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power coincided with the emergence of the United States as the unrivalled first
Sea pover of the world.
Yet in many respects all this mighty power ssems at the
moment of its greatest glory to have become redundant,"
wy
Yet certain vital tasks may romain for flocts toperfo
atorzic bombs.
4 even in a war of
One function which a superior fleet serves at every moment of its
existence—and which therefore requires no time for its application—-is the defense of coasts against sea~borne invasion.
Only since the surrender of Germany,
which made available to us the observations of members of the German High Com
mand, has thc public been made aware of something which hac previously been
obvious only to close students of the war--that it was the Royal Navy cven more
than the R.A.F. which kept Hitler from leaping across the Channel in 1940.
The
R.A.F. was too infcrior to the Luftwaffe to count for mech in itself, and was
important largely as a means of protecting the ships which the British would have
interposed against any invasion attempt.
We have noticed that if swiftness were cssential to the execution of any invasion plan, the invader would be obliged to depend mainly if not exclusively on
transport by air.
But we also observed that the difficulties in the way of such
an cnterprise might be such as to make it quite impossible of achievement.
For
the overscas movement of armies of amy size and cspecially of their larger arns
and supplics, sca-borne transportation proved quite indispensable even in an era
when gigantic air forecs had been built up by fully nobilized countries over four
yeoers of war,
The difference inweichtecarrying capacity between ships and
plancs is altogether too great to permit us to expect that it will become nili-
tarily unimportant in fifty years or morc. 62
/
A forec which is abic to keep the
enemy from using the scas is bound to renain for a long tine an enormously im
portant defense against overseas invecion.
Hovrever, the defonse of coasts against soa-borne invasion is something which
powerful and superior air forces are also able to carry out, though perhaps
62.
See Bernard Brodie, A Guide to Naval Strategy (Princoton, 3rd ed.) p. 215,