Word: canals
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...present defenses are nothing to brag about. This condition does not worry Army people on the spot as much as might be expected. They know that the vulnerable Canal and the narrow Isthmus of Panama have inherent defense limitations which no amount of badly needed antiaircraft equipment or planes can wholly overcome. The only sure defense of the Canal is at a distance: by ship, by plane, by economic, political and diplomatic alliance with the countries of nearby Latin America and by occupation or neutralization of the bases from which an enemy might attack. The U.S. now lacks those outward...
What worries the Army and Navy more is the constantly widening radius of possible attack on the Canal. Whenever the range of bombers lengthens, that radius lengthens. Even the Coast Artillerymen who man the great, fixed guns at the Canal entrances place no great faith in such emplacements. No enemy fleet is likely to come within range while the Canal is still intact. Coast Artillery anti-aircraft men, although they could use more and better guns, have gone into the jungles, placed and manned what guns they have there, done a heroic job of soldiering. But they, too, have...
...planes (example: the Douglas B-18A bomber) now make ten-and twelve-hour flights, hop non-stop from Miami or Texas to the Zone. Pan American Clippers do it in six and a half hours. Existing bombers could, if pushed to the extreme, fly from French Dakar to the Canal Zone. Air power has thus completely revised all theories of the defense of the Canal. The only military solution: defensive air and naval power, based as far as possible from the Canal itself, as near as possible to the starting points of enemy attack...
That solution means absolute military superiority not only of the area within the Caribbean ring but of the Latin-American approaches beyond it, the approaches from Africa and Europe as well. That is why Army and Naval officers in the Canal Zone impatiently dismiss queries and quibbles about the Canal's local defenses. The Canal is still a focal point of the Caribbean defense system. But the Canal's defense today is just as good as and no better than the defenses of Trinidad, Puerto Rico and the other outlying U.S. bases...
...rigid fact about Empire was Britain's greatest misfortune last week. The structure of Empire leans on geographic strong points. Knock down the buttress of Singapore, and the whole eastern wall of Empire falls. Knock out the Suez Canal, and British power in all the countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean collapses. Last week the enemy was clearly developing a huge strategy designed to flank Suez. It was hard to tell whether the super-parenthesis being formed through Libya and Egypt was stalled or just pausing; probably it was pausing to wait for the ripe hour. And on the other...