“UNEASY OCEANS”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1939, Page 11

“UNEASY OCEANS”

PROBLEMS PACING BRITAIN. — NAVAL OFFICER LOOKS AT THE PACIFIC. Lieutenant-Commander Kenneth Edwards, R.N.. is naval correspondent to the London '■Sunday Times" and in a book he has written on the comparative strength of world navies, their individual strategies, and the problems of each possible sphere of naval activity. "Uneasy Oceans" is a good title and its contents provide food for thought, and. sometimes, mental rnal de mer.

He traces naval history since the Great War: the wise and statesmanlike naval Treaty of Washington signed in 1922 by war-weary pens; and the unwise and unstatesmanlike Treaty of London in 1930. that sowed the seed of the Tree of Appeasement and allowed Britain to lose her great naval strength which, in palmier days, could cope with any two-Power combination.

I The Treaty of London, he contends, . was instrumental in starting the naval armament race of today. The capital ship building holiday which commenc- ' ed in 1930 and ended in 1936 left Bri- \ tain with 15 ships, eleven of which ’ were over age (30 years), the United States with 15 ships, seven being over age, and Japan with nine, only four 1 of which were old vessels. The cruiser position was worse. In 1918, Britain had 109. At the London Conference the Admiralty claimed that 70 was the irreducible minimum consistent with peace-time requirements. Mr Ramsay McDonald agreed to 50. Lieu-tenant-Commander Edwards vigorously condemns this blatant case of political opportunism. "The Prime Minister who, only a few months before, had vigorously declared “that the Navy is US,” had subordinated it to idealism and political expediency.” To Feed Britain. Great Britain requires 150 ships a day to feed her. The Merchant Service unsubsidised and uncared for by successive Governments suffered in numbers and in tonnage. In 1931 only seven small escort, vessels were laid down in the Royal naval dockyards. Mr Stanley Baldwin, too, smoked his pipe of peace and kept his eyes shut to trends and developments abroad. In 1935, at the time of the Abyssinian crisis in the Mediterranean, all available destroyers were despatched to the dangei' zone. This effort left the Home Fleet with one obsolete destroyer working as a tender to an aircraft carrier! During the September crisis of last year an anti-aircraft gun disappeared from the War Museum in London and reappeared mysteriously on a ship at sea. Such was the cost of planting seeds of the Tree of Appeasement and having beautiful thoughts and lovely ideals, honest and sincere though they might be. Pacific Peril. It is comforting now to be told that despite the reduction in size, the British Navy today is wonderfully efficient and well equipped with guns and ships. It is comforting also to know that the menace of the submarine has been reduced by effective modern defence devices. The author devotes several chapters to the respective strengths and strategies of the ■'naval Powers. Certain details are interesting. Japanese warships are heavily gunned; on occasions they have been over-gunned. The secondary armaments of certain Japanese battleships consist of 20 5.51111 guns, compared with the 12 sin of the American 'and the 12 6in of the British. Italy’s 6in gun cruisers are very fast, being capable of from 35 to 37 knots. The French have a submarine, the Surcouf, which has a displacement when on the surface of 2,880 tons. She carries a small seaplane in a water-tight hangar, and is armed With two Bin guns and 14 torpedo tubes. Russia, weak in other craft, had in November, 1938, 133 submarines and 30 building. She also has ■ immense mine-laying capabilities, ■ The Pacific in War Time.

Lieutenant-Commander Edwards in part 3 of his book devotes himself to the probable eventualities of war in the Mediterranean, in the North Sea, in the Baltic, and continues on to visualise a war between the United States and Japan and possible results, and a war as waged between Great Britain and Japan and possible results. He finishes with a discourse upon an imagined world war between the triangle of Japan, Italy and Germany and a possible combination of Powers contending against them.

He is confident that Britain and her allies could , cope with the threat in the Baltic. Mediterranean, North Sea, but in certain circumstances he is most discomforting about the ability of the British Fleet to deal with the threat in the Pacific Ocean —a drive south by the Japanese. Admittcdljr the Singapore base cutting across the communications of the south would be a deterrent, but the British ships available in the Pacific could not hope to deal with the Japanese fleet which might be brought against them. Nor could Singapore be relied upon to hold out for ever against the full force of the Japanese navy. In event of attack the British Admiral in the Far East would realise that one of the first objectives of the Japanese would be the oil supplies of North Borneo. British submarines. therefore, would operate in the Sulu Sea and off the north-west coast of Borneo. Singapore is the strategic key to the whole Far East. The British Admiral would concentrate his force there, using his submarines and mine layers to make the approaches as dangerous as possible for any Japanese expedition.

If Japan thought the British Empire too pre-occupied elsewhere, she would move south. Her first objective would be British North Borneo, for oil. and her second Malaya, for strategic purposes. Her third objective would be Australia, in order to provide space for her population. She would be careful to avoid the Philippines in order not to disturb America. The Japanese Empire would then stretch from Kamchatka to New Zealand. Japan would dominate the Western Pacific. Australia and New Zealand would be occupied by a prolific race, rendered ambitious by a

great sweep of success, and. what is more, working under wage conditions unacceptable to most other countries.