AMERICAN ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 February 1925, Page 3

AMERICAN ITEMS.

[Reuters Telegrams.] F.S.A. DEFENCE. WASHINGTON, February If). General Mitchell gave further evidence before the House Aircraft Committee, and lie asserted that there is an entire laek of co-ordination between the F.S.A. Army and the Navy forces in Hawaii, which is a strategic point, and must be maintained. He said that the Commanding General and the Admiral there would not speak to each other. The defences of Hawaii were now as obsolete as hows and arrows. General Mitchell advocated airplane and submarine liases for Hawaii, but declared that the Fhillipines could not lie held for two weeks against a Japanese attack. Meanwhile, reports persist that General Mitchell will he given the choice of resignation from his position of Assistant in Chief of the Army Air Force or removal, owing to his criticisms of the Army and Navy heads, but the Pacific naval officers have endorsed General Mitchell’s claim for the superiority of the aircraft over the battleships as the result of the tests carried out at San Pedro, where five giant aeroplanes dropped bombs on a moving target from an altitude of 7300 feet, and demonstrated conclusively that a battleship is an easy prey for aircraft, according to LioutCornmander Strong, the director of the tests. WASHINGTON, February 19. The Secretary for War, Mr Weeks, having issued statements alleging that the F.S.A. War Department possessed twelve hundred serviceable planes, the House Aircraft Committee has subpoenaed him to testify. Mr \\ eeks later sent the Committee an answer, admitting the Army possesses only twentyfive planes of the most modern type, among fifteen hundred ol all kinds.