The Second Ocean

A group of 21 big four-engine Boeing bombers--of the newest type urgently needed by Britain--flew last week to Hawaii. Their going was a clear indication of how vital the Government considers the problem of keeping mastery of the Pacific, where its main fleet is concentrated. But the U.S., with its one-ocean Navy, had to deal last week with a two-ocean problem.

In the Atlantic, the size and immediacy of that problem increased enormously. France's further surrender to Germany (see p. 27) raised grave defense questions: What about control of French Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, French Saint Pierre and Miquelon off Canada, French Dakar at its strategic position on the Atlantic bulge of Africa? What, if anything, would the U.S. do? For practical military purposes, the limits of the answers were the limits of what the Navy could do.

Just what force the Navy had in the Atlantic, and where, were official secrets, and last week became more secret still. Only certainty was that the force was smaller than the problem of the Atlantic as a whole. Last June, when the Navy quit publishing whereabouts and dispositions of the U.S. Fleet, the Atlantic Squadron included: > The battleships Arkansas, Texas and New York, oldest in the Navy, whose 12-and 14-inch guns are outranged by the 8-inchers of modern cruisers. > Four cruisers (Wichita, Quincy, Tuscaloosa, Vincennes). > One hundred destroyers, including many which were later traded to Great Britain. > One aircraft carrier (the Ranger).

The Squadron since then has been renamed the Atlantic Fleet, and its commander, storm-tough Ernest Joseph King, has been given the four-starred flag of a full admiral. Some and possibly most of the 24 new combat vessels which the Navy launched in 1940 were added to the Atlantic force, and some may have been withdrawn from the Pacific. Moreover, the Navy soon could bolster the Fleet's battle line by adding two new battleships (the recently commissioned North Carolina is almost ready for sea and the still newer Washington, commissioned last week, should be complete by July).

But at best it is still a Fleet by courtesy, strong enough to do extended patrol duty, or to stand off any likely raiding force which might approach the U.S. or the Caribbean. An aircraft carrier protected by two or three cruisers could, as a detached raiding force, stage a quick, in-&-out air demonstration as far away as Dakar. But the Ranger is generally rated too small (14,500 tons) and too slow (29.5 knots) for such work.

If ships lately dispersed on Caribbean and Atlantic patrol were concentrated, the Atlantic Fleet nevertheless should, if necessary, be able to take Martinique, Guadeloupe, French possessions off Canada. Sustaining a sea campaign across the Atlantic to or beyond the Azores would be another and more difficult matter. It would be ironical if the U.S., with a good one-ocean Fleet, had to take naval action in the second ocean, where its naval power was second-rate.

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