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United States...................................................................................... 1018
Corregidor—Coral Sea—Marblehead Returns—Battleships vs. Carriers—Patwing 10—Martinique Watched—Various Notes
Great Britain........................................................................................ 1024
Madagascar—Battle of the Indian Ocean—The Sail Still Serves
France................................................................................................... 1028
Rise of Brazzaville
Japan...................................................................................................... 1030
Results of Raid—Ship Losses
U.S.S.R................................................................................................... 1032
Archangel
Other Countries.................................................................................. 1034
Denmark—Germany—Italy—Mexico
Air vs. Ocean Transport—Bombing Up On the Way—Lightning— Characteristics of Enemy Aircraft—New Type Rivets—Various Notes
Miscellaneous.................................................................................... 1044
Building Race—Training on Yachts—The Mitsubishi 00
Aviation................................................................................................ 1036
UNITED STATES Corregidor
New York Herald Tribune, May 10.— Forty-four years ago Thursday, Admiral Dewey sent a message to Washington saying, “I control the bay completely and can take the city at any time.” He had beaten the Spanish fleet, had silenced the guns of Corregidor, and stood before Manila. Last Wednesday the guns of Corregidor again were silenced—by the Japanese. It took Admiral Dewey only a week, but it took the Japanese nearly 5 months to overwhelm Bataan and Corregidor. After Bataan was lost, the fall of the island forts in Manila Bay was inevitable, yet they held out for 27 days. Corregidor was in an obviously hopeless situation. Neither food nor ammunition could be supplied to the island. It withstood some 300 Japanese bombing raids, but had no planes with which to reply. Moreover, it was fighting like a blind man, having no reconnoitering planes to guide its artillery fire against the enemy forces on Bataan. The doom of Corregidor came when the Japanese brought up mobile heavy guns to the shore of Bataan, only 4 miles away, and smashed our shore defenses. Under cover of their artillery barrage, the enemy crossed the water in steel barges Tuesday night, overwhelmed the famished American-Filipino defenders, and forced their surrender.
On Corregidor and on the three little fortress islands of Manila Bay were 11,574 soldiers, sailors, marines, and civilian refugees. Those who survived the final Japanese assault now are prisoners, including Lieutenant General Jonathan M. Wain- wright, their commander, who had long before made up his mind not to leave his men. Tokyo said one of the terms of the capitulation was that General Wainwright was to order all American and Filipino troops to cease their guerrilla warfare throughout the Philippines, and that he had done so on the radio in order to avoid unnecessary sacrifices. Washington had no means of knowing whether this was true. On Bataan the American-Filipino forces had left behind 36,853 men; adding the Corregidor prisoners, the total casualty cost of the 5-month defense of Luzon was 48,427. The cost to the Japanese in men killed undoubtedly was greater; our Army estimated that several thousand were certain to have drowned in transport sinkings in Subic Bay, apart from those who met death in land action. In addition, the Japanese lost at least 20 ships and 194 airplanes, and were forced to tie up men and equipment which they otherwise could have used to speed their advance on other fronts.
The day before the surrender, President Roosevelt had sent General Wainwright a message praising the heroic stand of the Corregidor garrison, and the War Department had issued general citations to the troop units.
Coral Sea
New York Herald Tribune, May 10.— The first phase of the Battle for Australia has ended with heavy Japanese naval losses in the Coral Sea and “relatively slight” casualties for the Allied fleet, but the threat of a direct attack on the mainland of Australia has not yet been ended, and the second phase may come soon. A communique issued from Allied headquarters at noon today said the battle had “temporarily ceased,” and added: “Our attacks will continue.” At Canberra, Prime Minister John Curtin said: “I have no doubt that other battles have yet to be fought as part of the struggle, which must continue until the enemy is defeated or we are conquered.” However, it was not denied that this great naval battle, in which the Japanese are officially reported to have lost 17 ships sunk or damaged, was a serious setback to the Japanese naval strength. Japanese warships sunk, according to Allied communiques, are one aircraft carrier, one heavy cruiser, one light cruiser, two destroyers, four gunboats, and two transports or cargo vessels. One enemy aircraft carrier, one heavy cruiser, one light cruiser, one seaplane tender and two transports or cargo vessels have been damaged.
Meanwhile, Tokyo has been bombarding this country with broadcasts of serious losses to the Allied naval forces, including the alleged sinking of two American aircraft carriers and an American battleship and serious damage to a British battleship and cruiser. These reports gained such wide circulation that the following special communique was issued tonight at Allied headquarters:
The enemy version of the battle off the northeast coast of Australia is entirely fictional and has no semblance of a true communique of fact. It must be regarded in the light of propaganda rather than a military report. His claims of damage inflicted on our naval forces arc fantastic. Our losses, compared with his own, were relatively light. The only reason they are not published at the present time is because it would reveal to him information of value.
[At Washington, the Navy Department stated in a communique that reports received to date “fail to substantiate the loss of any United States aircraft carrier or battleship” in the Coral Sea battle. It added that damage to American forces would be announced “when the information will be without value to the enemy.”]
An earlier Allied communique stated that Allied reconnaissance had revealed a gradual building up of Japanese naval and transport elements for the co-ordinated attack by the combined enemy forces which was initiated several days ago. The Japanese-mandated Caroline and Marshall Islands formed the initial cover for the Japanese concentration. Certain Japanese naval units which had been operating in the Bay of Bengal disappeared from there. Increasing enemy naval activity was noted in the general vicinity of Rabaul, in New Britain and Bougainville Island, Japanese- occupied points which formed the sides of a funnel through which to pour the invasion fleet. This force then moved southward between New Britain and the Solomon Island group, using the Louisiade archipelago, east of New Guinea, as a shield to cover the advance. In and south of the Louisiade group the Allies struck the first blow on Monday, inflicting serious losses. But the Japanese movement continued southwestward and westward. On Thursday and Friday the Allies again struck heavily sinking one aircraft carrier and one heavy cruiser and badly damaging another carrier and another heavy cruiser. What happened thereafter was summed up in today’s communique: “The enemy has been repulsed.” The Japanese were denied the goal they aimed for, but how decisive it was remains to be seen. The series of actions from Monday through early today found their fleet progressing at least 300 miles. Twice that distance to the west lay the coast of Australia, fronted for 1,250 miles by the Great Barrier Reef. The reef is regarded as a barrier in fact as well as in name, but it is known that the Japanese have frequented the reef for years as fishermen.
“Marblehead” Returns
Washington Post, May 9.—Captain Arthur G. Robinson, tanned, gray-haired skipper of the U. S. cruiser Marblehead, brought half around the world despite gaping wounds from Japanese bombs, said today that his ship underwent 3 hours of incessant bombing by at least 37 Japanese planes. Interviewed in his office aboard the ship amid the din of riveters and workmen as her repairs proceeded, Captain Robinson, a pleasant, soft-spoken officer, said the ship had less than a 50-50 chance of getting back during the first 8 or 10 hours after the attack in the battle of Macassar Straits. The Marblehead was on a defensive mission under orders of a Dutch Admiral to intercept a large well-protected Japanese convoy which was en route for a landing at Macassar, the captain said. “En route our force was intercepted by a large fleet of land-based enemy planes,” he related.
The ships scattered and then it was a question of individual action.
Over 37 Japanese planes began the attack on us and the attack continued with 3 hours of incessant bombing. We evaded them pretty well with the exception of one unfortunate hit.
After we were hit the ship was in a very serious situation because we were badly flooded, had two fires, the main deck was covered with fuel oil and water. We had difficulty moving the wounded and the sick bay was completely demolished and we had to improvise a new one.
Many of the men not detailed pitched in and helped pull the wounded out of the fire. Our steering gear was gone and other hits came while our gear was damaged and we were turning in circles.
The attack continued while all hands were trying to stop the rush of water. Anti-aircraft batteries were blazing away. I was trying to maneuver the ship as best as I could. My reaction was fatalistic. There we were going in circles and that’s all there was to it.
The ship, which lost 15 men killed in the bombing, made port in the Netherlands Indies where temporary repairs were made, then proceeded under its own power to Ceylon for additional repairs. Later at South Africa, the ship was made seaworthy for its trip back to the United States. Its trip from the place of the battle totaled 13,000 miles.
Captain Robinson, who is 50 years old, was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., and now is a resident of Washington, D. C. He was graduated from the Naval Academy in 1913, and is married to the former actress, Inez Buck. The skipper repeatedly praised his officers and crew for “courage, stamina, and resourcefulness” and their “continued cheerfulness.” He spent 60 hours continuously on the bridge without sleep during the battle and subsequent fight to reach port. Commander Nicholas B. Van Berger of San Francisco, he said, was a “tower of strength” who took over the executive officer’s command when Commander W. B. Goggins was badly wounded.
“Commander Van Bergen was everywhere pulling men out and keeping me informed of the general situation in complete disregard for his own safety.
“Lieutenant Commander Martin J. Drury of Jamestown, R. I., in charge of damage control, saved the ship. We had to have a bucket brigade of all hands to supplement the pumps and the men bailed without stopping for 48 hours. We had to steer 550 miles without a rudder.”
Captain Robinson said Lieutenant Hepburn A. Pearce of Boston took charge of a repair party and aided in checking the spread of fires and rescuing men. Lieutenant (j.g.) Francis G. Blasdel of Coronado, Calif., entered burning areas to find out what repairs were necessary.
Battleships vs. Carriers
Baltimore Sun, May 15, by Mark S. Watson.—Capitol Hill intimations during the week that our new naval building program should not be too much concentrated on battleships at the cost of aircraft carriers do not seem to have aroused great argument within the Navy. There is so little response as to suggest that the idea is not original with the legislative branch. It might be mentioned that of the last two naval appropriations one was ticketed entirely for submarines and the other for light-tonnage vessels, presumably those swift, easily maneuvered categories which just now are acutely needed by the antisubmarine patrols off our own coasts and in the Caribbean.
It might be mentioned, also, that while, under the terms of the Congressional grants, several of last year’s huge appropriations could have been employed for large capital ships, and were so ticketed publicly, there was no compulsion to employ them in that manner. However, it is hardly safe to assume that the Navy is likely to swing away immediately from battleships to aircraft carriers, as some of the air enthusiasts outside the Navy have been urging. Indeed, one of the most earnest of the naval advocates of more carriers is equally firm for battleships. He wishes larger, swifter, and more heavily armored battleships than we now have.
“If I knew that vessels of that type would be wholly abandoned as obsolete twenty years from now,” he said, “I would still favor them for possible use during those twenty years. So far as that goes, the best aircraft carrier we could design today will probably be as nearly obsolete twenty years hence. In 1960 land-based airplanes (not carrier-based planes) will be doing much that only ships can do today.
“But this is 1942. We can’t use 1960 tools today because we won’t have them until 1960. So we have to use the Navy tools at hand, just as we had to use primitive automobiles in 1905, even though farseeing men of that day knew pretty well that the 1942 automobile would be far more efficient. They could not design it on the basis of their 1905 knowledge.
“No prophet can predict war’s future instruments with certainty, and in the lack of certainty a wise nation will keep up every type of weapon which is of present use, regardless of possible future obsolescence. It at least will try to keep such weapons as its enemies have today.
“We know that Japan has a large number of battleships. We know also that Germany has the new Tirpitz, among others. A London dispatch this morning speaks with concern of the attack which that and other German battleships are expected to make on our supply line to Russia. The Axis does not think that battleships are obsolete yet. We cannot afford to abandon our own, or fail to develop them so long as the German and Japanese battleships are afloat, lest they demolish our lighter units.”
In the minds of this and other naval officers there is no question that the battleship’s primacy in war has changed. Yet, for certain actions it still is the queen of sea combat—provided it is protected by its necessary auxiliaries, and particularly if it is not exposed to a too violent enemy attack by torpedo planes and dive bombers.
With that proviso there still is no better means of bombarding an enemy shore installation, or laying down an accurate fire, of enormous weight, on an enemy fleet or convoy. That presumably was the thwarted purpose of the “invulnerable” Bismarck, and may be the present chief aim of the Tirpitz. Such a design may be worked out in the Pacific war by America or by Japan before 1942 is gone.
To state that proviso—the battleship’s need of protection—is to state the major point against the battleship. But if vulnerability to attack were to rule out a naval type, there would be no Navy at all. Certainly it is no reason for replacing battleships with aircraft carriers, for the lightly armored carrier is far more vulnerable than the heavily armored battleship. And no composite of the two types has yet been acceptable, even in theory, on the ground that the composite would have the weaknesses of both and the full positive advantages of neither.
The aircraft carrier’s virtues are positive rather than negative. For any long-range sea-borne offensive, the carrier must now be recognized as indispensable, beyond all doubt. On the other hand, such an offensive can be conducted wholly without battleships, as has lately been done more than once. Of the published accounts of our long-range raids on the Japanese and the Japanese long-range assaults in Australasia none has mentioned convincingly the presence of a single battleship on either side. This indispensable character of the carrier, both in the long-range sea raids and in the amphibious warfare which now promises to engage us more and more completely, has altered the tactics of naval war, the balance of the fleets and the design of the ships. It is clear that the new carriers must have better protection than the old, whether by armament, or by armor, or by speed, or maneuverability, or internal construction, or by all these means.
It also is clear that the Navy Department, in the midst of war, cannot state or even hint at the forms which new design is taking, or at the projected balance of the future fleet, as between battleships and carriers or other elements. Indeed one can question the wisdom of such official statements as have been made with regard to the current programs. Our own public curiosity on that score is not comparable to that of the Axis agents. The safest view to take on the battleship-vs.-carrier debate is that in an all-out war no weapon can be thought of as useless or, necessarily, as inferior for an emergency not clearly foreseen. If two well-led fleets meet, and if they are exactly matched in all save one of a half dozen categories, the fleet which has a marked preponderance of that one category (whether it be battleship, or carrier, or destroyer or sub) probably will win the fight. The wise thing is to have an ample supply of all elements.
The Japanese land-sea-air forces have a preponderant strength in more than one category right now. Our own land-sea-air forces in the Pacific are hopefully engaged in whittling down that preponderance, a little at a time, while our camps and factories at home build up fresh strength in Army and Navy, It would not be wise to neglect any one of our ship categories. The aim is to match or surpass Japan’s, also to build up replacements for losses which we must expect to sustain in every large offensive. No victories are gained without sacrifice. No new victories are possible unless our losses are replaced quickly. Continuing predominance is the requisite.
Patwing 10
Chicago Tribune, May 24.—Of 42 Navy patrol bombers battling from a base in the Philippines, only two were left 90 days later in Australia. The Navy told today, in the language of the men and officers who did the fighting, how its patrol wing 10 fought the PBY flying boats against swarms of Japanese navy Zero fighters. A large part of the squadron’s personnel survived, but Patwing 10 (the Navy’s designation for the unit) was disbanded in Australia.
“Sometimes they’d knock over a Jap Zero, and sometimes the Zero would knock over the PBY. But there were a lot more Zeros than there were PBY’s and the thinning out was continuous,” the Navy explained.
“Men of Patwing 10,” the Navy said, “flew into hell and sometimes flew out again,” but “more often they swam out, or crawled into the steaming jungle with Japanese machine gun bullets kicking up flurries in the beach sand.”
The account of Patwing 10 started on the morning of Dec. 8—Dec. 7 this side of the international date line. Told that Japanese warships were ISO miles off Luzon on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, ships of the wing flew down on the enemy from the sun and dumped tons of bombs, then headed back for their base at Cavite. But that base had been fired and the wing was forced to divide. Chief Machinist’s Mate Mike Kelly of Mendham, N. J., said: “The Japs finally hunted our bases down and we went to another base, and still another, moving south all the time, still patrolling, but each night coming home to roost at a new position.”
On one occasion, Kelly said, six ships of the wing took off for what seemed to be a perfect setup—a Japanese cruiser, some destroyers, and transports, reported to be without fighter protection. They found the vessels—but Japanese fighter planes were hiding high in the sky.
“They started to dive on us, but we kept on our course and went in to bomb the vessels below,” Kelly reports. Another group of bombers already had attacked. Anti-aircraft guns were barking. One plane in Kelly’s section went down. The other two escaped. Not so with the other section of the flight. All were shot down. John Cumberland, Aviation Chief Machinist’s Mate, Salina, Kan., told of one of the ships going down. “We plugged up the shell holes in the boat,” he said, “and floated for 30 hours before we were picked up.”
On another occasion, a bomber piloted by Machinist’s Mate C. M. Richardson, Savannah, Ga., was attacked by nine Japanese fighters after it landed in the water. There were over 700 holes shot in the ship, but Richardson was wounded only in the hand and leg. Lieutenant H. R. Swenson, Stockton, Calif., and J. S. Clark, Aviation Machinist’s Mate, Fairhope, Ala., said their plane was tied up at Bataan Peninsula because a motor had burned out. On Christmas morning they were ashore when two Japanese planes spotted their bomber. Swenson told of hearing all guns on his ship answering enemy fire. “We crept closer so we could see what was happening. Just then the bow gun stopped firing. We figured whoever had been manning it had been hurt ... we went into the plane through the waist hatch and got the surprise of our lives. There was just one man in the plane—a mechanic, Roland Foster. He’d been firing all the guns himself.” Foster, of Harvey, N. D., also had been fighting a fire between loading his guns. The enemy was driven off. Ensign Lowell H. Williamson, of Decatur, 111., also was a hero of this episode. The patrol wing finally reached Port Darwin, where it maintained regular patrols until February 19.
Martinique Watched
New York Herald Tribune, May 24.— The concern which the French island of Martinique has caused to the American people because of fears that it might be used secretly as an Axis submarine base is not shared by the United States Navy officers here. But naval officers at this station, from which Martinique is clearly visible, do feel concern over the possibility that French warships and merchantmen now at Fort de France, Martinique, might be delivered to the Axis, and because Navy units now required for special patrol duty might otherwise be used to greater advantage against the enemy. Navy men are confident that their system of checks and patrols negates any possibility of Axis submarine operations of any value from Martinique. They say that rumors that German air-borne troops are stationed at Martinique are fantasies. The United States has a naval observer, Captain Jesse Gay, at Martinique whose principal job is collection of information for the Navy. He has an ensign assistant. Consul General Marcel Etienne Malige, Vice-Consul Robert Sheehan, and Assistant Consul A1 Goodhart are similarly employed for the State Department. All five have free run of the island. They have made many friends in all walks of life, including French naval personnel, and the population in general is openly friendly. Little occurs on the island without the knowledge of the friendly natives. Malige boards every ship entering the harbor, examining the cargo, papers, and passenger list. He can request the opening of any package or packing case. Likewise, he checks departing ships. Identical examinations are made at Casablanca, Morocco, to which one ship is permitted to go each month by the British. The check of fuel consumption makes it next to impossible for these ships to supply a submarine en route. American representatives are able to visit Guadeloupe (a near-by French-owned island) by plane on short notice.
French warships do not depart without giving beforehand their itinerary and the times of departure and return. Patrol planes frequently check the route, and other patrol planes count the ships in harbor several times daily. One of these planes lands daily for contact with representatives of the United States. Whenever there is a tense situation with Vichy, destroyer patrols also are established and task forces are readied for any eventuality. Officers admit that if the speedy French cruiser Emile Berlin, now at Martinique, chose to slip out some night it conceivably could travel as much as 500 miles before being detected. Therefore every report of possible Axis activity is investigated. They acknowledge that many spots about the island afford cover for submarines to charge their batteries at night, but thus far every “U-boat” reported has proved to be a barge or a sailboat.
Various Notes
Four months progress in the building of a two- ocean Navy—47 ships totaling 146,375 tons launched and 34 of 72,425 tons completed or commissioned—is reported in the current issue of Sea Power, issued yesterday. The period covered is from January 1 to April 30. The largest ship to be launched is the 35,000-ton battleship Alabama, the sixth and last of the North Carolina class. Six other battleships to follow soon, the magazine said, are of the 45,000-ton Iowa class. A table of the 4 months naval progress follows:
| Launched | Completed or commissioned | ||
No. | Tons | No. | Tons | |
Battleship........ | 1 | 35,000 | — | ___ |
Cruisers........... | 3 | 30,000 | 3 | 18,000 |
Destroyers....... | 28 | 51,200 | 20 | 34,000 |
Submarines..... | 11 | 16,775 | 9 | 13,725 |
Seaplane tenders.. | 4 | 13,400 | 2 | 6,700 |
Totals............. | 47 | 146,375 | 34 | 72,425 |
Twenty-seven heavy and 4 light cruisers are under construction, the magazine said.—New York Herald Tribune, May 28.
The Senate Naval Affairs Committee today approved unanimously legislation to authorize the Navy to acquire an unlimited number of blimps, after hearing secret testimony on the anti-submarine campaign. The measure would place a regular limit of 72 on the number of nonrigid, lightcr-than-air ships which could be acquired by the Navy. But in time of emergency, an unlimited number could be obtained with the consent of the President. Blimps have been considered one of the most effective weapons against submarines along the American coast. At present, however, there is a legal limit of 48 on the number that can be procured.—New York Herald Tribune, May 7.
GREAT BRITAIN Madagascar
New York Herald Tribune, May 8.— The French island of Madagascar, fourth largest in the world and a key to the control of the Indian Ocean, surrendered to the British today after two days of fighting. British warships which had been lying off Diego Suarez, naval base on the island’s northern tip, steamed into the harbor under the guns of the captured French batteries. Forty-eight hours after their landing in Madagascar, British forces had smashed by dawn today through the last defenses of the naval base, and shortly afterward the Vichy military and naval commanders surrendered to the British, ending organized resistance to the occupation. Some pockets of resistance farther south remained to be cleared up, according to reports from Vichy. ,
Terms of a protocol were being drawn up tonight by Major General R. G. Sturges of the Royal Marines, commanding the British land forces; Rear Admiral E. N. Syfret, commanding the Royal Navy units, and Armand Leon Annet, Governor General of the island, and the French military and naval commanders. The terms will include the handing over to British control of all ports and harbors and military, naval and air installations throughout Madagascar. The island is off southwest Africa and its occupation by the British renders the Allied supply lines to the Far East and Russia more secure. First news of the surrender of the island was given by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the House of Commons and was amplified immediately by a joint Admiralty and War Office communique. Churchill declared that, to prevent bloodshed as far as possible, a very strong British force of all arms was used, adding that preparations for the occupation extended over three months. Military experts were hailing the operation tonight as proof that Britain, at last, had developed a “three-service mind,” with land, naval, and particularly air forces playing closely integrated roles. The coastal batteries at Orangea, east of Diego Suarez, were the last points of resistance to be overcome, the Prime Minister revealed. A few hours earlier the town of Antsirane had been captured in a night attack ordered by General Sturges. An attempt to take the town at dawn Wednesday had been beaten off by strong fire from French 75’s and machine guns, Churchill said, admitting that the attack resulted in casualties which may have exceeded 1,000.
In London tonight it was indicated that the British casualties in the whole operation might amount to about 1,500 but of these it was thought not more than 400 were killed. The final successful assault came from south of the town by a force which had landed at Ambararata Bay, about 20 miles to the west. It was supported by another force of Royal Marines which, landing to the north of Antsirane, created a diversion, drawing off some of the defending French forces. The marines apparently attacked from the town of Diego Suarez, which faces Antsirane across a mile-wide channel. Diego Suarez had been captured earlier by a force including regular troops and Commando units, who had landed at dawn Tuesday at Courrier Bay, on the western side of Madagascar and separated from the town by the 10-mile wide Ambra Isthmus.
With the key points of Antsirane and Diego Suarez in their hands, the British forces struck at the last points of organized resistance, the coast defense batteries of the Orangea Peninsula, commanding the entrance to Diego Suarez Bay. They surrendered this morning. It was declared in London today that the British forces had been put ashore without heavy equipment and without a large number of guns. Close air support by planes of the Fleet Air Arm had been provided, however, and they proved extremely successful. In the final operations, a Vichy submarine, Le Hcros, of 1,379 tons, and a sloop, the d'Entrecasteaux, of 2,156 tons, were reported to have been sunk.
(Previous reports described the sunken Vichy warships as the submarine Bcveziers and the sloop Bougainville, but these belong to the same classes as Le Hcros and the d’ Enlrccaslcaux.)
After surrender of the Orangea batteries, a fleet of mine sweepers held in readiness outside the bay began to clear the harbor of mines in preparation for the fleet’s entry into Diego Suarez Bay this afternoon, Churchill said. Declaring that the entire occupation of the vital island had been carried out with great dash and vigor, the Prime Minister also paid tribute to the French defenders, who he declared had fought with great gallantry and discipline.
“I grieve that bloodshed has occurred between the troops of our two countries, whose peoples are at heart united against a common foe,” he continued. “I trust the French nation will in time come to regard this episode as a recognizable step in the liberation of their country, including Alsace-Lorraine, from the German yoke.”
Battle of the Indian Ocean
The Navy (England) April, by Admiral Sir Sydney R. Fremantle, G.C.B., M.V.O. -—The Japanese, having successfully accomplished their comprehensive and admirably (albeit treacherously) planned and executed attacks on Hongkong, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, and been only partially checked in New Guinea, the Philippine Islands, and in Burma, are now in a position to prosecute fresh enterprises in the interests of the Axis. Four alternatives present themselves, the prolongation of the present lines of their “China incident” being assumed.
They might invade Australia, as affording an outlet for their surplus population, and also to deny to us, and to secure for themselves, the use of naval and air bases suitable for the exercise of sea power in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
They could turn on Russia in the North, taking advantage, possibly, of a drain on the Russian Siberian Army for participation in the Russo-German campaign.
They could content themselves with consolidating the position which they have secured by conquest in the Southwestern Pacific and securing their possession of the riches of the Islands.
The last alternative, which might of course be pursued concurrently with one or more of the others, would be to cooperate with the Axis, and particularly with Hitler’s designs in the Near East, by asserting their power to control the Indian Ocean, making an intense attack on our communications with India, and endeavoring to close the Suez Canal, and thereby to isolate our naval and military forces in the Near East, and to sever our communication with India. It would seem very probable that Axis influence will lead to the selection of the last alternative, in spite of the wide dispersal of their forces which would be required, of the threat from United States naval and military forces in their rear, and the fact that success would bring no direct gain to the Japanese. In any case, whatever the Japanese may decide upon as the principal object for their 1942 campaign, an attack on our sea communications with India is certainly to be expected.
It is with the object of suggesting the most effective means which we might use to counter such a campaign that this article is written. The danger to our sea communications in the Indian Ocean has hitherto been confined to the operations of occasional raiding cruisers, which, although they have effected a few captures, have been adequately dealt with by the normal methods of cruiser warfare. Now, however, that we have been compelled virtually to abandon the Pacific, and that our enemies have captured Singapore, Java, and the southern portion of Burma, a very different situation arises, and we have to consider carefully the best use we can make of the few ships we can spare after providing for the primary theaters of war at home and in the Atlantic, where no risks whatever are justifiable, and in the Mediterranean. The elements of the problem are the assessment of the trade routes in the Indian Ocean in order of importance, the naval strength available, and the bases.
We are fortunate in possessing ideally situated bases very near the angles of that great triangle of sea which constitutes the Indian Ocean, at Simonstown, Trinco- malee, and Fremantle. Normally the most important trade route would be that from England to Australia through the Suez Canal, passing near Ceylon. But this route is barred by the Mediterranean naval situation, and it is probable that the only portion of it which we require to use is that between Cape Leewin and the Suez Canal for communication between Australia and the Near East. With Australia herself under the threat of invasion, it is not probable that not even this route will be required to any great extent. Such communications as we shall maintain with Australia will be through the Panama Canal, or around the Cape of Good Hope, the distances to Sydney from the United Kingdom being about 12,000 miles in either case, and the risks approximately the same. Western Australia would, of course, be much nearer by the Cape route, and New Zealand by the Panama route. The distances of both the above routes across the open ocean are so great that no advantage would be gained by ships sailing in convoy, anti-submarine escort would be impracticable, and cruiser escort so unlikely to be necessitated as to be an uneconomical use of the ships. All that would be necessary would be protection of the approaches to the ports of destination and departure, a reasonable degree of protection during the passage being assured by evasion, assisted by judicious routing.
There can be no doubt that the most important route to be protected would be that along the east coast of Africa to Bombay, the ships required for the maintenance of our armies in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, diverging to Aden off Cape Guardafui. It is to be hoped that we shall be able to sail ships in convoy on this route, making use of Mombasa as a secondary base. The islands in the Indian Ocean are all British possessions, except the great island of Madagascar, which is at present Vichy French. But both history and recent experience illustrate forcibly the truth of the principle of stratgey according to which small islands must fall, sooner or later, to the nation which controls the sea. It would therefore be unwise to count on the retention of our islands in the Indian Ocean as secondary bases.
Ceylon, however, is an important exception, on account of its magnitude, its proximity to India, and its great strategical importance. It is essential that every effort should be made to hold this island, and to protect our ancient naval base of Trincomalee from air and submarine attack. We cannot be ready too soon, since the distances from Ceylon to Penang and to Rangoon are in each case less than 1,300 miles, and are likely, if the Japanese are prepared to extend their line of communication to such an extent, and if it is their intention to support Germany’s designs in the Near East rather than to satisfy their own immediate greed for territory, to be the first object of attack. Trincomalee would be required by us only in a very small degree as a convoy assembly port, but as our principal naval base. All the cruisers which we could spare should be based on Simonstown and Aden, with a striking force at Trincomalee consisting of such cruisers and submarines as are available, including also, if circumstances permit, a squadron of not less than four battleships, with auxiliary craft, which would be available for convoy protection in the event of the threat of attack by Japanese battle cruisers. It is improbable in the extreme that the Japanese battle fleet would leave the Pacific. Patrol of the passage between Aden and Bombay will automatically form the protection for the Persian Gulf trade.
In conclusion, a full consideration of the density of traffic, under present conditions, in the Indian Ocean, together with the distances involved, the situation of necessary bases and the relative naval strength available, leads to the suggestion of the following principles on which the protection of our sea communications should be based.
No attempt to protect routes from Cape Town or Panama to Australia and New Zealand.
No attempt to protect trade in the Bay of Bengal.
Subject to a striking force at Trincomalee, all available naval strength to be concentrated on protecting the route from Cape of Good Hope to Aden and Bombay. Convoys to be organized and escorted.
Considerable air forces, particularly of longdistance reconnaissance craft, to work in cooperation with, but preferably under the control of, the Navy.
Cruisers and escort craft (other than those based on Trincomalee, whose principal duty would be the offensive one of intercepting enemy raiders) to be based at Simons Bay, Aden (an extension of our Mediterranean Fleet), and Bombay, and to be employed either as convoy escorts or patrolling, according to circumstances.
Secondary bases, principally for escort craft, at Durban and Mombasa.
Ceylon to be very strongly defended. Local defense against mines and submarines in the neighborhood of ports of arrival and departure.
Although the Japanese will have many advanced bases available in their conquered territories, they cannot be of the same value to them as their home bases, and their ships will be operating at very great distances from Japan. There seems, therefore, to be good ground for the hope that, provided that we reject ruthlessly any attempt to hold on to assets which we have no reasonable chance of protecting, that we confine ourselves to endeavoring to protect the most important only of our interests, and that we can successfully defend Ceylon, we have a reasonable chance of not suffering materially and permanently from the Japanese sea control of the Indian Ocean, which is inevitable.
The Sail Still Serves
The Navy, April.—This is the firsthand story of a British destroyer, engaged in escorting a homeward-bound convoy, which hoisted sail to assist herself home after being damaged in an Atlantic gale. After a sunny day, the weather became threatening, and it blew harder and harder until, towards evening, the convoy was obliged to heave-to. Here is what an eyewitness told me:
“Early in the first watch such a terrific sea was running that the destroyer’s lookouts were taken off their normal stations and ordered to shelter in the forward galley. Big seas were breaking over the pom-pom platform amidships, as well as over the high angle gun farther aft.
“Right aft a hatch was forced open, and as no one could venture on to the upper deck, the compartment below, known as the tiller flat, was filled with water. Drums of oil, ropes and cables were washing about, and soon fouled the steering gear, so that the ship would no longer answer to her helm.
“Using the engines to steer her, the captain turned the ship’s head into the wind, but with the buffeting of the heavy seas that swept from stem to stern, defects developed in both engine and boiler- rooms. The glass of the wheelhouse was smashed, and a big wave deeply indented the steel wing of the bridge, injuring the look-out there.
“In the forward galley the water was flooding in as fast as we could push it out with long-handled brooms. Throughout 'the first and middle watches it continued to blow with full gale force, and we could do nothing but run before it.
“On the mess decks the watch below were all in their hammocks, doing their best to sleep. No one was worrying, for such gales are all too frequent in an Atlantic winter. Towards daybreak the wind subsided, and we were able to get on deck and survey the damage. The whaler had been stove in, and the guard rail around the pom-pom platform was badly buckled. The hands of the duty watch were kept busy straightening the twisted parts, baling out the tiller flat and restowing the scattered stores.
“As the steering gear was still out of action, the captain steered the ship as well as he could with the damaged engines. To keep the destroyer on a straight course, headsails were rigged. These sails were made up of the set belonging to the ship’s whaler, together with a lugsail taken from a merchant vessel’s lifeboat which had been found adrift the previous day.
“Though an armed tug offered to tow us into port, her assistance was declined, and the captain brought the destroyer in under her own power. The entire convoy also reached harbor safely.”
FRANCE
Rise of Brazzaville
London Times, April 7.—Two years ago Brazzaville, to which an American Consul-General has just been appointed, was a small colonial town, still very dependent on its older and more prosperous rival, Leopoldville, which' lies just across the frontier of the Belgian Congo. But on August 27, 1940, Free French Equatorial Africa, stretching from the frontiers of
Libya to the Congo and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Nile basin, and including the Chad, the Cameroons, the Gaboon, Ubangi Shari, and the Middle Congo, rallied to General de Gaulle. Since then both the city and the surrounding territories have made tremendous strides forward. Yet the 2,000-mile stretch of this vast Empire, which goes from the Atlantic ports of Pointe Noire and Douala to the Egyptian frontier, is actually of less strategic value than the single territory of the Chad. This is the keystone of an arch formed by the various British colonies stretching from the South Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Were this keystone to fall into enemy hands Germany could advance and entrench herself once again in the whole center of the African continent.
At the time of the armistice of June, 1940, resistance was organized in all the distant colonies over which the Tricolor then flew. In many places the mistaken confidence of local inhabitants in the official representatives of their Government slowed down and in some places actually negatived the spontaneous action of the native populations. It was the arrival of men of great decision, Frenchmen coming from Great Britain and Syria, which enabled all Equatorial Africa to rally to General de Gaulle; most of it did so without a blow being struck. Nor has Free France been idle in developing this source of strength. Many of the Free French who fought in Libya, East Africa, and Syria set out from Free French Africa. Brave men who had been instrumental in determining the destiny of the colonies have, alas, died for the freedom of their country. But others arise to take their places. At Brazzaville is the new Free French St. Cyr or Sandhurst: an officers’ training camp pitched under a tropical sky. Here the second batch of cadets are now being taught their job; the first have already graduated and are serving at the front. Their motto is that of the gallant Major
D’Ornano, after whom their camp-college is called: “Action, sacrifice, hope.” These boys are preparing themselves for the role of liberators of France. Among them are sons of Vichy generals who have condemned De Gaulle and his heroic companions to death; these conceal their names; young Becour Foch does not.
Alongside the macadamized road which leads from Brazzaville to its airdrome is one of the most important infantry camps of Free France. Here are to be found Chasseurs Alpins who took part in the Norwegian campaign and privates who went through the hell of Dunkirk, together with men of the Foreign Legion, as well as magnificent Bateks from the African hinterland and picturesque natives from the Cameroons. Frenchmen continue to arrive from the three continents. Many are sent over from Great Britain, where they have been trained and equipped. Fresh recruits are enrolled daily from the natives. Their camp is a miniature community, with a school for the children, an infirmary, wash-houses, a sports ground, and communal gardens. The territory of which Brazzaville is the capital is not only a training camp nor yet merely a strategic necessity. It is also a vast corridor for the passage of allied supplies, and may be useful one day for the passage of troops. It is, moreover, the shortest route from the United States to the Near Eastern theater of war. Its ports shelter both the Free French Navy and British and American vessels, and the air route from the United States to Syria and Palestine passes over Nigeria and the Chad or over the Congo and Ubangi: in either case over Free French territory. On the economic side, too, Free French Equatorial Africa contributes to ensure supplies for the allies. Trade agreements with Great Britain have enabled it to find in the British Empire that outlet for its products which is no longer offered by an imprisoned France. Britain buys cocoa and bananas from the Cameroons, timber from the Gaboon, cotton from Ubangi, and palm oil from the whole of Free French Africa. The production of the French plantations has been maintained and even increased, and all these products are being marketed. French miners and engineers have been able to increase the output of lead, zinc, tin, and rutile. For the first time in its history Free French Africa plans to produce between two and three tons of gold a year. Indeed, French industrial activity is continually developing. The present material progress is a striking and unexpected result of the combined efforts of the will and spirit of all the men who have rallied to the Cross of Lorraine in Africa. At Brazzaville plans for doubling the extent of the city are in hand; architects and engineers are working day and night to cope with the requirements brought by the city’s sudden growth in numbers.
Brazzaville is not only the capital of the Free French Empire: it is also, through Radio-Brazzaville, the official voice of Free France. Before 1940 Brazzaville had only one Morse transmitting station. Radio-Brazzaville is said to have started from a piece of string and a box of sardines, and this is not an entirely metaphorical description. Curiously enough, it was a remark of General Weygand, broadcasting from Radio-Algiers, “I know that you are thirsting for news, and that this thirst arises from no vain curiosity on your part but from the depth of your French feeling” that aroused the chef des transmissions of the Free French Forces at their headquarters in London. M. Kagan felt the words to be both an inspiration and a reproach; an inspiration by their admission of the need, and a reproach as detailing a situation which, he felt, must be dealt with without delay. The result of his memorandum to his superior officers (which was acted upon with commendable speed) is now heard by listeners daily. Radio-Brazzaville is a powerful station, whose beams reach
France, North and South Africa, Syria, Madagascar, Indo-China, North America, and Canada, in a 24-hour service. A special receiver of the type used for recording transatlantic broadcasts picks up transmissions from all over the world; their reemission increases the artistic and musical repertory of Radio-Brazzaville’s programs almost infinitely. This fine engine of propaganda is an example of allied co-operation. Planned by the Free French, it was approved by the British Ministry of Information, and constructed in the United States by the Radio Corporation of America. It is one of the many benefits we owe to the Lend-Lease Act; and among the experts who went out to Africa to work on the construction of the station are Canadians, lent to the Free French by the Canadian Broadcasting Company. Such a station offers unlimited possibilities, not only for rallying French opinion while war lasts, but for the future of Africa. There can be no doubt of the participation of Radio-Brazzaville in whatever role the African continent may be called upon to play in the brave new world of the future. It will speak then, as it speaks today, in clear and certain tones.
JAPAN
Results of Raid
New York Herald Tribune, May 11.— The announcement by the War Department yesterday that American Army bombers had carried out the raids on Japan last month contained indications that damage inflicted was far greater than had hitherto been believed on the basis of broadcasts emanating from Tokyo. Disclosure that large fires started in strategic military and industrial areas continued to blaze for “at least two days” indicates widespread devastation to densely concentrated war plants in the 18-mile strip between Tokyo and Yokohama, aircraft and shipbuilding plants at Nagoya and Kobe, and army airfields in the Tokyo area.
Among the “selected targets” which the War Department said were unmistakably and accurately attacked may have been the Tachikawa army airfield, on the outskirts of Tokyo. This field usually held Japanese fighter planes essential for driving off attacking bombers. Its destruction would have avenged damage to the United States Army’s Hickam Field at Honolulu on Dec. 7. It also would have crippled the fighter force assigned to protect eastern Japan and would have made possible a more leisurely bombing of the Tokyo- Yokohama area. The announcement made by the Tokyo radio soon after the bombings and heard in this country said that the Japanese capital was under attack for more than three hours, thus lending support to the belief that few Japanese fighter planes were able to take off from Tachikawa Field. The reference in the War Department’s announcement to Japanese naval objectives suggests that the great Yokosuka naval base, near Yokohama, came under the sights of American bombardiers. Destruction of naval facilities at Yokosuka, as well as at Kobe, would seriously interfere with the repair of Japanese warships damaged in operations in the Pacific and the South Sea area.
The fact that American bombers could fly so low that they had to dodge barrage balloons may indicate that the Japanese are dangerously deficient in anti-aircraft guns even at their most strategic points. Barrage balloons, incidentally, were never used by the Japanese before. The extent of the damage caused by fires, which raged for at least 48 hours, can be gauged by the fact that a fire which started in a private home on Jan. IS, 1940, at Shizuoka, a city of 200,00 people, 90 miles southwest of Tokyo, razed the city in 18 hours, leaving 300 injured and 50,000 homeless. Attempts which were made to dynamite fire-breaks proved fruitless, and the railway station, railroad cars, postoffice, and municipal buildings, beside private homes, were completely destroyed. The Japanese-language broadcast apparently heard by the American flyers in the course of their raids on April 18 said there were between 3,000 and 4,000 casualties. This might indicate that the number of homeless was many times that of the Shizuoka fire. The radio advice to the superstitious Japanese people to pray for rain to extinguish fires therefore is understandable in terms of the hundreds of thousands who must have been left homeless by the devastating attacks. The report that the fires were brought under control in about 48 hours, however, would tend to bear out rather than contradict the War Department statement that American bombers concentrated on military and industrial objectives in preference to scattered incendiary bombings of congested residential areas. If the bombers had concentrated on non-military objectives it is unlikely that the fires could be brought under control in the relatively short period of two days. Destruction of Japanese homes probably resulted from fires which spread from industrial and military areas, which are better equipped to fight fires than civilian areas.
Ship Losses
Total
1
5
25
25
1
7
4
2
11
1
2
9
25
1
43
16
178
The Navy Department issued today the following unofficial recapitulation of Japanese ship losses inflicted by the United States Navy since Dec. 7:
The United States Navy’s Score
---- Sinkings Classified-- .
Wabsuips | Sunk | Prob ably | Possi bly | Be lieved | Dam aged 1 |
Battleships........................... |
| Sunk | Sunk | Sunk | |
Aircraft carriers................ | 2 | — | — | 1 | 2 |
Cruisers................................ | 9 | 3 | — | 1 | 12 |
Destroyers............................ | 13 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
Destroyer leaders............... | 1 | — | — | — | — |
Submarines.......................... | 6* | — | — | — | 1 |
Airplane tenders................ | — | — | — | 1 | 3 |
Mine sweepers.................... | 1 | 1 |
| — | '— |
Gunboats............................... | 9 | 1 | — | — | 1 |
Sub chaser............................ | 1 | ■— | — | — | — |
Patrol boats.......................... | 2 | — | ■— | — | — |
Noncomuatant Tankers................................. | 9 | — | — | — | — |
Transports............................ | 14 | — | — | 4 | 7 |
Troon ships.......................... Merchantmen or transports | 31 | 5 | 1 | — | 6 |
Miscellaneous..................... | 7 | — | — | 5 | 4 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
TOTALS............................. | 105* | 12 | 3 | 13 | 45 |
• Three of these were sunk at Pearl Harbor and not reported in any communique.—New York Ilcrald 1 ribune, May 10.
not given for four ships, | the other four | |
totaled 25,100 tons. |
|
|
The week’s summary: |
|
|
Class— | No. | Tonnage |
Cruiser................................................................ Destroyer............................................................ Naval cargo ship............................................... | . 1 . 1 | 7,100 |
Merchant ships................................................. | . 5 | 18,000 |
Total................................................................. | . 8 | 25,100 |
—Chicago Tribune, May 24.
United Nations reports for the 2-week period ending May 22 showed 8 Japanese ships, including a 7,100-ton cruiser of the Kato class, sunk in the Pacific war.
This brought the total Japanese losses announced by the United Nations since Pearl Harbor to 261 ships. Tonnages were
In addition, a toll of sixty-eight Japanese ships has been reported by the United States Army and the United Nations forces since General Douglas MacArthur became Commander in Chief in the Southwest
Pacific. Warships | Sunk | Prob ably | Possi bly | Be lieved | Dam aged 1 | Total |
Battleships....................... |
| Sunk | Sunk | Sunk | 2 | |
Aircraft carriers............. | _ | _ |
|
| 1 | 1 |
Cruisers............................ | _ | _ | _ | _ | 13 | 13 |
Destroyers........................ |
| _ | _ | _ | 2 | 3 |
Submarines...................... | — | _ |
| 4 |
| 4 |
Auxiliary vessel.............. |
| _ | _ |
|
|
|
Tender............................. |
| _ |
|
|
| 1 |
Noncombatant Transports........................ | .. 19 |
|
| 1 | 19 | 39 |
Fleet tankers................... |
| _ | ___ |
|
| 2 |
Supply or cargo ships... | .. 2 | — | — | — | — | 2 |
TOTALS......................... | .. 27 | — | — | 5 | 36 | 68 |
GRAND TOTALS.. | .. 132 | 12 | 3 | 18 | 81 | 246 |
U.S.S.R.
Archangel
Nautical Gazette (England) April.—The months of April and May see winter’s grip on the White Sea finally released for 24 weeks—always an event in Archangel, for it means warmth, light, and trade. But this spring the significance is greater than it ever was before.
The Soviet may have managed to keep a passage “open” throughout the winter months. Even in January Russian icebreakers and dynamite squads kept a lane between Leningrad and its island fortress,
Kronstadt, free of ice; likewise Soviet “ice-craft” rendered the Moscow-Volga Canal negotiable in mid-winter; while we read that British war materials reached the Soviet via the Arctic last January. But even if a way was blasted through White Sea ice the final freeing of its icy surface this spring will hit the headlines, for with Archangel “open” British and American war materials which have presumably been piling up all winter will flood across the North Sea towards the arctic, across the “Polar Sea” towards the Barents Sea, into the White Sea via narrow, easily-mined straits between desolate Kola and Kanin Peninsulas, and thus to Archangel where, by rail and canal, it will begin its land journey to Russian war fronts.
Archangel is Russia’s only European port not closed by the Nazis. As such it is of tremendous consequence. The Germans try to blockade it from Norway’s arctic ports and from Petsamo; Finns have sought to render it valueless by cutting its links with Moscow. But to date Archangel has not been seriously threatened, and we can be sure that once White Sea ice is dispersed Allied shipping will pour into Archangel. British merchantmen will be sailing familiar seas, for in peace time Britain and Norway shared a major proportion of White Sea trade.
It is a coincidence that Archangel’s importance should rest on Norse- and British- built foundations. Norsemen were the first foreigners to visit it (10th century); but the port really dates from 1553 when following R. Chancellor’s expedition an English fortress trading-station was built on the right bank of the North Dwina River. Archangel’s guardian, Murmansk, was not born, and Leningrad had not struggled from Baltic bog when ’Angel was a strapping marine child.- For two centuries it thrived. To it came Scandinavian, English, and Continental sailors, for Boris Godunov opened the port to all nations in the belief that this would benefit Russia. Its docks grew: Tartar prisoners built its bazaar and trading hall between 1668 and 1684; in 1743 a cathedral supported the monastery of the Archangel Michael (hence the name); schools, hospitals, military barracks followed, and a school of navigation was founded. For 200 years it was Moscow’s only port. And though it felt the draught when in 1702 St. Petersburg (Leningrad to us) was built on Baltic shores, it quickly recovered on receiving equal trading facilities in 1762. And since then Archangel has not looked back.
White Sea trade.—The founders of this arctic port had foresight. Archangel Harbor is among the world’s largest. It is immense. Its six sections can accommodate literally hundreds of ocean-going liners, and by all accounts the Soviet has developed dock and warehouse space and the number of its lighters in proportion to the trade it can handle. Likewise Russia has seen to it that the vital produce carried thereto shall pass through the port with a minimum loss of time. War materials created from British and American sweat will not rot on ’Angel’s docks! The port is well served by road, rail, river and canal. Following the customary practice, the Soviet told the world little about its arctic “pet.” But we soon learned that with the rebuilding of its railway system and the completion of the 141-mile long Stalin Canal (linking White and Baltic Seas) Archangel handled 82 per cent of White Sea trade.
To these northern docks sidled freighters built at White Sea shipyards. Through it flowed the vast wealth of Russia’s northwestern province in exchange for, among other things, British and American machinery and Spitzbergen coal. Its main industries—shipbuilding, sail and rope making, sawmilling, cod curing, the purifying of cod-liver and blubber oils and linseed— grew as the tentacles of Soviet initiative penetrated into desolate hinterland. Years ago Moscow sent scientists to probe into the secrets of an apparently barren district. They returned with news of vast vanadium (metal essential in armaments manufacture) and iron-ore deposits. Agricultural experts raised first class rye, flax, barley, oats, hemp; fine cattle wandered where once reindeer, brown bear, wolf, glutton, elk reigned supreme. Like Topsy, Archangel “just growed and growed.” From 40,000 in 1917 its population reached 71,091 in 1926 since when it has increased considerably.
Archangel is well guarded.—Possibly remembering the British White Sea landing during the Revolution, but more likely envisaging Nazi attack via northern Norway and Finland, Russia sought to protect this strapping marine adolescent. Only from the west can Archangel be attacked by sea: the long Russian coastline and ice formations protect the White Sea from the east. So to the west the Soviet built the mighty fortress of Murmansk at an initial cost of £50,000,000. Archangel had to be kept open in a future war; and Murmansk has done its job well. Important as is ’Angel in the Allied scheme for victory it has drawbacks as a port. The climate is severe. January temperatures hover round the 7° F. mark, and the winter days know only 3£- hours of what the Arctic calls “daylight.” On its northern flank the land is frozen solid all the year round since spring and autumn days are wet and nights frosty, with the result that fogs drift across Kanin and Kola Peninsulas (tundra home of the nomad Samo- yedes and Skiilt Lapps, respectively) to endanger shipping in the narrow straits.
Furthermore Archangel is subject to the paralyzing grip of winter ice. The warm waters of the Gulf Stream—which prevents thick ice forming on the wicked Murman coast—barely touches the “Ice Sea,” and only for 140 days of each year is Archangel “open.” Towards the end of
October the Gulf freezes over, and not for 190 days is it free. The “closed” period ends about now.
We know the Soviet has made greater strides than any other country in the field of ice-breakers, and that her White Sea ice-breaker fleet is powerful. It may be that a channel was cut and blasted through White Sea ice to permit the entry of Allied ships throughout the winter. But spring, glorious in the Arctic, promises more than sunshine, flowers, and a trickle of Allied ships: it sees the tangible results of our war effort during winter months flowing across the oceans and seas towards Russian war fronts via Archangel.
OTHER COUNTRIES Denmark
Today, on the second anniversary of the occupation of Denmark, Danes in London will present to the British Government £35,000 to buy Spitfires—to be flown, if possible, by Danish pilots. This money has been collected by the free Danish movement which is recognized by the British Government and is now headed by the dismissed Danish Minister in London, Count Reventlow, as honorary president.
Four thousand Danish sailors (which some experts say is the equivalent of 125,000 soldiers) are now serving in the British mercantile marine. There are also numerous Danish volunteers in the R.A.F. and in the Army. Although there is still no free Danish Government, Hr. Kauflmann, the Danish Minister to the United States, was permitted to sign the Washington declaration in January. He has since been dismissed. A new monthly, Free Denmark, gives information in the English language about Denmark’s aid to the common cause. This would count for nothing, however, if the Danes outside Denmark were not in accord with their countrymen at home. But every report from Denmark provides evidence that even two years’ cunning and subtle attempts by the Germans to win the Danes for the “new order” have been in vain. The Danes have shown that they do not want to be a German display- window for other occupied countries, and more than nine-tenths of the population are proBritish. Swedish observers have commented on the spirit of resistance among the Danes. The reaction of Copenhagen students, for instance, to the signature in Berlin by the Danish Foreign
Minister of the Anti-Comintern Pact—which naturally was understood to involve much more than opposition to Communism—was so violent that the Germans dared not introduce anti-Jewish legislation in Denmark, which is the solitary exception among all the enslaved countries in this respect. The Wilhelmstrassc spokesman publicly notified it, but nothing has been done.
The prosecutions of the Communists had only one effect: they destroyed any existing anti-Communist feelings in the country. And, although Danish sympathy in the Finnish-Russian war of 1939-40 was strongly on the Finnish side, even those who were most pro-Finnish at that time are now fierce antagonists to any kind of help to the Finns. The Danes were never before Communist minded, but they all now hope for a Russian drive to Berlin.
The Germans themselves have done most to harm their own interests in Denmark. Before the invasion the Danish farmers could feed 12,000,000 people, besides the native population. Now German rapacity has reduced the output of Danish agriculture from 800,000,000 kroner a year to half that amount. Butter has, of course, long ago been rationed, and bacon and meat are now threatened. But still Denmark is the great lubber- land for wealthy Germans, who themselves openly speak about a new “Jciko” movement which is rapidly spreading in Germany: Jcdcr einmal nach Kopenltagen (everybody goes once to Copenhagen)—that is, to eat one’s fill. This applies to soldiers, civil servants, and commercial travellers, and they have even been heard speculating as to whether it is a result of democracy that one can get all one wants to eat.—London Times, April 9.
Germany
Sea Power, magazine of the Navy League, said today German U-boats raiding the Atlantic coast are believed to have a new type of “rocket” motor which greatly increases their range and effectiveness. The magazine said the motor is believed to drive the U-boats on the surface and submerged eliminating electric batteries and electric motors. It is an adaptation of the usual Diesel engine, burning oil fuel on the surface and a mixture of compressed hydrogen and oxygen when submerged. Such a motor would permit lighter, smaller, and more easily maneuvered submarines.
“The single compressed-gas engine gives a small submarine cruising range of at least 12,000 miles,” the magazine said. “It allows the raider to crashdive with incredible speed. It eliminates the danger of chlorine gas and leaves no telltale wake.” —Washington Post, May 10.
Italy
The Italian light cruiser fleet, with its remarkable speed, has suffered so badly at the hands of the British and Dominion navies since the outbreak of the war that outside the Axis powers its reputation is shattered. Considering how proud the Italians were of their cruiser design it is interesting to recall that, when they began to create a modem fleet, they obtained their best ships from Britain and failed when they tried to copy them in Italian yards. Their first ship was the Giovanni Bausan of 1883, a ship of 3,300 tons with a speed of 18 knots and a heavy armament of two 10-in. and six 6-in. guns. The Italians copied her in the four ships of the Slrom- boli class, in which they took the displacement up to 3,900 tons, but although they only aimed at a speed half a knot less than the British prototype, they could never reach it. In 1888 they obtained the famous Piemonte from Armstrong Whitworth. She was of 2,640 tons, with a speed of 22{ knots and an armament of six 6-in. guns and six 4.7-in. guns. They copied her with six ships mounting two less 6-in. guns, but the best of them, launched ten years later, with all modern improvements could only attain 19$ knots.— Taken from Shipbuilding and Shipping Record, April 23, 1942.
Mexico
The Mexican Navy, born in 1821 during the war of independence against Spain, is advancing today under the pressure of the world crisis from its traditional stepchild role to equal rank with Mexico’s Army.This upward progress of the Navy in the nation’s military hierarchy is reflected in the Pacific coast command, where the chief of staff under Gen. Lazaro Cardenas is one of Mexico’s distinguished naval officers, Commodore Roberto Gomez Maqueo. Jealous of the prestige of their service and proud of its traditions, naval officers of the general headquarters staff here spoke of this improvement with satisfaction.
From its inception in 1821, when a few adventurous souls seized units of the Spanish imperial fleet anchored in Veracruz Harbor, the Navy has been a professional organization. This probably was due in part at least, to circumstances, because revolutions are won on land, not at sea. Throughout Mexico’s years of civil war, the central political power in the nation was the Army. Its generals became presidents while the Navy stuck to its knitting. At various times in the internal strife, one factor or the other would offer the rank of admiral to naval friends for the seizure of some strategic port, but on the whole the
Navy remained aloof from the civil struggles. Today this professional tradition is paying dividends as the fleet takes over the wartime task of patrolling Mexico’s exposed and strategic coastlines while President Manuel Avila Camacho uses the emergency to remove the Army from politics.
One of Avila Camacho’s first acts after inauguration was to raise the Navy from the status of a noncabinet department to the rank of a full ministry. The personnel of the Navy, which was only 1,450 men and officers, is being doubled, if not tripled, to meet the demands of guarding the west coast’s 4,574 miles of desolate shoreline stretching from the United States border to Guatemala. Naval vessels cruise close to the coast searching for supply and fuel caches reported concealed at various points for the emergency use of marauding U-boats. With the Lend- Lease Agreement recently signed in Washington, D. C., the Navy hopes to supplement its 16 heavy gunboats and coastal patrol ships, various officers said here, with high speed torpedo boats and some destroyers.
Rear Admiral Othon P. Blanco, commander of all units stationed on the west coast, and Commodore Gomez Maqueo, said the Navy’s basic need now was a modern shipyard capable of constructing war and merchant ships. They expressed the hope that one or two such yards might be built on the Gulf and Pacific coasts before long. Most of the present fleet was laid down in Spain before the Civil War, although in the past units were acquired from the United States and England. Adequate repair facilities already are available at Acapulco, Veracruz, and Tampico. They now are at the disposal of the United States Fleet. A second naval college has been established in Mazatlan to provide officers for the expected new fleet units and for new regiments of marines now being enrolled. These marines already are a proud corps. At least 10,000 will be recruited, official quarters said.
The minimum height permitted in a marine recruit is 5 feet 6 inches. As the Mexicans are a short people, the marines, particularly as many of them arc 6 feet and more, appear to tower over their compatriots. At Mazatlan, 100 picked cadets already have embarked on their 5-year course. Their training has been so mapped, however, that they will be ready for active sea duty much earlier should an emergency arise. A compulsory course is English so that all graduates may be prepared for immediate liaison and collaboration with the United States Navy. In its methods, traditions, and insignia, the school follows—like the rest of the Mexican Navy— British procedure.—Chicago Tribune, May 27.
AVIATION Air vs. Ocean Transport
Baltimore Sun, May 17, by Mark S. Watson.—Washington, D. C., May 16—In spite of experience in 1941, one still hears optimistic statements about prospects of a gigantic American offensive in one war theater or another in the near future. Even those who are aware that the shipping shortage makes it difficult to maintain a large army overseas seem to think we can expect miracles from our air elements. The fact is that distant air squadrons also need a good deal of shipping for their own maintenance. Only a small part of their requirements can be carried to them by air. In time, undoubtedly, more and more heavy goods will be carried by cargo plane, but during 1942 we must count on the slow-moving but capacious Merchant Marine to convey the vast bulk of needed supplies to Australia and to Europe and Africa alike.
Besides that, in aviation as in other branches, America has had to build up her defenses before developing a grand scale offensive. Because of years of peace-time neglect those defenses were woefully weak and even the swift expansion of the Air Corps both in airplane production and in pilot training has not been able, in a year and a half, to overcome the deficit of ten years. Obviously, Hawaii and Panama had first call on a great many bomber and fighter squadrons, manned by well-trained personnel. Nothing was or is more important than that those essential strongholds be fully protected. Next, our own shores had to be protected by new squadrons. Next, every one of the eight Atlantic bases which we acquired from Britain had to be supplied with aviation units. Unless they were heavily equipped there was no point in our leasing the islands.
Next, Greenland,Iceland, Alaska, and an unstated number of Central and South American islands had to be supplied with bomber and interceptor squadrons. In every one of these cases (units sent to Northern Ireland have not been publicly identified) the personnel had to be well trained. Simple arithmetic will show how largely these drains on our Air Corps reduced its highest-class personnel. When one remembers also that something like one in ten of each graduating class of new pilots was instantly returned to school to help instruct the next group, and remembers, too, that besides the squadrons overseas, the Army has been building up its new squadrons at home, it can be seen that even the 30,000-pilots-a-year program has not been large enough for all requirements. So much for the number of personnel. As to finished planes of all categories, the American factories have been expected not only to keep pace with pilot training, but also to go far beyond that pace.
The factories have had to supply not only planes but replacements and parts and, to an extent which can only be guessed at, they also have had to supply lease-lend requirements for Britain, Russia, China, the Netherlands, and numerous South American neighbors. The alarm which is shown whenever production in a single factory is slowed up is ample evidence of the need for far faster production than we have yet attained. What many have failed to note is that the urgent need of these combat planes, for ourselves and our allies, has been so acute and so pressing as to block the nation’s production of other planes which, if not of a combat type, are still vital auxiliaries to the combat fleets. Cargo planes for one thing. This existing shortage was forced to public attention two days ago with the Army’s taking over of all passenger air lines, and its announcement that a number of passenger liners are being converted to troopcarrying and cargo use. The need for both is apparent. By such means Germany was able to rush aid to her Libyan army last winter, and to save it from destruction. By the same means she was able to pour needed supplies into Staraya Russa, a few weeks ago and thus, temporarily at least, to save that important point from the Russian flood. Russia has used cargo planes for a similar purpose, and there is a general belief that on many 1942 fronts there will be far wider use of air freighters than ever before.
Trainer planes are still needed. Not so much these for the training of pilots or bombardiers or navigators alone, for these have been pouring into the schools in numbers, despite painful shortages of special types greatly needed for advanced training. Rather, there has been acute need of larger trainers, in which crews instead of individuals can be trained as a unit—much as ground officers and soldiers have to be trained not only as parts of a platoon and regiment but as parts of a division and an army corps. A bomber pilot, however intelligent and well trained, cannot operate at top efficiency unless he knows just how his bombardier and his gunners function, and how completely he can rely on them to work with precision. Equally the bombardier must know his pilot’s exact timing in every sort of flight maneuver. The gunner must know by actual experience exactly how his own particular pilot habitually handles a normal tactical situation. A bomber manned with seven first quality men hastily assembled cannot compare in efficiency with a bomber manned by seven men who know each other’s habits and instincts. In this as in countless other ways, a well-trained martial team is very much like a well-trained football or lacrosse team.
Today brings from the War Department announcement of the Air Force’s new AT-15 crew-trainer plane, specially designed for the integrated training of pilot, copilot, bombardier, navigator, and gun crew. It has all the equipment of the big multi-engine bombing planes which are the country’s main hope in any grand scale air offensive, and is thought of as the most efficient piece of crew-training mechanism the Army has yet seen. It should have been on hand earlier, but the need for fighters and bombers and individual trainers, as previously listed, was all-compelling, and this instrument had to wait. Happily its present production now will interfere little with the other construction, for it uses a minimum of strategic materials. Its frame is steel but, instead of duralumin, wood and plywood and fabric compose a maximum of its surface. It is of no use whatever for combat, but it is highly praised as an aid to crew training. The Air Corps has not neglected the cargo plane. On the contrary, it was a world pioneer in creating that service for its own peace-time needs, back in the mid-twenties. But 1940-41 expansion of the army’s air transport service was limited by the insistent pressure for combat squadrons. Now air-cargo development is resumed—not only in the use of normal cargo planes, but in the construction of glider planes and the training of glider pilots. Those gliders used most dramatically by the Germans for pouring personnel into Crete, are equally useful for carrying inanimate supplies.
Bombing Up On the Way
The Aeroplane (London) April 24.— Advanced landing grounds have been used on many occasions by the British during the past two years of war, but by far the most spectacular application of the established principle was that which enabled the United States forces under the command of Brigadier General Ralph Royce to bomb Japanese bases in the Philippines. That force of bombers had its main base in Australia. It probably had to fly 2,000 miles to advanced landing grounds on the islands. There the bombers doubtless took on their loads of bombs and flew off to their objectives. At the end of their series of raids they had to land again, take on fuel for the long return trip to Australia and find their way once more over the 2,000 miles of sea which the Japanese claim to control. In order to deliver 113 tons of bombs on a variety of targets the bombers had to fly nearly 5,000 miles and make intermediate landings on fields which might have come under enemy attack at any time and which would have suffered heavy attack but for local fighter protection. So great an effort was not expected by the Japanese. The element of surprise was therefore a large contributory factor in the freedom of the raiders from serious interference. Having caught the Japanese unawares on this occasion, the American bombers can hardly expect to repeat the performance along the same route with equal impunity. In the future, other advanced bases and other objectives may be chosen by the United States bombers and something of the original surprise may then be repeated. If the Japanese can be kept guessing in this way, such raids may have an effect in tying down defensive forces corresponding to that which R.A.F. and Commando raids are having in Western Europe. Ingenuity and enterprise made General Royce’s raid an outstanding incident in the development of air attack by the Allied Nations in the Pacific. It reminded the Japanese that they have not swept the Southwest Pacific clean enough to win them immunity from attack in any of their conquests. It showed them that disparity in aircraft carrier strength can be no guarantee against air assault until all the steppingstones the bombers might use are in their hands. It also argued that highflying bombers may count on relative safety on very long journeys over the sea.
It represented a bold and daring hazard on the part of the United States Army Air Force and the courage was repaid, for only one of the airplanes was lost. It promises more long-range bombing of the Japanese and encourages both Americans and Australians to look for valuable work from their growing air fleets. The Japanese fighter forces are certainly not big enough to cover all the points which might be threatened with the aid of advanced landing grounds and, while the Allies have so wide a dispersal area as Australia, the Japanese bombers cannot hope to forestall such raids. This form of air warfare can only be defeated by capturing or putting out of use the advanced landing grounds. The Germans have been trying for months to put Malta out of action, chiefly because Malta affords advanced landing grounds for air units operating against Axis shipping and against Italian ports, airdromes, arsenals, and factories. During the Battle of Britain, the Germans concentrated on the forward airdromes of Fighter Command and succeeded for a time in keeping the squadrons out of them but, since there was no invading force to capture them, those airdromes were soon in use again as advanced landing grounds. The most fruitful method of dealing with advanced landing grounds is to attack them while they are in use. Night fighters and fighter- bombers have troubled the Luftwaffe in that way at forward stations in France from which the enemy airplanes are widely dispersed during the day. The Japanese may have some difficulty in catching the Americans at the forward bases provided such raids are spasmodic and irregular. All of these things show the value of advanced landing ground. Islands in particular are evidently destined to be of special interest to air forces. In so many areas they enable the bomber to make use of long range without sacrificing bomb load. The advanced landing ground is the exchange point. It allows the bomber to divest itself of staying power and to take on hitting power. It is better worth fighting for than many a railway junction, and all the belligerents know it.
Lightning
Aero Digest, May.—In the earlier days of commercial and scheduled transport
operations relatively little attention was paid to the phenomena of lightning. Occurring only in rare instances, these electrical discharges in the vicinity of aircraft in flight were looked upon as a freak of nature. However, with the advent of allmetal airplanes, reports of the phenomena as affecting aircraft became more frequent and transport pilots received general instructions from their airlines to avoid thunderstorm areas. This precaution did not improve the situation, for the lightning discharge phenomena happened with just as much frequency in regions outside of the thunderstorm area, particularly in areas containing the shower-producing cumulus type cloud. Although there had never been a report of serious damage to aircraft from lightning discharge, studies and investigations were conducted to establish a means of prevention or safe procedure. In this connection, E. J. Minser, chief meteorologist for Transcontinental and Western Air, Inc., made a complete study of approximately 50 case histories which provided a good indication of the origin of the electrical charges. According to Minser, the type of conditions and circumstances existing when a pilot should expect the phenomenon to occur are as follows:
(1) During flight on, or on and off instruments.
(2) In convection type clouds (cumulus or cumulo nimbus) or when thunderstorms are present at the flight levels.
(3) During precipitation in the form of wet snow, sleet or rain; or when encountering unstable moist air.
(4) With the temperature between 21° F. and 41° F. (the average temperature was 28° F. although extremes as low as —5° F. and as high as 41° F. were reached).
(5) Where there is intense rain static.
(6) During darkness, when corona discharge (St. Elmo’s Fire) from extremities of the aircraft can be seen extending forward into the cloud just prior to discharge.
(7) Usually in moderate turbulence, although this is not always the case.
Curves plotted from information obtained from the case histories revealed two definite seasonal peaks in frequency of occurrence, the maximum in early spring and a lesser peak in late fall. Diurnal frequency of occurrence curve shows the high point to be between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., which time period coincides with the period of maximum convection over the United States. Altitude seems to have no bearing either on the intensity or frequency of discharges for it was found that from 2,000 ft. up to 18,000 ft. no one level was predominant. However, at substratosphere altitudes of 20,000 ft. upward, research conducted by TWA in the development and use of their Stratoliners, indicated a drop off in frequency and finally disappearance of the phenomena at high altitudes where there were no clouds and where the air was cold and dry. A typical case showing the usual sequence of events culminating in a lightning discharge in an airplane is given in the following:
The flight was being conducted at 9,000 ft. temperature 34°F. 7:00 p.m., April 6, on and off instruments through towering cumulus clouds from which there were occasional showers. Entering a large cloud, light to moderately wet snow was encountered. Going in, on the forward side— up drafts were prominent and moderate
turbulence was experienced. Shortly after entering the region of precipitation, static increased in the radio and a corona discharge was visible on the wings, propeller tips, nose, and other extremities of the airplane’s structure. As flight continued through the cloud the corona became more vivid, streamers extended forward into the cloud, static increased to a steady roar . and the turbulence became more pronounced. These conditions continued for about 25 sec., then there was a flash of lightning. Abruptly, the static and corona ended and turbulence began to decrease steadily.
The distribution of an electrical charge in a convective type cloud is shown in the accompanying illustration. The cloud is moving eastward and the ascending currents enter the base in the forward portion where a positive electrical charge is indicated. The rear of the cloud where precipitation is in the form of wet snow is negatively charged with a neutral zone separating the opposed charges. The airplane going through assumes the charge of its immediate environment which is gained faster than it can be dissipated. On entering the neutral zone the plane acting as a conductor initiates the discharge between the oppositely charged portions of the cloud.
As a result of the studies and investigations certain procedures are recommended to avoid regions where lightning discharges are apt to occur or if they do occur how to be prepared for them.
(1) Avoid, if possible, instrument flight through cumulus or cumulo nimbus clouds which produce precipitation.
(2) Avoid the immediate vicinity of thunderstorm areas.
(3) Avoid instrument flight through clouds at levels where the temperature is between 21° and 41° F.
(4) If unable to avoid these conditions and severe rain or snow static is heard and corona observed, reduce speed, turn cockpit lights to maximum brightness, focus attention on instrument panel and descend.
(5) If descent is not possible reduce speed, keep eyes focused on brightly lighted instrument panel. This will prevont temporary blindness if flash occurs near the cockpit.
(6) Be ready to engage automatic pilot immediately if a discharge occurs.
Records and reports of TWA pilots have shown that compliance with the above suggestions has in many instances enabled the flight to continue through imminent lightning discharge areas without encountering any difficulty. Further investigation and study is now being conducted on the subject by the U. S. Weather Bureau and the NACA, utilizing reports from the airlines and military pilots as sources of case histories.
Characteristics of Enemy Aircraft
U. S. Air Services, May.—Descriptions and available performance figures of more than 50 types of combat aircraft now in use by Japan, Germany, and Italy are hereby made available to the people of the United Nations by the British Air Ministry and the United States Army Air Forces.
Of the 31 Japanese combat types listed, nine are Army and Navy fighter planes whose chief characteristics include comparative lightness in weight and engines of comparatively low horsepower. Protective armor for personnel is lacking in almost every case and armament consists generally of 7.7-mm. machine guns—about the same as the American and British .30 caliber. The occasional use of 20-mm. cannon is noted. A more recent type is armed with four machine guns and two 20-mm. cannons. Horsepower of these single-engined Japanese fighters ranges from 650 to 850 at the most effective heights, whereas the four German pursuit planes listed are driven by engines developing 1,200 h.p.
The German fighters are marked by the more frequent use of 20-mm. cannon, generally higher speeds and greater protective armor for the pilots. The FIcinkel 113 and the Messerschmitt 109-F, for example, both single-engined fighters, weigh
about 5,700 and 6,000 pounds, respectively, as compared with an average of about 4,400 pounds for the Japanese pursuits. The German fighter aircraft listed also are armed with 7.9-mm. machine guns of about .31 caliber. Each of the five Italian fighter planes listed is armed with at least two 12.7-mm. machine guns which compare almost exactly with the American .50 caliber. Italy also uses the 7.7-mm. machine guns, fixed in the wings and firing forward in the fuselage. The Italian planes generally provide armor-plating for crew protection which makes them considerably heavier than the Japanese planes of the same comparative class, although rated horsepower for the Fiat G50 and CR42 and the Macchi C.200 is 840. The Macchi C.202, which is rated as having a maximum speed of 330 m.p.h. at 18,000 feet and a cruising speed of 300 m.p.h., has a 1,200 h.p. engine.
No Japanese twin-engined fighter planes are listed, although descriptions are given for the German Messerschmitt 110, with two 1,200 h.p. liquid-cooled engines; the Junkers 88, driven by two motors of the same power, and the Italian Breda 88, powered with two air-cooled motors. The German JU88, night-fighter version of a similarly designed twin-engined ship used for long-range and dive-bombing missions, carries minimum armament of three 7.9mm. machine guns or three 20-mm. cannon in the nose of the fuselage, in addition to 7.9-mm. machine guns protecting the rear and the underside. It has a maximum speed of about 290 m.p.h. at 18,000 feet. The ME 110, with a service ceiling of 32,000 feet, is armed with at least four 7.9mm. machine guns and two 20-mm. cannons firing forward, in addition to machine gun protection from the rear. The Breda 88 has a rated maximum speed of 310 m.p.h. at 13,500 feet, a service ceiling of 28,500 feet, a range of 900 miles, and is armed with three 12.7-mm. machine guns in the fuselage and two 7.7’s in the wings.
Information on two troop-carrying German gliders is included. One—the Gotha 242—has a crew of two pilots and can accommodate 21 other fully equipped soldiers. The plane is armed with four machine guns, and carries a wheeled undercarriage which can be dropped, leaving the landing to be effected on three skids. The German DFS230 glider has a capacity of 10 fully equipped soldiers, including a pilot, and has a gun port to admit an infantry machine gun. Both gliders usually are towed by a Junkers 52, a 3-engined monoplane, with accommodations for about 18 soldiers. Also listed is the German Focke Wulf 200K, a 24-ton long-range bomber driven by four 850 h.p. motors. This ship has a range of about 2,400 miles and a bomb load capacity of 3,300 pounds. Minimum armament includes a 20-mm. cannon, and five 7.9-mm. machine guns. Its duties include long-range sea reconnaissance, ship strafing, mine laying, and work in conjunction with submarines.
The Junkers 87—the dive bomber used extensively in Europe during the early stages of the war—has a single liquid- cooled engine of 1,150 h.p., a bomb load capacity of 1,100 pounds and is armed with two 7.9’s in the wings and one of similar caliber to protect the rear. The only four-engined Japanese ship listed is the Awanishi T97 Navy flying boat, reported to be based on the S42 Sikorsky flying boat. The Jap ship is a monoplane having four 900 h.p. air-cooled motors, and has a range of about 1,500 miles with 3,500 pounds of bombs. This ship carries a crew of 10 and is armed with two machine gun turrets.
Two Italian bombers—the Savoia-Mar- chetti 79 and the Cant Z1007—are powered with three engines; the SM79 with the Alfa-Romeo 780 h.p. air-cooled motors, and the Z1007 with three Piaggio
1,0 h.p. air-cooled engines. The last named is of all-wood construction, has a range of 800 miles and a bomb load capacity of 2,600 pounds. The SM79 is of mixed wood and metal and can carry a bomb load of 2,200 pounds 1,000 miles. Of longer range is the Italian Fiat BR20, a twin-engined bomber with a capacity of 2,200 pounds over 1,150 miles. The Japanese Mitsubishi T97, on the other hand, with two 870 h.p. air-cooled motors, can carry 4,400 pounds of bombs over a range of 1,180 miles, and the Kawasaki T97 can carry either 1,100 pounds of bombs 1,250 miles or 4,400 pounds of bombs 240 miles. The German Dornier 217, a twin-engined bomber with two 1,500 h.p. air-cooled motors, has a range of 1,010 miles with a bomb load of 4,400 pounds, and the twin- engined Junkers 88 can carry a similar load 1,150 miles. The Heinkel 111 has a range of 1,540 miles with 1,760 pounds of bombs, or 760 miles with 4,400 pounds of bombs. Seven Japanese Army types of single-engined bombing and reconnaissance planes are described. These include the Nakajima T94, the Kawasaki T97, the Mitsubishi T97 in two variations, the Mitsubishi T98 in two types, and the Showa T99. Japanese Navy types include fighter aircraft equipped for deck landings and with floats, torpedo bombers equipped for deck landing and for landing in the sea, and multiple-engined flying boats equipped with cannon reported to be as heavy as 37 mm.
Netv Type Rivets
Aero Digest, May.—Developed primarily to eliminate the problem of “blind” fastenings, a new-type rivet has not only made possible noteworthy contributions to aircraft production and design, but has also lowered costs of the riveting procedure. Co-ordinated with the introduction of the new rivet was the development of a revolutionary method of application which offers important economies in handling. The new rivet is a tubular type, and although the idea of using such rivets in aircraft structures is not new, their use in the past has been generally restricted, principally because of the unavailability of an economical method of application. In addition, most rivets of this type had been formed out of bar stock, which added to the per unit cost of the rivet. These latter difficulties have been adequately overcome through the co-operation of United-Carr Fastener Company of Canada, Ltd., which helped in developing the manufacturing process of the new rivet and the new method of its application.
This tubular rivet is stamped out of strip stock in an automatic eyelet machine at a rate of 110 a minute. It is slipped on a commercial nail of plain carbon steel necked down under the head. The shank of the nail is used as a mandril. In fastening, the nail with its attached rivet blank is put into the rivet hole from the front side of the section to be fastened. Then, a pneumatic squeezer of standard design but specially equipped with a chuck and claw, is applied to accomplish the fastening operation. The claw grips the shank of the nail and pulls while the chuck presses firmly against the lip of the rivet and holds it clamped tightly against the face of the sections to be fastened by application of air pressure. Simultaneously, by a pull of the trigger, the claw pulls the shank of the nail, thus expanding the inside end of the rivet to fasten it tightly against the inside surface of the work. The necked down nail, or mandril, is so designed that it will break when the expansion has reached a point sufficient to provide maximum holding power. The head falls off inside, and the shank is pulled outside. The result is a fastening which is as firm as a solid rivet. It has been found that the hollow rivets can be driven from 5 to 6 times as fast as the conventional solid rivet. Between
30,0 and 50,000 rivets have been driven in a single day at Canadian Car & Foundry’s Fort William plant. Experience has indicated that as many as 20 United-Carr rivets can be pulled in a minute, by two men, with one man applying barium chromate and placing rivets, and the other pulling the rivets with the squeezer.
There are other factors which have indicated the value of this type of construction in several hundred combat planes whose worth has already been proved in actual battle. First of these is the fact that the operation of the tool is automatic and requires no experienced help. It is automatic and eliminates the possibility of human error. Action is positive and there are no rejects. This same feature also accounts for another advantage. This is the uniform work hardening of all rivets in a given material so that the mechanical properties of all finished fastenings will be identical. This subject of work hardening has an important bearing on the choice of some of the metals used. While the rivets can be made of almost any material, the Fort William plant and subcontractors working to its specifications have standardized on Monel, duralumin, and carbon steel. Monel generally is used for stressed parts exposed to corrosion where tensile strength requirements approximate those for the steel or alloy parts to be joined. It has been found that even after the work hardening involved by the seven forming operations and subsequent “pulling” that the Monel rivets retain a high measure of ductility. This is further emphasized by mercury tests conducted by the Research and Development Division of The International Nickel Co.
In these tests, which are standard tests for determining ductility, rivets which had been headed and applied as in actual practice were boiled for 60 min. in a solution of 0.10 per cent mercurous nitrate in 0.10 N nitric acid. No cracking was evident when they were examined under a high-powered binocular microscope. When advisable, structural parts are insulated from the rivets by coatings of barium chromate or zinc chromate.
Planes using the new rivets already have been flown in actual combat, which emphasizes another outstanding feature of the tubular rivet form of construction in wartimes. This is found in the facility of making repairs to wings and other parts at the airport in zones of operations. Bullet holes, for instance, can be repaired by cutting away damaged metal sections and patching with riveted sheet or strip. This eliminates the need for dismantling the plane since the rivets can be pulled by a special hand tool, requiring no air pressure. This tool was also developed at the Fort William plant.
The rivets also have been able to speed up construction of fabric-covered training planes. The normal procedure followed has been to stretch and then sew the fabric onto the frames. This usually has been a laborious task performed by women with needle and thread. A stronger fastening, more accurately and more swiftly applied, has been found in the use of a Monel tubular rivet with fabric retaining strips.
Relative low cost is another feature of the rivets. As indicated, they can be stamped out of strip stock at a rate of 110 a minute. They are furnished in over 40 sizes ranging 3/32" to 3/16" diam. and in wall thicknesses running from 18/1000" to 27/1000". They can also be had in many different lengths.
Another feature in these fabricating operations is found in the production of the rivets. Each strip is run through the stamping machine three times to provide staggered cuts. This utilizes the maximum metal in the strip and the remaining scrap is in a single compact coil which simplifies and speeds reclamation. This is obviously of great importance at a time when every effort must be made to avoid the loss of an ounce of metal.
Various Notes
The Berlin radio said today that the Blohm & Voss Co. is making for the German air force a new plane, the BV-141, which has its motor and steering gear in the left wing and a closed cockpit for three men in the right wing. The plane was designed for special use, the radio said, and has already achieved “great successes” on the Russian front. It was said to be fast and maneuverable, and armed with cannon and machine guns.— New York Ilcrald Tribune, May 8.
A rubber wind sock made by the General Tire & Rubber Company of Akron for trailing aircraft antennas gives proper drag for best radio performance and is suitable for use with hand or motor operated winches. The cone is 6J in. long but may be readily shortened for fast-flying ships. Diameter at the spider, which flexes to give straight, steady drag without spin, twist or whip, is 4| in. The concern is also making rubber insulators in 3, 6, and 9 in. lengths (unflexed) for aircraft fixed antennas. In addition to insulating the antenna these units maintain antenna tension, avoiding the use of metal springs in which air friction frequently produces reception-disturbing static.—Aviation, May.
The Army announced today that the air forces have accepted a new twin-engine plane manufactured by the Fairchild Engine Corp. for advanced training of bomber crews. Designated the AT-13 it is a cantilever mid-wing monoplane of plywood construction, powered with radial air-cooled engines and weighing about 11,000 pounds. It has a retractable landing gear.—Baltimore Sun, May 27.
An aural plane detector which can be owned and operated by one man has been developed to serve individual spotters of an aircraft warning service. The device with all accessories, including a self-contained power supply, is housed in a case smaller than a gas mask container. Slung over the shoulder, it enables the watcher to act as an independent mobile airplane pickup unit. In action, the spotter puts on a headpiece consisting of earphones topped by a parabolic “concentrator” of sound waves, from which wires are plugged into an amplifying apparatus in the case. When a low- pitched sound in the earphones heralds the approach of a plane, the spotter turns his body until the sound is at its loudest. He is then facing the oncoming plane and is able to orient his binoculars swiftly and accurately on the aircraft to be identified.
Apparently the device can be used effectively by technically untrained spotters, which may on occasion be an important advantage. The Zadig Patents, 1 Boulton St., South Norwalk, Conn.— Aero Digest, May.
MISCELLANEOUS Building Race
Washington Post, May IS.—London, May 14.—Spare outlines of the greatest battleship building race in history, that between the navies of the United States and Japan, are sketched by the new 1941 edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships, the authoritative naval annual made public today. To previously known details of the Japanese capital ship program, a huge effort in relation to Japan’s resources, the new edition adds the names of the last three of a group of 5 fighting monsters of “more than 40,000 tons.” Two of the five, the Nissin and Takamalu, are completed or near completion, the annual indicates, while the other three, now identified as the Kii, Owari, and Tosa, probably are not far from ready, the last having been laid down 2\ years ago.
Against these, the new Jane’s describes progress on 17 tremendous United States battle cruisers.
“Never before has such a quantity of capital ship construction been under construction at the same time for any country,” says the foreword. “A similar remark applies to aircraft carriers and cruisers for the United StatesNavy, numbering 11 and 40, while the number of destroyers building challenges comparison with the program of 1918 (when America was carrying out the largest destroyer program in history).
“All six of the 35,000-ton Washington class have been launched. Two of them are in service and one, if not two, may be ready before the next issue of this annual appears.
“Six battleships of the Iowa class of
45,0 tons and five of the Montana class either are under construction or are in process of being laid down.
“The first of a class of six battle cruisers, the Alaska, was laid down in December, 1941.”
Completion of Japan’s five new battleships is expected to give her a battle line of at least 14 ships, including nine pre- Washington conference vessels and excluding the Ilaruna, listed in United States records as sunk off the Philippines.
(The United States lists two others as damaged. United States capital ship strength is given in latest Washington tabulations as 15, including the North Carolina and Washington—of the new 35,000-ton class—and excluding one battleship sunk and one damaged.) Concerning the British Navy the new edition’s most interesting contribution is pictures of new cruisers of the 8,000-ton Mauritius class and the 5,450-ton Dido class. It also includes a picture of the 33,950-ton battleship Nelson under way after being holed by an Italian torpedo.
The new book records a class of 12,000 or 15,000-ton Japanese warships apparently modeled after Germany’s pocket battleships and known as the Chichibu class. Jane's says these actually are heavy armored cruisers rather than battleships. It lists them this year in place of three similar ships identified last year as the Kade- kura, Kasino, and Hachijo, to which the 1940 edition attributed six 12-inch guns each instead of the 8-inch guns carried by most cruisers and larger than the 11-inch guns of the German pocket battleships.
“Before Japan entered the war (in December, 1941), a good deal of fresh information had been collected, some of it certainly of less definite character than could have been desired by enabling a clearer account to be given of the Japanese navy,” the annual said. “The actual number of capital ships under construction still is somewhat doubtful nor are the names absolutely certain.” The Nissin, it added, may turn out to be an airplane carrier while the Takamatu may wind up in the Chichibu class of pocket battleships. These two, however, still are listed in the group of five 40,000-tonners.
The Kii, Owari, and Tosa all are named for ancient provinces of Japan in keeping with the nomenclature which assigns names of provinces or famous mountains to capital ships. They take the place of three huge ships of these names which Japan had laid down or projected in the great program which was scrapped as a result of the 1921-22 Washington conference. The book noted a slight increase in Japanese cruiser and destroyer strength over that listed in the last edition, and said it was “believed that the total Japanese submarine strength is over 80.”
Jane's said “a certain shrinkage is observable in the pages devoted to the German Navy, which appears to have done little or nothing to replace its losses in capital ships and cruisers.” (Chiefly the 35,000-ton Bismarck and the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spec.) It noted that identification numbers of German submarines now are known to run as high as U-570, but added that “this does not necessarily imply that the total built is equal to this figure, since the numbering is done on an arbitrary basis, leaving gaps between groups.”
Jane's noted that in the list of the Italian Navy “gaps are rapidly growing and would be still more frequent were it possible to identify all the cruisers and destroyers sunk in encounters with the British Mediterranean fleet.
“It seems probable that not more than half the cruisers with which Italy entered the war have survived, nor is it believed that there has been any substantial reinforcement from the list of ships under construction, presumably owing to a shortage of steel and other metals.”
The yearbook said news of the Russian Navy “remains scanty,” adding that “little can be ascertained about war losses, though undoubtedly enemy claims are exaggerated.”
Training on Yachts
New York Herald Tribune, May 24.— A boom in yachting activities on Lake Michigan is in prospect this summer, but the cruises will be dedicated to the Navy rather than to pleasure.
A total of 137 private craft have been chartered to the Navy for the training of officers under a program announced today by the Navy League of the United States. Beginning June 2, the yachts will put out five days a week with crews of midshipmen from Abbott Hall, the Navy’s officertraining school at Northwestern University. Before the end of the summer 1,400 future officers will have practiced charting courses, reading compasses, figuring dead reckoning and other feats of practical seamanship previously studied in their courses ashore. The program has been developed by the Navy League with the approval of Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy. Sheldon Clark, president of the Navy League, and Captain B. B. Wygant, commanding officer of Abbott Hall, will direct the plan in Chicago with the co-operation of the Lake Michigan Yachting Association.
Mr. Clark said today that he hopes the program will be extended to other yachting centers where there are naval officertraining schools. New York yachtsmen may be called upon soon to participate by taking midshipmen from the U.S.S. Prairie State and Columbia University on cruises, he said.
The Mitsubishi 00
The Aeroplane, May IS.—Details are now available of the Mitsubishi 00 singleseat fighter monoplane of the Japanese Navy. It is the chief type of fighter used by the enemy in the Far East. The Mitsubishi 00 (“Double Oh”) is a low-wing cantilever monoplane of all-metal stressed- skin construction. It has a Nakajima NK-1 14-cylinder two-row air-cooled radial motor which gives 1,100 h.p. for take-off and 900 h.p. at 15,000 ft. The maximum speed of the 00 at a loaded weight of 5,140 lb. is 315 m.p.h. at 10,000 ft.
A streamlined extra fuel tank can be carried slung under the fuselage. With this tank the maximum range is 1,600 miles at 160 m.p.h. Alternatively a bomb of about 500 lb. can be carried in place of the fuel tank. Armament is two 7.7-mm. (.303 in.) machine guns on the motor cowling firing through the airscrew disc and two 20 mm. (.787 in.) carried in the wings. The armament is thus identical with that of the Me 109e. The 00 has an inward retracting hydraulically operated undercarriage and split flaps.
The “double oh” in the name comes from the Japanese system of naming their airplanes after the last two digits of the year in which the design was begun—in this case 2600 of the Japan Empire and 1940 in our calendar. The machine seems to be modelled on our own Gloster F.5/34 single-seat fighter which first flew in 1937 but was never put into production. Like the Gloster, the 00 is reputed to be very maneuverable.
Dimensions.—Span, 39 ft. 5 ins.; length, 28 ft. 5 ins.; height, 9 ft. 0 in.; wing area, 256 sq. ft.; aspect ratio, 6.1.
Weight.—Loaded, 5,140 lb.
Performance.—Max. speed, 315 m.p.h. at 10,000 ft.; normal range, 590 miles at 265 m.p.h.; service ceiling, 36,000 ft.
Points of recognition.—Single-motor low- wing cantilever monoplane with long- chord radial cowling. Slight dihedral angle from wing roots. Wing straight tapered from roots with slightly more taper on trailing than on leading edge. Triangularshaped single fin and rudder slightly behind tailplane. Raised transparent cockpit cover with radio mast offset in front of it.