Priceless Filigree

For a long time the Navy has wanted to get control of island bases which, in turn, would give the U.S. control of the Pacific. At both Paris peace conferences (1899 and 1919) it lost. Last week, the Navy showed that it was out to get the bases this time, and no mistake. Without waiting for diplomats to settle the legal status of islands once held by the Japs, the bare-knuckled admirals laid their own proposal before Congress.

The plan was as comprehensive as the Navy could make it. If it was adopted, the Pacific would become a filigree of 22 bases, stretching from Hawaii to the China Seas, from the barren Aleutians to paradisiac Samoa. Pearl Harbor would continue to dominate the military map. But the U.S. armored highway across the Pacific, which once faded out a thousand miles beyond Pearl, would henceforth extend to Guam and Saipan.

The Spokes. From the Marianas, well-protected sea lanes would radiate to secondary bases in the Philippines and Okinawa. To the south, Manus in the Admiralty Islands would be (subject to Australian approval) a Guam in reserve, maintained in caretaker status.

The great lagoons of Kwajalein and Eniwetok, the sheltered roadsteads of Palau and Truk, all wrested from Japan, would provide fleet anchorages. Tying the whole lacework together would be air bases on such famous "rocks" as Iwo, Marcus and Wake. (Conceding that the airplane is here to stay, the Navy was careful to emphasize that all bases would have built-in air stations.)

These interlocking outposts would extend the Pacific frontier 3,000 miles to the west, permitting the U.S. "to apply our military power on the coast of China, in Japan, and to cover the approaches to the U.S."

In the Atlantic, the chain of outposts would not be pushed so far, but it might be equally strong. Here, all the bases sought by the Navy are already established, either on U.S. territory or on sites acquired in the 1940 destroyers-for-bases deal with Britain. Outstanding among them is the great naval operating base at Roosevelt Roads in eastern Puerto Rico, which could not be finished in time for the Battle of the Atlantic, now to be left to the caretakers, ready for quick use in an emergency.

The Spokesmen. The Navy proposes to garrison its outposts with 51,500 men and 4,500 officers--half the Navy's entire personnel in 1926.

Spreading his plans on the Senate Naval Affairs Committee's table, Vice Admiral Forrest Sherman never tired of pointing out that most of the bases already contain facilities used by the Army and Air Forces, that all can be developed for efficient joint use.

There were three noteworthy omissions from the Navy's list: in the Pacific, the Galapagos Islands, which have been the subject of touchy negotiations with Ecuador; in the Atlantic, Greenland and Iceland--about which the Russian bear might be touchy.

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