Show ECONOMIC highlights industrial news review one of the great military debates of modern times has been that concerning the relative re dative effectiveness of at land power sea power and air power each of these fighting arms has hd brilliant convincing and even aap partisans the master of land warfare was the great german strategist clause witz writing in the days before th the airplane existed he argued that the nation with the largest concentration of well equipped ground troops I 1 would be the certain victor in war the german imperial army of 1914 which was unquestionably the finest the world had seen up tip to then was largely developed along clause bitzs ideas all remember how it t swept everything before it and seem seemed ed an ir force until american manpower came to the aid of the faltering allies and turned I 1 the tide of battle I 1 the most able advocate of sea power was an american captain mchan mahan who also wrote before anyone conceived of warfare in the cities mahan believed that sea power would be the deciding factor in any major war his whitin writings s impressed emperor wil helm 11 II and led to the naval build trig ing contest between germany and en england gland the end was victory for the british after the battle of jutland when the german surface fleet fled to its base at kiel and was immobilized for the duration of the war by the british blockade the most persuasive supporters of air power were the italian general douhet doubet and the american gen oral cral billy mitchell douhet doubet wrote that wars could be won through 11 lavish use of the air arm alone by terrorizing whole nations and forcing swift internal collapse at home hom the tragic case of mitchell is well anoum in this country he was demoted and finally forced out of the army by superior officers who thought his claims for the airplane were absurd the believers in the superiority of air power to all other forms of attack tc have had their chance to say 1 I told you so since the US japanese war began when the oklahoma when down in pearl har 1 bor it was the first time r in history that a ship of the line in commission had been sunk by an airplane most stunning blew of all was triz plane sinking of the prince of OL wales this great warship was one of the very few major fighting vessels launched by any nation since the air bomber attained real range and attacking capacity her architects considered her practically invulnerable to air attack yet she he s along with the repulse an older but fairly modem british battleship were destroyed and sent to the bottom in a matter of minutes and aircraft alone were empl employed bythe japanese in the battle which resulted in britaina Brit ains darkest day since dunkirk does this mean that the airplane has finally and for all time demonstrated its superiority to land power and sea power the answer m n view of most authorities is NO fletcher pratt the american mili tary expert writing in life recently said none of the major victories of war could have been accomplished by air power alone even in crete the air victory had to have its preface in the form of a land in of greece which provided the bases from which air power could operate the great and graphic lesson of this war ar is this the old terms sea power land power air power have no teal real and detached meaning the three are now now merged in in what might be b e termed global power with each service dependent upon the other t and with air power absolutely essential to them all in other words land power ci 01 sea cea power without strong air support are under terrible handicaps there were apparently no RAP RAF planes lanes on hand when the prince of wales went down there were few f i any american planes in the air vcr nver pearl harbor when japan made her attack and to ink in k tor for a lesson on in a far bigger scale england was losing the war and losing lIt t fast until she attained air supremacy prelacy over her isles I 1 I 1 in the pacific we will need far more planes than we have et at pr pres esi nt japan jaan has imitated leading german cerman british Britis li I 1 I 1 and american types cypis of aircraft ith consil considerable enable sul cess though she has no gigantic ships of the flying fortress type nor ncr for that matter has any nation asis as is known japans weakness according to the best available evidence is ia lack of replacement power it is said 1 her ier air craft plants can produce only to military craft a month our pro is now many times ps great and is growing fast an c ventral american producing capacity of six or seven thousand airplanes a month is confidently predicted equally important we have within our borders all the fuel we need to fly them japan must get her fuel once her reserves are used up by conquest to sum up air power has proved itself to be a fighting force which must supplement and back up all other kinds of fighting force the range and load capacity of bombers steadily increases fighters operate at higher and higher altitudes and the increase in their fire pow er since the war began is nothing short of miraculous america started way behind in the battle for air power but she is beginning to catch up now |