SHALL WE HAVE A MONSTROUS NAVY?
Villard, Oswald Garrison
Shall We Have A Monstrous Navy? By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD TAKING a lesson, perhaps, from the collapse of the campaign for universal postwar military service, ¦which it and the Army were hoping to...
...THIS incredible program is being put forward in the face of the atomic bomb on the ground that it is dictated by "the lessons of the present war...
...Shall we do it, or shall we plan to put all our reliance upon the biggest Navy in the world, and the "greatest and most efficient Army...
...Naturally they are preaching the necessity of the United States being armed as never before, and if there were no Russia to talk about as our future enemy, they would create a Russia, or would even tell us that if we did not keep up our great Army and Navy we should someday be overwhelmed by threatening forces marching up from South America, or by yellow hordes from Asia...
...I leave out entirely the question as to what moral attitude we should take toward the criminality of the use of the atomic bomb—I think history will say that our unleashing it when it was not necessary for the immediate defeat of Japan was without doubt one of the greatest blunders of all time...
...Truman and Mr...
...But we must not do anything to prevent the resumption of friendly relations...
...The Allies were so stupid they let Hitler arm Germany...
...I think that applies to China and Russia...
...when the head of a country controlling these bombs will be able to destroy a nation at one blow by pressing a button on his desk and releasing automatic bombers, what good will be 1,079 warships...
...About one-third of this vast force is to be kept in full operation and the rest held 'in reserve...
...That is dangerous blood which is being shed there...
...Stalin has .just announced that he is going to create 12 naval academies to provide officers for his new flotilla which we and England have aided him in building up during the war by giving him various second-hand vessels, cruisers, destroyers, and at least one British battleship...
...It was so short-sighted as to give any thoughtful man the creeps when he thinks that Mr...
...Is it not, therefore, the height of stupidity for the Navy to say now, at this stage of the military and naval evolution . "brought about by the past war, that we are in a position to plan for the future what we shall do if we continue to put our national faith in huge armaments...
...The only fleet remaining in the world which might at some time constitute a threat is plainly the Russian...
...History has proved him to be correct over and over again...
...We are either going to seek to play a big imperialistic role along old-fashioned lines, revelling in our naval superiority, dominating Germany, Japan and Italy, settling the fate of Tangier, Libya, Eritrea, Korea, the Near East, and endless other countries, or our leaders will realize that this is an atomic world and that it has been entirely altered since we dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, t- After that issue is decided we can turn if we wish to such questions as battleships, carriers, submarines, bombers, and automatic weapons, and settle once and for all the question of establishing one defense department under one head, instead of an Army and Navy with their separate air forces, not to speak of innumerable other problems...
...Stimson and their associates were so amazingly without vision as to spring this missile on the world and to divide it at once into two camps, those who possess the bomb and those that do not...
...That is human nature...
...Probably a majority of them have married and have at least one child to support...
...THERE is still another factor which is molding public opinion in the wrong direction...
...This policy is now openly advocated in Washington...
...We want to see that Japan is not in a position to start on a rampage again...
...There are many men in the services of high rank who are calling for a huge Army and Navy because their own future is at stake...
...Wainwright, who has lately seen the world only from the inside of a Japanese prison camp, declares we must under no circumstances weaken our present forces...
...the British gave them authority, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, to build a Navy one-third the size of theirs...
...I say weaken deliberately, for we should never have been in this war with Japan if we had not made the enormous blunder of conquering the Philippines and so becoming involved in Asiatic problems indefinitely, and some of them of a very nasty kind, such as the present British use of Japanese troops to hold down the Indo-Chinese for France, the natives of the Dutch East Indies for the Dutch...
...What is called for is surely an interim program until the Government of the United States makes up its mind on the fundamental question as to whether it will lead the world toward disarmament and do everything in its power to bring Russia into line, or whether in the face of the atomic bomb it will continue its big Navy policy...
...It is navalism beyond-anythinsr the world has ever seen, and the American taxpayer is expected to foot the bill without any complaining and with genuine Satisfaction...
...As to the bases, there is not the slightest need of haste in deciding what our permanent policy will be, we can occupy them as long as we please and give them up tomorrow if we see fit...
...I don't think we would want our coast controlled...
...When Maj...
...Until that decision is taken in Washington every other move is beside the mark...
...Some ships, if modern, probably will be kept in reserve...
...We sold weapons and necessary supplies for war to Japan and Germany, and so did England and France up to the very moment of the declaration of hostilities, and France even after that by using Belgium as a middle man in dealing with the Germans...
...some will be sold if there is any use for them, and some will be scrapped...
...What could be more preposterous than that...
...His right hand aide and general declares in a series of signed articles, widely promulgated, that we must not stop short of destroying every single Japanese, that there will be no peace on the earth until we have wiped out the last of our Asiatic enemies...
...FOR a long time I have felt that the world was dying more because of stupidity than from any other cause...
...The Navy brass hats have hit upon these figures by adopting the century-old slogan of the British Navy, which was, "A fleet large enough to defeat'any combination of navies that may be broue-ht against us...
...Just recall Calvin Coolidge's words to the American Legion when he said that: "No amount of armaments ever kept a country out of war or assured it victory after war came...
...And how valuable will the outlying base's we propose to seize as part of our postwar booty be in the light of the fact that the Germans were on the verge of bringing out a plane that American officers think would have been able to cross the Atlantic in 17 minutes...
...Literally hundreds of thousands of young officers in the Army and Navy want to continue in the services because they have never known any other employment, having been taken right out of college...
...When bombs capable of the most terrific destruction can be carried in an individual's pockets...
...What is left of the French ships will certainly never constitute a menace...
...Even from the militaristic point of view, until we know whether the San Francisco Charter will survive, "whether or not Europe will go down into chaos and anarchy, whether or not Russia will continue her triumphant advance toward the Atlantic, we should certainly not decide as to how much we are going to weaken ourselves by spreading armed forces throughout the Pacific and along the Atlantic coasts...
...Even more important is the fact there is tremendous pressure being brought to bear upon the public to continue our armaments...
...The Navy should certainly not be encouraged in its present effort to induce 30,000 of its war-trained officers of the reserve to become regulars...
...Just how far our Army has gone with rockets it is not possible to say, but it is a fact that it has picked up a number of valuable ideas and nearly finished weapons from the Germans...
...TODAY our Army has a bomber which can be guided by television from a plane 15 miles from the objective, and a bomber with a range of 5,000 miles is an accomplished fact...
...As one commentator has pointed out, a large Navy would be "an interesting target" for future bombing fleets provided that "the aggressor did not simply choose to ignore it...
...Can we not take to heart some of these lessons ? Can we not at last say to our militarists, see where your policy of armament has landed the world.' Don't give us the old lie that this happened because the United States, England, and France were not sufficiently armed to deter the dictators...
...They have not been made to face and to study the new problems created by this horrible new weapon which we have devised, which, as has been said, may have opened up the whole question of life itself and put in the hands of a few people the power to destroy the whole universe...
...I don't think it necessary...
...It will certainly be generations before thi\t country will sufficiently recover from the effects of this war to threaten our safety...
...The Navy has also filed a long list of the bases, large and small, which it wishes to retain throughout the world...
...I hope that this story is not true, but I know that the question of holding on to the high ranks bestowed upon junior officers in the course of building our huge Army is affecting some men and automatically and subconsciously must affect the officers who suddenly find themselves facing the loss of high pay, rank, and distinction and going back to routine garrison duty in subordinate positions...
...But talk they will, and do, and the danger is that the public and the Congress will follow them without in the remotest degree facing the actual facts of the new life in which we live.' Let it instead listen to these wise words of Admiral Spruance: "We can't maintain the present-size Navy...
...There will be no German fleet, no Japanese, and, it is to be hoped, no Italian...
...By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD TAKING a lesson, perhaps, from the collapse of the campaign for universal postwar military service, ¦which it and the Army were hoping to have voted by Congress while the war was still going on, the Navy is now rushing its demand for the greatest permanent fleet ever seen on this globe...
...If you ask naval men whom we are arming against so prodigiously the private answer is Russia, and of course the "danger" to us of the British fleet is also counted in...
...Plain common sense should tell Congress that this is no time to listen to the demands of the Navy or to lay out any definite program whatsoever for the future of our naval might...
...For example, there is a story going the rounds of a young Air Force general who called his staff of 28 officers around him and said that he had been ordered to send home 25 and that he would not obey the order for the reason that if he did he would probably be mustered out himself and returned to his low rank as a captain in the regular Army...
...We have gotten along without bases on the coast of Asia this time...
...Unfortunately Congress is certain to be influenced by the opportunity for patronage and jobs...
...One group of the young scientists who helped to make the atomic bomb admits frankly that they are frightened "to death of the very thing that their genius had produced," and are saying that we cannot possibly keep the secret of it for more than five years, perhaps only two...
...it is too big, too much of a strain on the country...
...It is asking for 18 battleships, 82 cruisers, large and small, 24 big carriers, 10 light, and 79 escort carriers, 367 destroyers, 296 destroyer escorts, and no less than 200 submarines...
...All the Navy can say on this subject is that it will not give its judgment of the role that the atomic bomb will play in future warfare until it has "made some tests and experiments...
...The sense of the terrible indignities put upon them by the Japanese, in violation of all civilized warfare, is hard upon them...
...They have no desire to be turned adrift, many of them, because they would not know which way to turn, and whether they could or could not achieve at the outset of a business career enough of a salary to support their families...
...The British people know that twice in 25 years we have come to their rescue to save them from defeat, and they know that we released in the second war the greatest industrial power in the world against which, if they were pitted against us, they could make no headway whatsoever...
...Even if it were certain that at some future time there could be a British, Russian, and French combination against us, it is nothing less than idiotic to build our future naval force on this, for the great outstanding fact is that the atomic bomb has knocked every military and naval armament into a cocked-hat...
...They are living in the world as it was when they surrendered...
...It is asking for no less than 1,079 ships to be manned by an enlisted force of 500,000 men, by 50,000 officers, with a reserve officer force of 50,000 more, and there are signs that the Congressional naval committees are looking with favor upon the proposal...
...These men are sincere, but deluded...
...I dislike to refer to it, but it is necessary...
...It is our opportunity to turn over a great new leaf in the book of history and to start the world along another line than self-destruction...
...de Seversky declares that "we are facing such remarkable new developments in aviation that in 10 years' time not one of our great superliners will be of any value whatever...
...I take it that it would be ill-advised in the present state of world opinion to take bases in China...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 41
