SEA AND AIR POWER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 121, 25 June 1941, Page 3

SEA AND AIR POWER

OLD CONTROVERSY REVIVED THE SITUATION 1 NEAR CRETE Inevitably, the operations in and about Crete have revived the discussion of air power versus seia power; but it cannot be claimed that the successful air invasion of Crete has advanced the argument beyond what was, already known. As the War Office has pointed out, it was clear that the naval and military forces could not be expected to operate indefinitely in and near Crete without more air support than could be provided from bases in Africa.. The German invasion of Crete wan an air operation on a scale greater than any ever before attempted and it succeeded because there was no adequate air defence. That much was made abundantly clear by tile soldiers who fought the German invaders. There was nothing the Royal Navy could do to prevent aircraft flying to Crete, any more than it could pre,vent air operations over Poland or Holland. The Navy did everything it was possible for it to do. It certainly prevented any reinforcements or heavy weapons and supplies from reaching Crete by sea. It landed British reinforcements and supplies, and took away wounded men and, finally, despite all the LnftAvaffj could do, it success fully evacuated some 15,000 troops from Crete to Egypt. It repeated what it and the Merchant Navy did in Norway, at Dunkirk and in Greece. Navy in the Air. After all, sea power itself does not represc-nt total poAver, into which land force, air force, natural resources, manufacturing and foodnroviding capacities enter. Sea power still remains capable of excrcis'ng its influence in the sphere of its action. One of the reasons for the belief that sea power is less of an influence than formerly, is that new instruments, such as aircraft, have deprived it of its power. This, however, confuses sea power ■ ■•h one of its. parts. It supposes that naval strength is x the only element in sea power, which it is not: important and essential as it is. there are other elements. And it visualises naval strength in terms solely of those ships which operate on or under the water. Sea power s much more than this. Three elements enter into the composition of sea power—overseas trade, overseas obsessions, and fighting fo~ce. In the Crete operations the Navy did all that it was possible to do. Concurrently, it demonstrated elseAvhere the aircraft are themselves instruments of sea power. Fiom the time that the Bismarck was sighted in a Norwegian fidrd till she was destroyed by the guns and torpedoes of the Fleet, nearly a week later, the Royal Navy showed that it knew how to use its air flotillas. It will bear repenting that "what has happened . . . is not that air power has replaced sea power, but that an important new instrument of sea power has comei into being which will modify the conduct of operations at sea as the steamship in her time, and the surface and submarine - torpedo-boats in theirs, modified it."