STRATEGIC CHAIN

Taranaki Daily News, 10 September 1940, Page 7

STRATEGIC CHAIN

British Official Wireless.

NAVAL AND AIR BASES

Rec. 5.5 p.m. Rugby, Sept. 8. The strategic importance to defence in common interest afforded by the naval and air bases leased by Britain to the United States is appreciated when it is realised how effective is the controi which can be exercised by adequate naval and air forces stationed at the places comprised in the agreement. Newfoundland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Antigua and British Guiana form a complete shategic chain. , Newfoundland lies athwart the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the river of the same name which provides the outlet for a vast series of inland waters comprised by Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan and Superior. With connecting canals and rivers they extend for nearly, '500 miles into the interior of Canada in pne line of continuous navigation inland. Lake Michigan. with a length of 316 miles, lies wholly iri tlie United States. Other wise the international boundary passes through the centres of the lakes, and together they fumish for seven months in a year an inlet into the Atlantic from the heart of the western United States and Canada. ' Bermuda consists of a cluster of about 100 small islands, about 16 of which are inhabited, about 580 miles from the nearest point of the American coast and 730 miles from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Bermuda has long been a British uaval base lying on the fianks of important" trade routes between Britain, Canada and the United States on the one hand and on the other the ocean highways leading to the West Indies and the Panama Canal. The island's strategic importance is clear. Farther south the Bahamas .cover the Florida Channel and Windward Passage, northern entrances into the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Naval and air bases in Cuba and San Domingo are already available to the United States, while Porto Rico and some smaller islands around it, guarding the 150 miles "Mona Passage" into the Caribbean, are American possessions. Jamaica, however, about 200 nnles south-west of Windward Passage. between Haiti and Cuba, is less than 600 miles from the Panama Canal, and excellently situated to assisj in its seaward defence. Antigua and St. Lucia, in the Lesser AntUles, and Trinidad cover ffie vveStern approaches to the Panama Canal* roughly 1300 miles away, together with the Dutch islands of Curacao and Aruba, which are of importance because of their ^ oil supplies obtained from Maracaibo, in VeneThe chain of American defences will be completed by a naval and air base to be established near Georgetown, in British Guiana, on the northern coast of South America, about 350 miles from Trinidad. Well may it be said that the agreement is a "matter for congratulation. It has been welcomed all over the British Empire as- a substantial sign of the friendship and sympathetic interest which exists between the two great Englishspeaking democracies ' of the moden> world.