SAILORS WITH WINGS

[Music] [Applause] the march of [Music] time [Music] high above the boundless oceans from Iceland to the Antarctic from the bearing Straits to the China Sea US Navy men are today ranging the approaches to the Western World AO huge seagoing Patrol bombers these men are performing a vital Mission seeking out every axis Raider and protecting the all essential flow of arms and food from the new world whether Bound for Britain Suz or [Music] Singapore along both coasts of the United States looming up at 100 ducks and peers are the smoked black hulls of the Navy's auxiliary Fleet tenders and tankers beef boats and transports daily taking on their caros of men and supplies for the remote defense outposts of the Western Hemisphere for with a world bathed in Blood and racked with Terror with no man able to foresee what fateful developments the third year of War will bring there stands today before the US Navy its officers Blue Jackets and Marines but one great goal victory in a conflict which America's Naval forces long ago entered in Grim Earnest as a partner of the British Navy you've got to come up against J to know what is like you stick at your stations with bombs blasting all over the place it's not looking up into the sky at the stokers it's looking up between the stokers at the patches of sky today the US Navy seeing action on every ocean has by far the greatest striking power of any Naval force in the world and in combination with the British Navy and its Allied fleets Dutch free French polish and Norwegian it is keeping the sea lanes open maintaining the ocean barrier between Adolf Hitler and the free nations of the world most effective aerial weapons in the Navy's task of sweeping the enemy from the seas are the PBS known as the big boat able to search over 50,000 square miles of water between Dawn and dusk pilot from Port gunar funny looking ship way off on our port beam okay let's go down and have a [Music] look for gunner from Pilot money looking ship thank that's a hog Islander helped wi the last war within seconds of citing hostile craft a contact report giving the enemy position force and speed can be passed on to other planes to Naval forces afloat and to the Navy Department itself in Washington in a sprawling ramshackle relic of World War I honeycombed with more than 2,000 offices and conference rooms is the General headquarters of the United States Navy here is located the central authority over every Admiral and blue jacket every ship and every plane and in the daily war council of the department where officials confer over new problems of offense and defense of strategy and tactics no voice among ranking Admirals carries more weight today than that of the Navy's number one Airman the chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics as long ago as 1921 the Navy established its Bureau of Aeronautics to build up an adequate Naval Aviation service for since the earliest days of flying the US Navy has fully recognized that Aviation must inevitably be part and parcel of all Fleet operations from Lessons Learned by American observers in the Battle of Britain and in the Mediterranean Navy experts have already been able to make radical improvements in the armor and the armaments of fighting planes nearing completion is the Navy's vast network of new Advanced Air bases which are to serve as military Stepping Stones across two oceans to fly and fight its fast growing armadas of combat planes the Navy is mustering a great new force of Airmen at schools like Pensacola and Corpus Christie Jacksonville and Miami courses of instruction have been telescoped by months to meet the wartime need for more and more trained men with the Navy's Air Force already twice its pre-war size the emergency training program program will soon bring it to a total of 50,000 Naval pilots and Naval Airmen all of them Sailors with [Music] wings in the Bureau of Aeronautics preserved in photographs and movies is a complete pictorial history of US Naval Aviation the Navy's interest in the air began at a time when the flying machine was generally considered a lunatic contion harmless except to those foolish enough to risk their next in [Music] it in the Bureau of par anautics film vaults on millions of feet of negative are recorded the long series of achievements which have given the US preeminence among the Naval Air Forces of the world as early as 1910 the Navy was experimenting with the use of the airplane as an auxiliary to the surface ship for scouting and observation when in 1917 the United States declared war against Germany the Navy went overseas with a small and ambitious air arm in the 18 months to follow the Navy sent to France 20,000 Naval Airmen and 500 aircraft the only us built combat planes to see service abroad during post-war 1919 in a plane built for North Sea Patrol Navy Airmen made world history when the NCA Flyers completed the first transatlantic flight fire the azors to Lisbon out of the experiment made aboard the USS Langley a cure converted into the world's first aircraft carrier came new operational techniques that were to revolutionize the strategy of battle at Sea and give to the Navies of the world a new type of [Applause] Warship another great development by the US Navy was the torpedo bomber one of the deadliest of all Naval weapons whose surprise attacks against heav heavily armed units have made them invaluable in offensive strategy in the early 1920s Navy Flyers experimented with and perfected a new kind of aerial attack dive bombing copied by every Army and Navy in the world it was to be taken over with especially devastating results by the Nazi lofb in the Second World War [Music] in the 20 odd years between World War I and World War II US Naval Aviation Grew From a small experimental organization to a great force as vital to the maintenance of USC power as the Navy ships of the line today none but commissioned officers and Men of the US Services know of the carefully guarded activities at Naval Shore Stations of the secret comings and goings of ships of the fleet hidden at all times from unauthorized view are the daily operations at more than two score Naval Air and bases which now ring the North American continent home ports for the flying personnel and planes which make up the Navy's airarms already on active duty are more than 10,000 pilot officers and Aviation Cadets among them hundreds of seagoing regulars and other hundreds of trained reserves outnumbering commissioned Pilots 5 to1 is the great body of the Navy's enlisted Aviation personnel many of them Pilots themselves chief petty officers and Blue Jackets it is these men who bear the responsibility of caring for and maintaining the planes and engines to which their own lives and those of their Shipmates are daily entrusted but all the personnel and all the facilities of its great Shore establishment exist only to serve the fleet at sea for battle is the ultimate end of all Naval organizations and fighting is the sailor's business mobile operating bases for the Fleet air arm at Sea are the aircraft carriers the largest navy ships afloat each of them a SEO air drone with a complement of 80 fighting planes and a ship's company of 2,000 including pilots and technicians trained to the ways of surface ships as well as planes able to operate from the carrier's Deck with the same efficiency as from a flying field those who man carrier based craft must be both Sailors and Airmen forget the word to go any minute now remember the section making contact get your report in fast down to the South you've got Cloud protection use it though divided into four special Duty squadrons they have but one common aim to take and keep command of the air over the fleet in time of action Protectors of other carrier-based aircraft as well as ships of the fleet are the fast and heavily armed BFS the [Music] fighters their mission is to attack and destroy all hostile aircraft and if necessary engage small surface vessels [Music] potent striking arm of every carrier are its Scout bombing Squadron the bvs these Dual Purpose aircraft able both to to scout at long distances and execute bombing missions are planes with which US Pilots have made dive bombing an exact and deadly [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] science heaviest of carrier-based aircraft are the VBS the torpedo bomber Squadron with a speed well over 200 mph and a range of more than 1,000 miles these planes are proving themselves a major offensive weapon in World War II [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] la [Music] w [Music] among all the machines of War devised by man none demands such Perfection of organization such Precision of handling as the aircraft carrier all the effectiveness of its striking power depends an equal measure upon the alertness and skill of every blue jacket and every [Music] pilot today every Battleship and every Cruiser in the US Navy carries with it its own planes or well do naval men know that control of the sea is impossible without control of the air that sea power and air power are interdependent to Naval experts the security of the nation and hope of eventual Victory may depend upon a coordinated sea and air command planes operating with ships and ships with [Music] planes to meet the fast growing danger of a Nazi dominated world and to provide a minimum of security against the possibility of simultaneous war in both the Atlantic and the Pacific new ships of the line must slide down the ways of us yards at a rate never approached nor ever before demanded By Any Nation at any time as vital to national Safety as ships and planes are the men who must serve aboard them within but a few months there must be in the Navy more than and a half a million fighting men Keen alert and highly trained from among these will come the men not alone Sailors of the sea but Sailors of the sky and sea who will be called upon to man hundreds of the Navy's new battleships of the air the pooted Coronado pb2 wi the biggest plains that fly the Seas today [Music] la [Applause] and in the weeks and months ahead as new planes join their squadrons and new squadrons join the fleet ships of the sky and ships of the sea together must become a striking Force stra enough and strong enough to clear the oceans of Terror and piracy make once again inv violent the freedom of the seeg Time Marches [Music] On