity acquired from the plane’s dive and the pull of gravity is augmented by the combustion of the rocket charge, so that the bomb strikes its objective with three times the hitting force that it would have without the added impulse of the rocket. This penetrating bomb has been used with excellent results by the Russian air force, obliging the Germans to increase the armor of their tanks to the detriment of mobility, and also to seek methods of protection against this new anti-tank weapon. The aerial attack is carried out against what has been up till now the weakest part of the tank; that is, its upper part, where the armor was thinner than on the side. The strengthening of the armor plate on the upper surfaces entails the use of greater quantities of material in the construction of a tank. Taking into account the fact that tanks are now produced by the thousands and tens of thousands, one can realize that the increase in armor is important, and has considerable effect on the output of the German war industry.
The impact of any projectile depends on its weight and velocity. If its weight is doubled, the impact will also be doubled; but if its velocity is doubled, the impact will be quadrupled. Hence the importance of giving the bomb an additional velocity.
Any falling object theoretically increases its speed indefinitely, but in practice the resistance of the air prevents its exceeding a fixed rate of fall, which is known as the “terminal velocity.” The added impulse imparted by the rocket to the penetrating bomb makes the latter exceed its terminal velocity and pierce armor which otherwise would resist the impact.
OTHER COUNTRIES Australia
Today every Australian eye turns northward. It is in the north that danger lies, and to her own once neglected northern coast Australia must now give her prime attention. Center of that attention is Darwin—not Port Darwin, as it is often called in England. Darwin is not only a focal point of Australian defense; it is a base of high importance in the Pacific strategy, taking its place with Singapore and Pearl Harbor, not for the refitting of ships—it has no docks—but for its fuel oil installation. Because of this oil Darwin is important today. Otherwise, it might still be a ramshackle tropical town of 5,000 or so people, 2,000 miles from the Australian centers of population and of
no particular strategic significance, because any force which landed there would have found itself isolated by vast tracts of waterless country, as difficult, in some cases much more difficult, to cover as the hinterland of Libya.
This administrative center of Australia’s Northern (Federal) Territory is not primarily important because it is on the way to anywhere. In that respect it is like any other spot on an inhospitable coast. It is important because the Navy, assessing the situation in relation to Singapore and other actual and potential sources of fuel, decided upon Darwin as the site of a fuel oil installation. The quantity of oil in store is naturally not publicly known. But it is large and obviously very important.
First, then, came the Navy. The Navy needed eyes—the reconnaissance planes of the Royal Australian Air Force. Thus there came into being a still growing R.A.A.F. operational station, a permanent establishment. With war arose the need for army support. The little garrison which manned the shore batteries guarding the harbor grew out of all recognition. Men of the Australian Military Forces (home service) began pouring in to man new guns and new anti-aircraft batteries. Huge new barracks were built—and are still building—at Larrakeyah, a suburb of Darwin, every excavation blasted in the rock which lies a few inches deep under the surface.
Then all this was supplemented and supported by a field force of the A.I.F. So Darwin has become in every sense a “services” town, the original civil population many times outnumbered by sailors, soldiers, and airmen. Ships of war lie in Darwin’s magnificent harbor; planes roar overhead; and everywhere, in the town itself, for miles back in the bush, by the mangrove swamps where the half-wild aborigines come to hold their corroborees to the muttering of the didgery-do (dronepipe), you find soldiers. These soldiers, because of the shortage of civilian labor in the Territory, are not only soldiers; they are builders too. The Army has made tracks where there were none and roads where they were tracks. It has built huts of steel and galvanized iron, concrete floored against the wet season, now in full humidity, which for four months of the year makes Darwin a little Singapore in climate as well as in martial appearance. For the rest of the year the weather is dry and, for those who do not mind heat, virtually perfect.
Darwin, ordinarily stagnant, the unhappy product of varying administrations of varying degrees of efficiency, has attempted to cope with this unlooked-for expansion. But accommodation for civilians is hopelessly inadequate. One good new hotel caters for such air travelers as can get into it. But with British and Dutch airliners bringing passengers from north and south and with local lines bringing more from Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth it is not yet quantitatively adequate for the job. Yet Darwin, which, its new hotel excepted, still looks like something from the Wild West in its spacious days—it is the only town in Australia in which gambling saloons run openly—has the makings of a beautiful town. Its harbor is superb. Flowering trees flourish there. In the late spring the air is heavy with the scent of frangipanni. The sun shines, and only the squalid quarters and the drains are vile. For many years Darwin had no practical communication with the rest of Australia except by sea, with Brisbane on the east coast and Fremantle, the port of Perth, on the west. Then came the airlines. Today Darwin and Sydney are the principal points of entry for people from oversea—mostly official or semiofficial people these days—arriving by air through Singapore and the Indies, or across the Pacific by way of New Zealand. For the needs of the growing services population sea and air communication are not enough.
In theory Australia will some day have a railway from north to south, as she already has one from west to east, running from Perth through Kalgoorlie to Adelaide and Melbourne and thence northward up the coast. A section of this north- south railway has been built at each end. One
line runs northward from Adelaide, in South Australia, over the border of the Territory to Alice Springs, in “the Centre.” The other section straggles south from Darwin and peters out in nothingness at Birdum. In between are about 600 miles of country hitherto crossed only by outback dwellers and well-equipped expeditions and, not so long ago, regarded as a first-class test of skill and hardihood for anyone in a motor truck.
With war the Government decided to supply this missing link, not with rails but with a road. The result was the Central Australian all-weather road of 621 miles from Alice Springs to Larrimah, a new railway siding just north of the railhead at Birdum. It has to be an all-weather road because in the dry season it is so dry that many people have called this region the “dead heart,” and in the wet season so wet as, in ordinary circumstances, to be beyond traveling in many places.
With every mechanical aid to roadmaking the road was driven through in record time by the road authorities of Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia. A year ago it was taken over by the Army. At Alice Springs are the headquarters of the Central Australian line of communication whose convoys, carrying everything from lettuces to aero engines, thunder up the road. Material is sent to Alice Springs by train, loaded on motor trucks there and carried UP the road in what is said to be the second longest convoy in the world, to Larrimah, whence it is railed to Darwin.
The road leads through a strange and often beautiful country, by odd rock formations and ghost gums” white of bole and pale green of leaf, while an occasional kangaroo or emu darts from the highway and flocks of bright parrots wheel above the trees. From Alice Springs it runs by Aileron and Ti-Tree Well (bush inns, these), Barrow Creek (173 miles), Wauchope (243 miles), Banka Banka, Tennant’s Creek, Elliott (469 miles), Newcastle Waters and Daly Waters to Larrimah. Of these only Tennant’s Creek, a sweltering gold-mining center of galvanized iron buildings, and Newcastle Waters, a junction of the cattle trails, could be called townships. The °thers are camps, or villages, made up, perhaps, °t a. hotel and a post office.
Lp and down this great new road goes a constant traffic of men and material. The road is not °uly strategically important; it has opened up a ^ast region known to only a fraction of Aus- rahans, and its construction is of great potential importance. Many thousands of Australians ave-now seen for themselves that the “dead . eart” is not dead at all. Some day they hope may beat vigorously, a vital part of the postwar Australia that already they envisage.— London Times, January 26.
Madagascar
So small has the world become that the island of Madagascar, located off the east coast of Africa, has assumed a strategic importance to the United States almost as great as the Caribbean islands protecting the approaches to the Panama Canal. Frowning over the African mainland to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east, this third largest of the world’s inhabited islands is in the hands of Vichy—a constant threat to lines of communications which may soon be the only safe, comparatively swift means of supplying the Allied armies in the Near and Middle East. Axis forces operating out of Madagascar would be in a position to disrupt communications between the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and threaten the Union of South Africa itself—in Axis hands a potential offensive base against the Western Hemisphere.
Located in Madagascar is one of the best naval bases in the Indian Ocean. No small island like Singapore or Hongkong, the area is 241,094 square miles—85,000 square miles larger than California. It has a population of 3,978,000—more than half of that of Australia—and can be reached by long- range German bombers from Sicily, Libya, or French North Africa. Intermediary trans-African airports are held by the Vichy Government. With Java seriously threatened, the gates of the Indian Ocean soon may swing wide for the Japanese fleet and permit air and naval forces of Nippon to launch a full-scale attack on Madagascar. During the last three years a number of Japanese missions have visited the islands. Madagascar exports some of the best graphite in the world and various rare and radioactive minerals. Its soil contains iron, anthracite, and even oil. These unexploited riches must even in ordinary times attract a prospective conqueror.
On March 4 Vichy once again denied persistent reports that negotiations were in progress for the establishment of Japanese bases in Madagascar. These reports were described as “fantastic” by the Petain Government, but the same language was used in Vichy on the eve of the uncontested occupation of Indo-China by Japan. In order to credit such a denial it would be necessary to presume that the Japanese militarists have stepped from character out of regard for Vichy’s neutrality. All Allied shipping proceeding over the South Atlantic routes from the United States and Great Britain to Egypt, southern Russia, India, or China either must pass east of Madagascar or through the Mozambique Channel, which separates Madagascar from the African mainland.
At its narrowest point the channel is less than 300 miles wide. The opposite shore in its entire length is the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, the only strip on the western shore of the Indian Ocean which is not under Allied control. Japanese air and naval forces stationed in Madagascar could close this channel, harass shipping on the open sea and force the Allies to greatly lengthen the Indian Ocean routes. In addition, the Japanese would be able to deliver serious blows to shipping operating out of the great army provisioning center of Mombasa, chief port on the African east coast between Durban, South Africa, and the Red Sea.
This port, terminal of the Kenya and Uganda railroads, taps one of Africa’s richest agricultural areas. Every one of East Africa’s outlets to the sea would be open to enemy action. The plateaus of the interior of Madagascar, surrounded by mountains, are ideal terrain for hidden airports. There are good harbors on both the Indian Ocean and the Mozambique Channel coast. A relatively well-developed system of highways and railroads facilitates communications within the island. On the northern tip of Madagascar is the naval fortress of Diego Suarez, long developed by the French. It has a harbor 40 feet deep, repair shops, and a dry dock capable of handling cruisers.
Madagascar is served by interior airlines. In the last two years new airports and highways have been built in the interior. Such public works originally were designed to alleviate the detrimental effects of the war upon the population. The gradual rapprochement between Vichy and Japan has given these undertakings strange significance. The present administration of the islands frequently has manifested its devotion to Vichy. These manifestations have not been limited to the outpourings of the powerful broadcasting station of Alarobia. When Britain, in 1940, agreed that a specified number of ships with food should be allowed to ply between Madagascar and unoccupied France, the island’s Governor General abused this facility by dispatching to Marseille several shiploads of industrial raw materials vital to the Nazi war machine.
These shipments, fortunately, were intercepted and seized by British naval patrols before they could leave the Indian Ocean. Madagascar may even now be used as a relay station for experimental flights of German bombers from the Mediterranean to Japanese advance positions in the Indies. The fact that the Australian war communique of February 21 mentioned the presence over Port Darwin of aircraft bearing swastika markings points in this direction.
It is not impossible that Madagascar in Japanese hands might some day become a springboard for the invasion of the Union of South Africa, the socle upon which Allied military and economic power in South and Central Africa is based. Here alone have the United Nations port facilities, dry docks, and repair shops comparable to Singapore. South Africa’s main ports—Cape Town with Table Bay Harbor, Port Elizabeth and Port Durban—take an essential place in the long established strategic plan for the defense of sea communications between the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. Table Bay today is the only harbor in the Indian Ocean where even the largest aircraft carriers and ships of the size of the Queen Elizabeth can dock and go alongside pier.
It has been extended considerably in the course of the last three years. Two new basins, with a unified depth of 40 and 43 feet, respectively, 1,000 feet long and 300 feet wide, are about to be added to the existing three. By the end of this year Cape Town will be able to accommodate 31 large seagoing vessels simultaneously—more than three times the number provided for ten years ago. South Africa’s ports are indispensable relay stations on the sea route into the Indian Ocean. South Africa is the terminal of transcontinental air and land routes from Egypt to the Cape.
From South Africa the United States hopes to receive some of the most essential minerals hitherto imported from Asia. A United States mission is even now preparing to leave for Cape Town to expedite the shipment of South African mine products to America. South Africa is a reservoir of man power, industry, and raw materials from which today the United Nations can supplement their forces for eventual offensive action against the enemy. One bright spot in the Madagascar situation is that the people—French as well as Malgaches—are not in favor of Vichy and collaboration with the Axis. The large Protestant majority on the island never shared the illusions of certain French Catholic leaders about the men around Petain. Today, faced with the double menace of Japan’s Black Dragon and Hitler’s swastika, many of those who supported Vichy have turned toward this other great leader Gen. Charles de Gaulle. The Free French movement has numerous sympathizers on the island and with sufficient United States support, De Gaulle probably could close this Vichy stable door before the horse is stolen.—Baltimore Sun, March 8.
AVIATION
A Revieiv of Rotating Wing Aircraft, 1941
A review of progress in rotating wing aircraft during the year 1941 is naturally hampered by
Aeronautics,
the fact that both design features and technical studies remain for the most part undisclosed because of war conditions. However, even the meager information which it is possible to present gives evidence of vigorous growth in the art.
Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, February, by Alexander Klemin.*—From the point of view of utilization in army work, the demonstrations given by the self-catapulting autogiro Model PA-36 of the Pitcairn-Larsen Autogiro Company (now a part of the A.G.A. Corporation) were most encouraging. This autogiro, fully described in the technical press in the year 1940, is of all-metal construction and incorporates many refinements. The demonstrations of this machine were given to army representatives at Bolling Field, Fort Bragg, Fort Knox, and Fort Sill.
Flights were made to carry out military tasks such as artillery reconnaissance and liaison work, and to operate from highly restricted terrain. In the course of these demonstrations, the autogiro landed and took off from the top of a hill with steep slopes on three sides and an almost perpendicular cliff on the fourth. Normal landings and take-offs were made in an area 35X45 ft. and under adverse weather conditions. Operations were also carried on from plowed fields, rocky terrain, rain- soaked and swampy areas—the types of difficult terrain which might be used by army forces under actual combat conditions.
There has also been during the year frequent discussion of the use of the auto- 8lro in naval operations. Authoritative articles have appeared making out a good case for the use of the autogiro in convoy Work with the probability that the autogiro would be the most effective against Under-sea attack. As one writer has it, If submarine commanders knew that x * Guggenheim Research Professor of ■New York University.
there were a number of these slow-flying aircraft protecting convoys which their periscopes with their horizontal vision might be unable to pick up, torpedo attacks would be less skillfully directed than would otherwise be the case. Submarines fear depth charges, and depth bombs from the air are just as effective as if dropped off the deck of a vessel. Further, there is increased visibility from altitude and increased visibility arising out of slow flying speed. Both factors would give the autogiro observer greater ability to detect submarines.”
Against surface raiders the effectiveness of autogiros would probably be less, but even here four or five rotary aircraft attacking from various directions would make a formidable enemy for the surface raider. If attacks on convoys were made by aircraft, the autogiro would probably be the least effective. Similar views were expressed by another writer who pointed out that the operation of the conventional type of seaplanes from merchant vessels requires the installation of catapults for launching and of methods for hoisting aboard—a particularly difficult operation in rough waters.
The use of Hurricanes and other single seater fighters of relatively short range catapulted from a freighter is effective but is hazardous for the pilot. He cannot land on the deck of the freighter. He can either seek a land airport if his fuel is sufficient or mush into the water as near a ship as possible and save himself with a life belt. It is understood that much valuable equipment and still more valuable lives have been lost in such operations.
The writer was of the opinion that rotating aircraft of the wing type can be produced capable of operating from and landing on the short deck on the stern of a merchantman without a catapult or equipment for hoisting aboard and that such aircraft could carry a military load of pilot, observer, radio and depth charges and so would be in a position to apply increasingly effective pressure against submarines. Here is the specification in the words of the writer:
It should be possible to build such a machine capable of fulfilling service requirements for convoy escort duty and capable of easily operating with an adequate load of depth charges, pilot, observer and two-way radio from and to a platform 100X50 ft. in size or less. This type of machine should have a range at optimum cruising speed, estimated at 60 knots, of at least five hours. It should have a maximum speed in the neighborhood of 125 knots. Because of the absence of wings and rotation of the blades in flight, it would be an extremely difficult object to discern at any distance. Yet it should be capable of spotting a submarine more readily than the lookout on board a destroyer and should be able not only to give prompt warning to the convoy but to summon the service of aircraft to its immediate assistance.
Perhaps the outstanding achievement of the year has been the remarkable showing of the helicopter developed by Igor Sikorsky of Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft.
It will be remembered that the Model VS-300 helicopter was extensively tested and flown from March to October, 1940. It then, as is well known, demonstrated its ability to rise and climb vertically, hover over one spot and otherwise show complete control in gusty weather. Built for experimental purposes with open tubular welded framework, the machine included near its center of gravity a 90-hp. engine and a simple transmission which put most of the power into the vertical shaft of the main lifting rotor.
A light horizontal shaft originally carried a small part of the power to the end of the fuselage on which were situated three auxiliary rotors used for control of the aircraft and for the compensation of the torque of the main rotor. It was by the use of these three auxiliary rotors that normal airplane stick motions could be duplicated so as to give control of the helicopter whether in hovering motionless over a given spot, traveling forward, sideways or backward.
In the VS-300 control was obtained by changing the pitch of the three auxiliary rotors; thus moving the control column or stick from side to side differentially changed the pitch in two horizontal auxiliary rotors causing lateral or aileron reaction. By moving the stick forward and backward the pitch on the two horizontal rotors was changed simultaneously in the same direction, thereby achieving longitudinal or elevator reaction.
Rudder action was achieved by a foot pedal connected to the pitch control of the vertical auxiliary rotor. This vertical airscrew thus served a dual purpose; namely, that of counteracting torque produced by the single main lifting rotor and as a means of changing direction of flight. These three auxiliary screws had a diameter of 7|- ft., were lightly loaded, and rotated approximately four times as fast as the main rotor.
The main lifting rotor, as its name implied, furnished the major part of the lifting force and had three blades of 14 foot radius. This lifting force could be so varied both in magnitude and direction as to produce hovering, vertical, forward, sideways and backward flight. The variation of the magnitude of the lift was accomplished by changing the pitch of the three main rotor blades. The direction of flight, however, was governed by the three auxiliary rotors, it being only necessary to tilt the whole ship slightly in any desired direction of flight.
When the r.p.m. of the main rotor fell below a definite value, an automatic device changed the pitch of the main rotor. If engine failure occurred, the pitch of the main rotating surfaces would be so decreased that they would continue in autorotation and the helicopter would be converted into an autogiro.
Another interesting feature was the synchronization between the engine throttle, the main lifting rotor, and the two horizontal auxiliary rotors. This synchronization became very necessary when switching from hovering, or vertical flight, to say forward flight, since the pitch of the main lifting rotor is naturally greater when producing enough lift to hold the craft motionless, or while ascending vertically, than when forward motion is introduced.
However, since increasing the pitch of the main rotor blades meant additional horsepower in order to maintain a constant r.p.m., the pitch control lever was connected to the engine throttle, thus an increase or decrease in pitch automatically meant an increase or decrease in power transmitted to the main rotor. On the other hand, any variation of lift and power occasioned in the main rotor alone, unless the two rear horizontal auxiliary rotors were synchronized with it, would produce either a tail up or tail down condition. Therefore, the main pitch control was connected to the longitudinal control; m this manner, level flight was assured at all times. Of course, the pilot could vary the actual amount of power of the engine at any time by a separate hand throttle.
The necessary flight controls thus numbered essentially three; namely, the control column, or stick, the rudder pedals, and the main pitch control lever. It can be readily seen that flight was possible without subjecting the pilot to other than normal airplane flight reactions. A great advantage of the control system of the helicopter of this type over that of the conventional fixed wing airplane is that in the former the “feel” and effectiveness Uever vary, regardless of the altitude of the craft, since the control surfaces are always r°tating at a speed far in excess of the stalling speed of their particular airfoil Action.
The above description is substantially mat offered by Mr. Sikorsky himself at me January, 1941, annual meeting of the nstitute, as a fitting introduction to later developments which the VS-300 has undergone in the last few months. These developments may best be described in the designer’s own words:
During the summer we introduced a rather important change in the control of the VS-300—we eliminated the out-rigger arms at the tail of the ship which previously carried the two horizontal control propellers which provided longitudinal and lateral control. For longitudinal control, we placed one horizontal propeller on a structure directly over the tail. The increase or decrease of the pitch of this propeller acted just as did the simultaneous increase or decrease of the pitch of the two horizontal propellers in the previous arrangement.
However, for lateral control we worked out a kind of cyclical pitch for the main rotor blades so that if tilting to the right was required, we could increase the pitch of the blades as they pass on the left of the ship and decrease the pitch as they pass on the right side. Tilting to the left was accomplished in the reverse manner. Thus, in the present aircraft, lateral control is secured in the main rotor, while horizontal and directional control comes from the two remaining auxiliary rotors at the tail.
The present aircraft has been found to have most excellent characteristics of stability and control. We have found that in all of the true helicopter characteristics, such as vertical ascent and descent, hovering, backward and sideways flying, we have sacrificed nothing. On the other hand, we have secured a remarkable degree of stability and have not even approached any unpleasant characteristics throughout the entire range of performance. Forward speeds up to 60 m.p.h. or over have been almost routine, but the ship has not yet been found to approach its maximum speed. It has been routine performance to approach and hover near persons on the ground, either for loading and unloading objects on the aircraft, or for inspection of the craft while in flight, or for giving instructions to the pilot. Landings are regularly made within a few inches of a predetermined spot on the ground.
During the fall, we did considerable flying with the aircraft mounted on pontoons, and it was found that on the surface of the water the craft is more controllable than any other surface vessel. It not only taxies forward and backward, as do other surface craft, but it can also come to a complete stop without disengaging a clutch or stopping the engine; it can taxi sideways even against a strong current, in spite of the powerful resistance of its long pontoons; and it can turn complete circles precisely on one spot. In the air, the craft is every bit as agreeable as it is when mounted on wheels. Altitude has not yet been investigated, flight having been voluntarily restricted for the present to heights of not over 100 ft.
Some remarkable records have been achieved with this helicopter during the year. Thus on May 6, 1941, the world’s record for endurance was established when the aircraft remained in the air 1 hour, 32 minutes, 26.1 seconds—thereby exceeding the previous world’s record held by Germany. During this entire flight it hovered above an area less than half an acre in extent. A seaplane flight has been made in the Housatonic River adjacent to the Vought-Sikorsky factory. The machine hovered over the water for a minute or two. Flotation was made possible by removing the landing gear and replacing it with cigar-shaped rubber floats—two under the main part of the machine and one at the tail.
It has been known for some time that the Kellett Autogiro Company has delivered autogiros to the Army Air Corps which have received extensive service tests for the cavalry, field artillery, coast artillery and the infantry. These aircraft were of the YG-1B type, powered with 225- hp. motors, with direct control but without provision for accelerated or direct take-off. With the lessons learned through these tests under service conditions, the Kellett Autogiro Company in collaboration with the Army Air Corps has concentrated on improving such characteristics as landing, take-off, and all-round performance. There have also been sought improved vibration characteristics and lessened pilot fatigue by transmission of rotor actions through the control system. It is an advantage of the rotor that it may yield under gusts but it is not an advantage if the yielding of the direct control autogiro reflects itself in stick forces in the pilot’s hands.
It is interesting to learn that tapered rotor blades have been employed and are designed for constant center of pressure. Even though analogy with the fixed airfoil is not complete, it is an advantage to have tapered rotor blades since there is thus obtained a more uniform load distribution along the rotor disk and hence more uniform distribution of downwash through the rotor and thereby greater aerodynamic efficiency. It will be remembered that the fixed airfoil, which has maximum induced drag, is of elliptical plan form in which downwash at the wing is constant from center to tip.
Another advance is in the rubber mounting of the pylon with a view to improving vibration characteristics. While feathering control has been known for some time, its installation on the XR-3 autogiro perhaps marks its first advent in American aviation. It has often been argued that feathering control is preferable to direct tilting of the rotor as likely to be more sensitive and less capable of transmitting rotor reactions to the pilot.
The very excellent showing which the Pitcaim-Larsen PA-36 made in tests by the Army Air Corps has already been mentioned. This machine is so well known and has been so well described in a previous year that but one feature remains to be mentioned. This feature is that the PA-36 in skilled hands has rapidly landed on a space 5 ft. square. Many naval officers have said that similar speed landings on ship decks are feasible. However, when the pilot makes contact with the deck, some method of immediately making the aircraft fast must be available. The Pitcaim- Larsen Autogiro Company has developed a landing device, which is still in the confidential stage, but for which is claimed a practical method of fastening down that is quick and effective. The arresting gear in the proper sense of the word is not needed in deck landings because there would be in use little or no forward motion. In fact, in operations over the sea where some wind is invariably present, all landings could be vertical.
It has for some time been known that Platt-LePage Aircraft Company has a contract from the Army Air Corps for military type helicopters which are undergoing tests. The prototype is of extreme interest but its design features and tests as well as expected performance remain secret for the moment.
It is an open secret that Arthur M. Young, an independent worker in the field, bas placed his helicopter for further development in the hands of one of our most important aircraft companies.
Helicopters of the single rotor type with the airscrew at the tail end of the machine to provide anti-rotating torque appear to be attracting maximum attention. The Young helicopter belongs to this category
at least in its model form. In the helicopter hitherto, in the hovering or vertical ascent condition it has been argued that control could readily be obtained but that stability was very difficult of attainment. In the Young helicopter it would appear that a two-bladed rotor is employed; that the aircraft is universally mounted below the rotor and that a fly wheel or gyroscopic dement so controls the rotor that it always maintains a horizontal position even m hovering, while the fuselage has more freedom relative to the rotor. Model tests have been very impressive both in control and stability.
So much has been written on the future Possibilities of rotating wing aircraft that
seems out of place to discuss it here. The increasing encouragement given to rotating-wing aircraft by the U. S. Army and by the British indicate fully the value that is attached to it by military authorities. The remarkable performance of the Sikorsky helicopter has encouraged greatly the view that private flying in the poster period will find rotating wing aircraft pf the autogiro or helicopter type of great
interest.
A few references are given in technical literature during the year which have been scanty. With the co-operation of the Aeronautical Archives of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences a limited bibliography covering the year 1941 is appended to this article to assist researchers and others in keeping abreast of the technical developments in this field.
“Manta” Long, Range Fighter
Aero Digest, March.—Fast, long-range fighters, capable of convoying bombers 2,500 miles or more to their objective and back, and able to out-maneuver and outfight attackers all the way, are not yet in the air. But many aeronautical engineers and designers are endeavoring to cope with the problems involved in the development of these much-needed, long-range combat craft. New airfoils of unorthodox design are being proposed and tested in wind tunnels and new wing contours are being tried. As a result, steps forward in performance are being attained. Possibly the Army’s new Wright Field wind tunnel will help the experimenters, for it is just getting into operation and is capable of producing wind velocities in excess of 400m.p.h.
The Northrop Flying Wing, still experimental but showing interesting performance, has a novel airfoil with a thicker leading edge than heretofore used. The Davis wing, with its revolutionary airfoil design, has been adapted to the Consolidated B-24 bomber and the Consolidated Model 30 flying boat. That the Davis wing is a valuable addition to modern aircraft design was confirmed by Lieut. General H. H. Arnold when he told officers and cadets at West Point that the B-24 is so maneuverable, despite its size, that the RAF has installed four cannon in its nose, equipped it with anti-submarine devices and depth charges, and now uses it as a multi-purpose aircraft.
The Davis airfoil is a high-lift, low- drag type that is said to behave at low speeds as well as at unusually high speeds. Davis and his associates have been working for the past 2 years on an adaptation of the wing to a long-range fighter, or to a low-cost cargo carrier. They now claim to have a design which, using the Davis wing section, is capable of carrying heavy guns long distances at high speed. They have named the new craft the Manta,and are operating as the Manta Aircraft Corp., Los Angeles. John P. Davis is president of the new concern.
After the Davis wing had been adopted by Consolidated, a series of wind tunnel tests at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Washington were made over a period of 4 years, before the Manta wing design was fully worked out. The tendency of a sharply tapered wing to tip-stall at the lower speeds is a serious problem which must be considered. At the same time, the tapered wing offers maximum maneuverability. The peculiar shape of the Manta wing-tip is said to minimize the tendency of the wing to roll, and assures adequate aileron control at all usual flying speeds and all the way through the stall. The Manta has been developed by Davis and his associates in an attempt to find the most efficient form in which his wing can be practically applied, with as much as possible of weight, load, and lift concentrated near the center of the airplane. To demonstrate the usefulness of their new wing design, the Manta engineers have mocked up and stress-analyzed a high-performance, single-seat fighter, or half-size cargo carrier, powered with a 12-cylinder 1150-hp. Allison engine which is located in the fuselage behind the pilot at the center of gravity, and driving through a long extension shaft.
The mock-up includes 4 cannon and four .50-caliber machine guns, with provision for ample ammunition for each gun. Expectations are that this plane will carry fuel to give a 3,500-mile range, and its designers believe it to be most satisfactory as a fighting convoy craft for long- range bombers. The latter usually run into their greatest difficulties as they approach their objectives, far beyond the range of protecting pursuit planes which generally accompany them for the first half hour from home and meet them on their way back.
Mantas with heavy armament could give real protection to long-range bombers on the entire trip, convoying them all the way to their bombing objectives and home again, the designers say.
MERCHANT MARINE 38-Day Voyage in Open Boat
Chicago Tribune, March 19.—Another heroic wartime saga of the seas, of dangerous days and nights in storm-tossed lifeboats, was related today by survivors of two vessels torpedoed by Japanese submarines last December. One group of seven constituted the only survivors of the Donerail, the former Danish motorship freighter Nordhval, torpedoed the night of December 9 while en route from Suva to Vancouver, B. C. Eleven others survived the tanker Prusa, torpedoed in Hawaiian waters December 17. A twelfth man in this group died at sea, raising the Prusa loss of life to tep—nine had been killed outright by the explosion of the torpedo. For 38 days the Donerail survivors braved the hardships of the sea and the constant danger of another enemy attack. Finally they reached land at Tarawa, Cook Island. The Donerail, they related, almost rammed a surface submarine at night. The sub crash dived. Later it came to the surface and shelled the vessel. Twenty- four of the 48 persons on the Donerail were killed by 7 shells. Eight passengers—■ 2 women, 5 men and an 18-month-old child—were killed when a shell hit the lifeboat, swung out for lowering, in which they were sitting.
The remaining 24, all members of the crew, got away safely in a steel boat badly punctured by shell fragments. The craft’s air tanks kept it afloat, said M. Chambers of Sydney, one of the survivors. For a week the castaways battled a gale while trying to make one of the Hawaiian Islands. The elements won out and they charted a course for Tarawa. For 2,000 miles they fought west and south toward safety. One by one their numbers diminished. The captain was washed overboard. Sixteen died of exposure and starvation. Food and water was ruined by immersion. They subsisted on flying fish which they caught, on biscuit soaked by salt, but edible, on vitamin tablets and tinned milk and rain water caught with a sail. Seven, all Hanes except Chambers, reached Tarawa. There they found a Japanese party had come and gone. In two groups they made their way to Nanouti, thence to Suva.
The group from the Prusa likewise had been at sea many days in an open boat. Their vessel, a tanker with a crew of 34, was torpedoed without warning in Hawaiian waters. Nine were killed by the torpedo and the remaining 25 got away in two boats. The group which arrived here, originally numbering 12 but reduced to 11 by a death at sea, did not know that the other lifeboat had been rescued late in December and its 13 occupants landed at Fearl Harbor.
For 31| days the Prusa group dodged danger and fought adverse weather as they edged ever toward the southwest and JTe islands they knew would bring safety. They experienced no hardships of food and Water; their boat was amply stocked. After 2,500 miles of sailing they reached land in the Gilbert group.
The eleven from the Prusa who now have reached Suva were listed by the Tampa Interocean Steamship Co., at the rime they reached the Gilberts, as Capt. H H. Boy, Houston, Tex.; Frank H. btewart, Wilmington, Del.; James H. Dar- ln> Houston; Bernard Baker, Jefferson, la.; Floyd McWilliams, Smyrna, Ga.; Carl Knee, Hammond, Ind.; Thomas Bartlett, Elizabeth City, N. C.; J. P. Higgins, Philadelphia; George Bercy, New Orleans, and Alfred A. Smith and Eric J. Williams, both of New York.
Changes Recommended in Lifeboat Equipment
Marine Progress, March, by Captain Logan Cresap, Marine Superintendent, Isthmian Steamship Company.—When disaster strikes at sea, it usually strikes with rapidity, but the time element created by war is more pressing as a general rule than in peace. It is very seldom in peace time that a vessel does not have some time, when emergency comes, to communicate with the rest of the world by radio, but a torpedo gives scant warning and frequently disables the radio itself and oftentimes a ship will go down within a very few minutes. Some 5 to 15 minutes is scant time to abandon a ship. And what is more important, in peace time once an alarm is broadcast there is a rush of all available ships to the vicinity for rescue. In war, the reverse is the case, and other ships shun the vicinity, so that the lifeboats must fend for themselves over long periods of time and for considerable distance. It is well to remember also that frequently the first effort of attack is to destroy the radio outfit and that the ferocity of the attack may be increased by the attempted use of the ship’s radio. All of these considerations point directly to the absolute necessity of careful training of crews, and careful equipment of boats, else the fatalities and suffering will be greater. Submarines now track by sound as well as sight and the night has lost its old protective mantle.
One of the first things to be considered therefore is the question of emergency lighting and in certain portions of the ship such as her engine-room, boiler-rooms, crew quarters, etc., there should be some form of electric light which should be automatic so that when the ship’s power goes off these emergency lights go on. There are many varieties of these on the market, they are comparatively cheap and quite efficacious. In connection with this subject, it might be well also to mention that individual torch lights which every seaman carries and which are well distributed all over a vessel are very likely to be shaken down by heavy shock of explosions and they should be placed in small canvas bags securely fastened to dressers, bulkheads, etc., so that in emergency they could be turned to with certainty. Another suggestion which I have heard which appeals to me very strongly is that there should be a net of substantial Manila rope with about 8- or 9-inch mesh triced up along the side in the area in which boats may be lowered, and fitted with some kind of toggle arrangement so that the net can be quickly released to roll down alongside the ship. This net, something like a cargo net in construction, can then be grasped by men going down into the boat and a number of men can go down at one time. I have always thought that this was far superior to ladders. Of course, the lifeboats themselves should be prepared and rigged at all times, painters run out and secured, running gear ready for instant use, etc. In the last war, many shipmasters left their boats rigged out, but the best thought today seems to be that this is inadvisable as a number of boats in this position have been wrecked by the blast of a torpedo.
There is no end of discussion among seamen as to our life preservers. Under war conditions life preservers should be worn for long periods, almost lived in, and the present designs of life preservers are almost impossible. No one questions the reasons why they were approved for peace, but war imposes conditions, that must be taken into consideration, and a type of life preserver should be required that meets these requirements. In this connection should be mentioned the suits which have been evolved. These are made of rubberized material, seamless up to the neck or secured by a watertight fastener, with boots at the lower extremities, with rubber wristlets or mittens, and are watertight up to the neck. Buoyancy is secured by a life preserver of comfortable and light construction worn under the suit. One of the most impressive statements made about this life-saving equipment was the story of a man who was wearing this suit when blown overboard and knocked insensible by a torpedo blast. He was picked up later by the boats, still insensible, but perfectly safe, and later recovered. These suits are essentially a cold-water and cold- climate proposition.
Excellent floating star pistols are now specified for ships and it would seem good practice to have at least one of these outfits stowed permanently in at least one lifeboat on each side of the ship. It is interesting to note that a number of lifeboats have been launched before ships were brought to a stop with resulting unnecessary loss of life. Any seaman should know that this is a dangerous practice and the discipline and training of the vessel should be such that that hazard, which is self-induced, would be avoided. In addition to the regular life preservers specified on board, some spare life preservers should be stowed in the neighborhood of the lifeboats, wheelhouse, etc., so that stray men who might not have an opportunity to get life preservers or who may have had to discard theirs on account of hard manual labor, can locate others near the boats. It is also desirable to add to the equipment of all lifeboats a certain quantity of cans of tomato juice, canned vegetables containing plenty of liquid matter, etc., and space may be found by carefully stowing these extra cans in the nooks and crannies of a boat where they will not interfere with the crew. These provide additional water as well as nutriment. Many ships carry a small work boat, which is usually a very handy little boat and it would be common sense to have that boat properly equipped as a lifeboat. She may come in very handy if other boats are destroyed.
And in this connection there is serious question as to the wisdom of reducing the number of lifeboats by providing one large carry-all for each side. Such large boats may be justified on passenger ships but on freighters it seems to me that the wiser plan is to stick to the boat of around 35 capacity and to have two on a side. The chance of getting a crew of 40 to 50 men away safely when four medium-sized and handy boats are provided is certainly better than when but two large, heavy and cumbersome boats are available. This latter may suit the designers, but it certainly doesn’t suit the seaman.
Many seamen are now making arrangements so that a sextant is kept handy to the lifeboats and I know of many shipmasters who are carefully rating their own wrist watches so that they will be able to take reliable time into the boats with them.
One item has not been listed in the lists given above but which I consider to be exceedingly important is the proper supply of fishing gear of the spoon variety for trawl- mg. Very favorable supplements to the food supply may be secured by this equipment. It has also been specified by governmental authorities that the air tanks in lifeboats and life rafts be packed with kapok or granulated cork so as to supplement their buoyancy in the event the tanks are punctured by machine gun fire °r accident. While this materially adds to the weight of the boat, it would seem to he amply justified by circumstance.
_ I think that one of the most important items of equipment that could possibly be Put in a lifeboat is a radio outfit. There are several types of these portable radio outfits on the market. One type depends on a storage battery for its power and is a radio telegraphy outfit only. Another type has a portable hand-driven generator and I personally believe that this is ideal. At best, a storage battery will eventually peter out whereas the hand-driven generator will last as long as there is energy left in the crew. This latter radio outfit also has a radio telephony feature making it absolutely independent of radio operator’s service and this feature I consider to be highly advantageous. If an outfit can be produced with these features and with a hand-driven generator for power and a radio telephone transmitter as well as a telegraph transmitter on a reasonable weight and at a reasonable cost, I personally believe that the supply should be mandatory.
The best place to begin the work of training a crew to properly man and handle lifeboats and to safeguard the efficiency of the equipment of the lifeboats are the ships’ safety committees, both senior and junior. At the beginning of a voyage a forceful handling of the proceedings of these two ship’s committees will lay the foundation of seriousness upon which the organization and training of the crew will proceed and the safety organization should be used to its maximum efficiency for such foundation work.
I have discussed with competent seamen the advisability of carrying along in lifeboats bulky bales of blankets and have often heard the opinion expressed that an equal number of good quality rain clothes would be more advantageous. Blankets are bound to get soggy when they get wet, whereas an oilskin can be very easily dried and is an excellent protection against the wind when worn over other clothing.
And now I want to wind up this dissertation with a reference to carrying some intoxicating liquor. It seems to me that a quart of good strong rum, and I can suggest nothing better in this connection than the well known Demerara rum, which is about 140 proof, would be a very proper piece of equipment for a lifeboat. Of course, this presents some difficulties as to keeping the rum intact prior to disaster, but on the other hand, seamen today have a very realistic attitude towards this matter and the harm that might come from surreptitious imbibing either prior to or subsequent to disaster would seem to be considerably less than the good that might result from a small supply of nature’s best stimulant.
Before the war began lifeboats were required to carry the following:
(1) A lifeline the entire length of each side, festooned in bights with a seine float in each bight.
(2) A painter of not less than 2 J-inch Manila and of suitable length.
(3) Full complement of oars, two spares.
(4) Set and a half of rowlocks secured with separate chains.
(5) Steering oar with rowlock or becket, and one tiller and rudder.
(6) Boathook attached to suitable staff.
(7) Two life preservers.
(8) Two hatchets.
(9) Galvanized iron bucket with lanyard.
(10) A bailer.
(11) Two plugs secured with chain for each drain hole where no automatic plugs are provided.
(12) Efficient liquid compass, no less than 2- inch card.
(13) Lantern containing oil for nine hours.
(14) Gallon of illuminating oil.
(15) Box of matches in waterproof package.
(16) Two enameled drinking cups.
(17) Wooden breaker equipped with siphon, pump or spigot with capacity of one quart for each person in boat.
(18) Watertight receptacle containing 2 lb. provisions for each person.
(19) Canvas bag containing sailmaker’s palm and needles, sail twine, marline and spike.
(20) Twelve self-igniting red lights in watertight metal case.
(21) A sea anchor.
(22) Vessel containing 1 gallon of vegetable or animal oil for smoothing sea.
(23) Mast with sail and proper gear.
(24) Flashlight with two extra bulbs in a watertight case.
Since the outbreak of war additional equipment is required as follows:
(1) A hand bilge pump.
(2) Six woolen blankets, 66X90 inches in waterproof covers.
(3) Current hydrographic pilot chart of waters navigated.
(4) First-aid kit completely equipped.
(5) Three extra flashlight batteries in case.
(6) Canvas hood and sidespray curtain.
(7) Two lampwicks in waterproof container.
(8) One gallon animal or vegetable oil for massaging.
(9) Jibsail and 30 fathoms of 15-thread line.
(10) Extra painter secured with stray eye and toggle.
(11) Biscuits mentioned as regular item number 18 substituted with the following:
(a) 14-oz. type “C” biscuit, army specifications.
(b) 14-oz. pemmican, navy specifications.
(c) 14-oz. chocolate tablets.
(d) 14-oz. milk tablets.
(12) Yellow or bright orange bunting flag.
(13) Suitable tiller fitted to rudder.
(14) Two extra quarts of water per person.
(15) Twenty-five soft wood plugs, 3 inches long and tapered from i inch to f inch diameter.