European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 9, 1950, Darmstadt, Hesse                                1950 i he stars and stripes Page Oil of the armed i special planes for the use of ground Nom unless they find some Way of a flexibility in speeds and weuve ability needed in ground oper people feel that your Book did adequately with the work of the How do you feel about that that is it is something i gift but it was certainly never line looked up people who had been sent at a number of my press con noes during the War and i think there snot a single press conference in Idy i did not go out of my Way to cd we i pm paled the mree services All the Way i meant to do it in the 5whaf do you Fth info was the importance Power in your ground operations we started planning what out later to be the invasion of it was in february and Larch of i would like you to Enber How we then were looking at Nark we were losing ships w score every week coming up from we had graveyards of irk along the Florida coast and All is the so an the plans were against the utter of of those Atlantic e first thing that enter Din our Cal was naval Power and the As that it would be adequate in l you Start an operation of the kind eventually to consume some millions of cannot have interrupted sea r with convoys being chased and As they were being chased and in the Spring of e was a very great belief that Heitic Wall the germans were to be constructing could not be so at the same time Skwere counting on the Navy to tube we also had to count a of the areas Back of the by Means of this became thought or idea of the yet lanes to do the Job did not exist was just being made to build plan had to be constructed with in in two tilings the Eer the United states would have Power and the certainty of Worth african Landing was naval q to make sure there was no opposition from an enemy Fleet a not Only that i think that the feat of the Navy i bringing the african operating forces ashore with the loss Only of one ship was one of the most amazing things in naval a the German submarines at that time were the Allied navies brought this Force of general patrons All the Way from the United they brought the others from England and took these forces through that bottleneck in the most of them through the others Down to yet before Landing we lost Only one we lost a lot afterwards because the enemy could gang up around the entrances to these q you used naval forces in fhe landings in the of of course a o when you went up to the Normandy Landing you had several did i you a both and o what function did they perform a of was bombardment we knew we we rent going to be Able to search out and break up All of the coastal batteries by air bombing attacks the All the Way through the had been gaining for itself an increased respect for its with spotter planes they map do a in for they broke up a tank attack with their there very so we had by the time of to depend very seriously upon naval gunfire in getting so much so that i was asking All the time for More than they could o were those naval Long Range guns helpful a As a matter of i was just Reading a report made by two German commanders in along about the 23d or 24ih of june they wanted to they were really taking punishment because we were dumping everything we had on them and them very hard on the and in the about in the morn ing of the these two admirals sent a radio begging permission to surrender because they the navys opened up on us so it was coming from q ail through fhe operation in Europe we controlled the was this vital a and the Navy supported the you know an amphibious land ing is not a particularly difficult but ifs a Touchy and delicate and anything can go in some from the land Fellows it is one of tiie simplest you put your men in boats and As Long As you get entrained Crews to take the boats it is the simplest deployment in the men can go nowhere else except to fee it is a very delicate thing and you need All the gun Power you can we faced a number of enemy batteries along the Normandy beaches that annoyed us for several Days after the landings and the Navy kept pounding on them until we captured o was the Navy in charge a it was in charge of putting men Admiral Chester w Nimitz commander in Pacific 1941 45 and i used to talk about this Point of changing navys experience in the Pacific was hopping from Island to you knew what was in other calculate your Battle plan Down to a More minute detail than you can i a Continental land where a Landing is nothing but a prelude to a you know that if you can get ashore firmly on an Island you can stay because you know approximately what is How much youve got and what you can in Normandy when we got ashore we didst know what was going to Noone and the Navy had to stay right there and do its part All the Way Alan Kirk com manding naval task invasion of 1944 was just As much a part of my planning staff As was my of he allotted Down to include particular the Navy even helped to break up counter what i constantly try to make people see is that there Are All kinds of no one ought to draw arbitrary lessons from the european campaigns be cause except where we went into we were a Neutral country to make an always had air bases that were close of this has its disa Dvan that the reason the germans could figure we would land at we had one British aircraft Carrier in the Mediterranean but we depended upon the fighters that were based in Eastern the reason we had to pick Salerno was that it was within effective Range of our fighter Craft the germans knew we we rent going to land out of fire so Salerno was indicated q if we had been Able to develop Large airborne forces that could be landed Inland a there Are All sorts of difficulties yet in the Way of air unless you can do so undisturbed and have pretty Good need them for True mobility on the an airborne Force is a very immobile thing because it Doest have the trucks and tanks and self propelled guns and All the other heavy equipment a Mobile Force what it really amounts to is that with an air Landing you establish a blocking under present we will get better and we will develop better and lighter will Progress we Are not yet at the in my where you can establish an Inland air head and then from As a Start a real Campaign that would be in the nature of the one on the Normandy beaches where we brought boxcars ashore some Genius thought of putting rails on the Bottom of an list Landing tank and of bringing across boxcars and running them across a makeshift connection up to the French we would have a Boxcar out of England and operating in France in 24 now you cannot do that with an yet i dont know what we will do if they some Day put wings on me Queen but thais where we Are q do you feel that amphibious warfare Wil be a part of warfare for a Long rime to come a my first remark is that i Hope there will be no More but i could not give an unqualified for the simple reason that it is very hard to figure where any War is going to be fought and under what conditions it is going to be fought i would say this we would be foolish today to allow to die in our services the very great knowledge we have of that Type of we Are ahead of every body i amphibious we Are certainly equal with the British in Doc Trine and weve got More and better equipment we Are better equipped to produce that it would be foolish for us to drop we should keep pushing ahead 1 would be very much against letting that Type of warfare be ifs the same Way with aircraft car the peacetime one great thing about War is if and when such a tragedy visits us it is Al ways going to happen under Circum at places and under conditions different from those you expect or plan the one great thing about a sizable aircraft Carrier task Force is its great suppose a War should Start in the suppose it should Start on the West coast of or or the persian aircraft carriers can operate i those areas cannot Tell what Are going to be the scientific discoveries of the future and therefore what is going to be the increasing vulnerability and the increasing efficiency of these but i do know that you can calculate in detail with what you can see with some certainly for today and we establish staffs which Are thinking in hazier future but now we Are speaking of current a flexible Carrier task Force has a High place in my own personal this same observation applies also to a sizable bombing Fleet to just moment to Hie question concerning the Navy and its part in the War when were preparing for the final assault across the we brought the Navy into it we had had wonderful experience wife the Navy in going we just said to the Navy come take us across the we had these a cups Landing were maybe 40 feet on truck they were taken right across dumped in the and the Navy took us o thai certainly was a unified opera want it a one of the of the reasons that Ive shied so definitely away from any Public participation in the arguments Between services was my Complete respect the three services and the Way they operated with and for i have no complaint i assure the two or three times when i for that the Navy didst i sent direct cables to Admiral King he just i  have been supported in the Field More definitely or completely by anyone than by Admiral Admi ral King was not of the backs lapping i never had anything but the utmost respect and liking for All this applies also to the army i have merely mentioned the naval support be after i wore the uniform and therefore expected perfect army support ifs a difficult you planning the forces you need for relative you make a generalization and we must have a Given number of tanks this might be first but when you get those what then is the priority of the next Hundred tanks As compared with something of another kind that is the Job that has to be done each and ifs one of those things that create heat because each fellow in this business will become very confident of his own he has had experience with take a with his very High a paratrooper really thinks that if you give him two bazookas and a hell go anywhere and whip the of ifs a Fine spirit but the fact is that each service gets this almost cocky Confidence in its own forces and then the heat of argument starts As an come to realize that  Money for q is the idea of a combined command still accepted by other countries a i think at least to this Viscount Montgomery was Over had a Long and certainly with him Angle Field command is completely accepted As a must now i hunk that All of the people with whom Ive like Baron Tedder of the Royal air Force and most of my naval friends Are going out of the picture All believe in it but i dont think that countries other than ours wih Ever use it m time of peace because for them it introduces new problems of a and that Are not encountered so much in our in Britain their chiefs of staff Are almost part of the Cabinet they fit in with the defense which is part of the big professional commanders present when military decisions Are rendered diary problems Are not neglected and allowed to pile one of the reasons i have always believed we needed a defense department Here so that these when could not be settled by strictly professional would have some civilian part of government instantly be Miliar wife them and them whether or not ifs always done perfectly is sometimes As important As the fact that the British arc not Likely to in a unified methods for the control of British forces along gift forces of other but they accepted i am As a necessary Type of command in q of some people have hew hoping that we would get an note Masona police we fhe inn Anta of combined a that is a question of highest International