◆ SpookStack

= oo Bed, Aina What quantities of shot and shell would be required it is difficult to say, but the amount would be staggering. After Hitler’s army got here, it would have to keep open behind a line of supply from its main supply base capable of keeping a continuous flow of provisions, fuel, ammunition and replacements of arms and equipment, The problem of transporting this vast army and - the mountains of equipment and continuous sup- plies it would require is utterly beyond the power of any country, First, the men must be sent over in ships. And these ships must be convoyed. They cannot be Bent across the ocean in little vessels. Ships of less than 2,000 tons would, of course, be completely useless, Of course to send a million men over at one timo woanld ha ant af the nussetion sn WOM BE ue Ga ee Quite. . Mr. Hanson Baldwin, the military expert of the New York Times, says: “The world’s tonnage facilities are such that no power of combination of powers could possibly trans- port more than 300,000 men in a month, An initial expeditionary force of about 36,006 would be the maximum practical umber that could be brought against us, if the size of convoy, mumber of ships and planes needed for protection and the like are considered.” In the World War we sent two million men to France . But we had, according te Col. Leonard Ayres, who wrote the official report on this great enterprise, the ships of twelve different countries— American, British, French, Italian, ete.—and the convoys of the American and British and French navies. The Germans were without a fleet. We landed these men on a friendly shore where they Were received with open arms. And we sent an army of engineers and mechanics ahead of them to build ports and docks to unicoad the equipment. Let us suppose that Germany has defeated Eng- land and taken the British navy. She now decides to send her army to America. Major George Fielding Eliot, military expert of the pro-war New York Herald-Tribune, says: To Aen aw “Troops cannot be transported overseas in any number save when naval command of the waters ever which they pass has been previously assured, since a troop convoy is a large, slow and vuloerable target and will surely suffer heavily if its escort be attacked by anything like an equal force." In the circumstances we have assumed that Germany, even with the British fleet, would not have complete command of the seas. For there would remain the American navy. And that navy would have to be wiped out before the German navy would command the seas on this side of the ocean, Two things must be remembered. First, at the end of this war the American navy _would be larger than the German navy and the British navy combined. Second, the German government would have to do its naval fighting on this side of the ocean, It is an axiom of sea warfare that a naval vessel loses a fixed percentage of its effective- ness every 100 miles it gets from its own base. Great battleships have to fuel up frequently and must be accompanied by immense auxiliary ships. zs 7s we Three thousand miles eway from their own coasts this navy would be utterly helpless against a navy which is merely its equal in numbers, but which would be three times its strength in effective fighting power. There is not a naval authority who believes that the German Would attempt a mass naval battle in our waters against our naval strength. If a flotilla of 30 or 40 ships with 50,000 men, convoyed by a larger number of warships and all their equipment attempted to land here, it conld not sneek in on seme dark night. Plane scouts would herald its approach days in advance. When it got here it could not empty its cargo on an open beach. Which means the fictilla would have to come into one of our harbors, all of which are rotected by artillery and would be sown with mines, Major Eliot makes this clear. He says: “Large armies, accompanied as modern armies must be by artillery of various calibres, tanks and other heavy equipment, as well as vast quantities of muni- tions and supplies, cannot usually be landed on an open beach; but must first obtain possession of a secure harbor with the necessary piers, cranes, and other accessories for petting eshore their accessories.” Even the planes used by this invading force must be transported to this country by ships. Mr. Baldwin says: “Today planes must be transported by sea to the Western Hemisphere; the air armies of Europe and Asia are moi yet able to bridge the Atlantic and Pacific under their own power. Isolated planes cao do it but not mass bombing formations.” There are planes that have flown across the Atlantic, but they must find a friendly landing here. They cannot come here as hostile craft and be Aanitnhkin landinn is bh tn kta 1 &anla. ossible to build bombers that could come here and land a few bombs but this would have no military effect at all. For every man transported here there must be at least seven and a half tons of shipping. An attacking forea of 100,000 world reonire 750,000 tons. An average of 5,000 tons would require 150 vessela convoyed by a flotilla of naval vessels made up of seven battleships, several aircraft carriers, seven light cruisera, a couple of mine-layers and at least seventy destroyers. Imagine this immense armada, moving slowly over the seas and approach- ing our coasts—2,000 miles from their own base and at the mercy of our navy and our air force, and compelled to make a landing at a port protected by heavy guns and mine-sown seas. By the time a million men were landed, if that is conceivable, the attacking government would require 13,000,000 tons of shipping plying back and forth from the other side of the Atlantic to ports here to keep this great army supplied with provisions, fuel and ammunition, This would mean the arrival and departure of at least eighty ships a day and all at hostile ports and through hostile seas. The whole idea is so fantastic that no serious mind will entertain it for a moment. And, a5 a matter of fact, there is no military authority in this country who believes that an invasion of America by Germany with or without the British Geet is possible. . molanmeast an Ws aa