News from the Bases

Building nine new naval and air bases in a couple of years is no easy job, and the U.S. was lucky to have indications last week that some progress was being made at a few points on its outer defense line in the Atlantic:

> Secretary of the Navy Knox announced that two naval air bases (on sites leased from Great Britain) will soon be commissioned: at Bermuda on July 1, at Newfoundland on July 15. The choices of officers to command these bases gave a hint of the kind of naval air forces likely to be stationed there. For Newfoundland, the Navy chose a long-range patrol officer, Commander Gail Morgan, who now commands a unit (Patrol Wing I) of big flying boats. Along with their flying watchmen, these planes can also carry bombs or torpedoes for attacking enemy ships. Assigned to Bermuda was a close-in combat flier (Lieut. Commander Robert F. Hickey), who now heads a group on the aircraft carrier Ranger (fighters, torpedo planes, scout bombers).

> Nearly completed were negotiations for eleven air-base sites on the vulnerable Atlantic hump of Brazil. Nominally, these new fields are to be built and operated by Pan American Airways. Actually, they will be constantly available for overnight occupation by U.S. military air forces. Two similar fields are also to be placed in Paraguay.

Other news from some of the Caribbean bases was not so good. Expecting a U.S. bonanza, native laborers in Trinidad recently struck when they got little more than local wage scales for work on U.S. air and naval bases there. The strike was settled, but without improving the ill feeling between natives, British residents and U.S. personnel. High-ranking U.S. Army officers who toured the southern bases last fortnight felt that they were quietly snubbed by the British Governors of Trinidad and British Guiana. In Trinidad and elsewhere in the Caribbean, cooperation between U.S. and local authorities is negligible or negative, morale is low among U.S. troops, the venereal rate is high and even prostitutes have sextupled their prices.

Many troubles, misunderstandings and delays were bound to happen when U.S. money, men and living standards suddenly invaded Great Britain's colonial calm. Inevitable or not, it looked as if some of the prospective bases might be ready for the next war, but hardly for this.

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