Canal Destroyed

Down from overcast skies in the Panama Canal Zone fell an envelope attached to a wire and a weight. Where it landed, men in uniform gathered excitedly, discussed its exact location, took the letter to more important men in uniform whose faces were grave.

As the envelope contained nothing more disturbing than an affectionate note from Lieut. James H. Carrington, U.S.N., to his wife, it was swiftly despatched to Havana, there to be relayed by air mail to the Carrington home in California. But rarely had a note from a Naval lieutenant to his wife caused such eager discussion.

Lieut. Carrington's letter weighed less than two ounces, but it fell from a bombing plane which carried torpedoes weighing 1,800 lbs. each, and it fell within the vital area of the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel Locks of the Panama Canal. And it fell while the U. S. battle fleet was attempting last week to "destroy" the Canal in the most intricate of war games. The U. S. scouting fleet was trying to defend.

Brilliant were the tactics which allowed Lieut. Carrington to choose the Miraflores-Pedro Miguel letterbox for his correspondence. Off the Pacific entrance of the Canal had maneuvered the two opposing fleets, the attacking Blacks, 99 ships strong, and the defending Blues, with 75 ships. From Hampton Roads was steaming a theoretical supporting fleet ready to go through the Canal to the aid of the Blues. The issue: Could the Blacks bomb the Canal's locks, thus closing navigation before the reinforcements could arrive?

Most important trumps in the game were the aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga. The Lexington, part of the defending Blue fleet, was put out of action early, partly owing to a freak of the weather. Black Admiral William Veazie Pratt shrewdly detached the Saratoga from his fleet, sent it hundreds of miles to the south and west. Not until it was ready to attack did the Blue scouting cruisers and destroyers discover the whereabouts of the Black fleet's chief threat. By then it was too late. In the early morning the Saratoga pushed her bow into the wind, 45 planes soared from her launching deck, made their way above the vital locks. At the same time the Aroostook, representing the absent aircraft-carrier Langley, a giant Sikorsky started across the Isthmus to the locks Gatun, dropped its "bombs,"' was interned in "neutral" territory.

Theoretically, the Saratoga might have been sunk before its planes returned, when at last it fell under the guns of the searching Blues, but the damage would have been done; the Canal was "destroyed;" the supporting fleet must have circled the Horn to have reached the Pa cific.

Conjecture was not the only result of the war games, nor was the death (by drowning) of six naval men. The defeat of the scouting fleet and "destruction" of the Canal added point and pith to the arguments of two vociferous groups at Washington. Obvious was the boost given the Navy's cruiser program now before Congress (see p. 10). Less obvious, equally welcome, was the boost given to the proposed second interoceanic canal through Nicaragua by a sea-level route requiring few if any locks. As the war-game neared its final phase, New Jersey's Senator Edge went on the air to urge passage of his bill to appropriate $150,000 for a Nicaraguan survey. Said he: "In the event of war, two canals would be of inestimable value."