The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present The Pacific Story. This is the story of the Pacific, the drama of the millions of people who live around this greatest sea where the United States is now committed to a long-term policy of keeping the peace. This is the story of the situation in the Pacific, of the men and events which are today influencing the shape of world affairs for generations to come. Our strategic needs in the Pacific. The waves of the Pacific are rolling up on the shores of dozens of islands, brought with the blood of Americans. Tarawa, 1,026 Americans, killed. Kwajalein, 147 Americans, killed. Palau, 1,144 Americans, killed. Taipan, 3,049 Americans, killed. The Philippines, 4,223 Americans, killed. Iwo Jima, 2,050 Americans, killed. Okinawa, 11,260 Americans, killed. Beside the plots on these islands where the Americans lie in measured rows are the facilities which they gave their lives to establish. Runways, power stations, fuel and ammunition dumps, docks and warehouses. Today the wind sighs softly through the crosses and the runways, the power stations and all the machinery of war are quiet. We must never again be obliged to capture bases after war has started. Right. We must have a defense belt of bases from Hawaii clear across the Pacific to the Asiatic mainland. We must have a chain of fortified island bases, an island highway that will maintain our power in the Pacific. And in the years to come this will become a pathway to peace. In the light of the bitter experience and the high cost of taking bases in the Pacific during wartime, strong positions have been taken by those charged with this responsibility. We must have permanent possession of our new naval and air bases in the Pacific. These bases cannot be left in the hands of enemies. Many of these bases will be necessary for policing the world against future aggression. Which was the statement of Admiral King in April 1945, four months before the war's end in the Pacific. And close on the heels of the Japanese surrender, a subcommittee on Pacific bases, the House Committee on Naval Affairs, returned after a 21,500 mile tour of the Pacific with several recommendations to the Congress. For our own security, for the security of the Western Hemisphere, and in the interest of peace in the Pacific, the United States should have dominating control over the former Japanese mandated islands of Marshalls, Carolin, and Marianas. The committee used the words dominating control instead of the words annexation or American sovereignty. For the matter of what kind of control had already become an issue. But the committee anticipated this. To those who challenged the justification for the retention of Pacific bases by the U.S., we would merely cite, first, the loss of American lives in taking these bases. Second, the expenditure of vast sums of American money in establishing and equipping these bases. Third, the great dependence of the world upon the U.S. for maintaining peace in the Pacific. And fourth, the apparent preference of the natives of these islands for the government of the United States. This was the report of the congressional subcommittee. You see, by this statement, the subcommittee recognizes that there will be difficulties in establishing what they call dominating control by the U.S. over these island bases. This was the view of those who, although agreeing that the U.S. must have adequate bases in the Pacific, disagree with the idea of outright annexation. We must have 22 bases stretching from Hawaii to the China Sea, from the Aleutians to Samoa. Battle-tried U.S. admirals laid their proposals before the Congress. We must have a U.S. armored highway across the Pacific. Instead of fading out a thousand miles west of Hawaii, it must extend clear across the Pacific to Guam and Saipan. This would permit the U.S. to apply our power on the coast of China and in Japan and to cover the approaches to the United States. Which islands should be bases is a question. A few days after the surrender of Japan aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, General H.H. Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forces, made a statement. We must have three lines of island bases linking the Pacific coast of the United States with the Far East. Besides the Hawaiian islands, the Aleutians and the Philippines, we should have bases on Midway, Marcus, Wake, Kwajalein, Johnston, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, and Okinawa. A year later, the U.S. Navy, through Assistant Secretary H. Struve Hensel, announced its wish to keep 15 major bases for its exclusive and permanent use. And experts pointed out what the Navy had in mind. The Navy should have fleet bases in Japan and in the Philippines. Well, that immediately poses political problems. Yes, but if agreements can be reached, Japan and the Philippines would be logical locations for primary bases. In Japan, the naval bases at Sosabuo, Yokosuka, Kure, and Nagasaki have ample dry docks, shops, and wharves to handle our larger ships. That's right. Japan has the facilities. And so have the Philippines. Here, look at this map. Now here, this point right here. Yes, that's the island of Samar, isn't it? Yes. And right down here, behind this long peninsula, here at the southern tip of the island is Gui Yuan. Gui Yuan, oh, that's the base that was developed during the Philippine campaign. That's it. It's a protected deep water anchorage, and it has air facilities, ammunition dumps, and even a dry dock big enough for capital ships. Is it adequate for a fleet base? Potentially, yes. You see, a fleet base has four functions. It must supply the fleet. It must furnish air support for the fleet. It must prepare and maintain the forces afloat and in the air based there. And it must serve as a staging area for personnel and supply. It applies other things, too. Homes for thousands, fuel, food, recreation. Yes, those and many, many other things. And here, on the island of Panay, we should have another fleet base at Ilohilo. And we should have secondary bases here on the east coast of the island of Cebu at Mactan. And here on the east coast of the island of Palawan at Puerto Princesa. Well, that would be four bases in the Philippine. Yes. And besides these, we should have a submarine base on the west coast of Batan here at Zubik Bay and a minor air surface base here south of Manila Bay at Tiviz. In the central and southwest Pacific, the Navy is interested in 11 more bases. Tamoa, Pearl Harbor, Midway, Majuro, Kwajalein, Inuitoc, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Palau, and Manus. And there is also interest in Okinawa. We've got to do something about securing these bases very soon. Most of them are already rusting. Well, actually, there's been quite a bit of development on some of them. The big naval bases in Japan are deteriorating. But both the Navy and the Army have been improving our base at Guam. The Army's been developing a base for long-range bombers, and the Navy's been expanding the base at Apra Harbor. But what is happening to all the rest of the bases except Guam, Pearl Harbor, Kwajalein, and Midway? They are deteriorating. What is happening to the 39 miles of runways we built on Tinian? What is happening to our installations on Saipan, where we installed enough cable for power and communications to reach from New York to San Francisco 335 times? Congress has interested itself in more than Guam, Hawaii, Kwajalein, and Midway. Congress has made appropriations for development of defenses on Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa, islands taken by the U.S. from Japan, for the Bonin's and Truk, which were not taken from Japan during the war, for any Waitak, for Laos and Majuro, for American bases in Alaska and on Christmas and Johnston Islands, and even for bases in the Philippines, on Manus and Espiritu Santo, and on the China coast. We should not only have an armored highway across the Pacific and have bases in such places as Shanghai and Chifu. We should also have bases on the island of Formosa and even in Busan, Korea. The United States should never stand for such imperial security. We cannot make the Pacific an American lake. The line between the differing points of view is not drawn on the question of whether or not the U.S. should have strong bases in the Pacific. It is drawn on the question of our relationship with the islands. Basically, it is a matter of annexation or trusteeship with added complexities concerning the islands which belong to friendly nations. We ask outright annexation of the Carolinas, the Marshalls, and the Marianas. This is the view of the armed forces. If we are to support the new system of agreement of the United Nations, the Carolinas, Marshalls, and Marianas should be under United Nations supervision. This is the view of the State Department. These islands should be under the trusteeship of the United Nations, with the United States the sole trustee. We must control the islands that are of strategic importance to the United States. The Carolinas, the Marshalls, and the Marianas, it must be remembered, did not belong to Japan. They were mandated by the League of Nations to Japan, and the fact that we took them from Japan does not give us the right to annex them. They should be put into the hands of the United Nations for trusteeship. They are vital to the defense of the United States. Trusteeship will hamper all use of them as military bases. We must annex them. It must be remembered that the United Nations Charter provides that territories held under mandate like the Carolinas, the Marshalls, and the Marianas, and territories detached from enemy states as a result of World War II, like Okinawa and Iwo Jima, shall be under United Nations trusteeship. But the United Nations Charter also provides that it will be a matter of subsequent agreement as to which territories will be brought under the trusteeship system and upon what terms. That is true, but this does not mean annexation. If the United States is to exercise a moral leadership in the United Nations, we cannot fail to place those territories under trusteeship. What we do in relation to these islands is the test of our cooperation with the United Nations. Our interest in these islands is solely for the purposes of security. An arrangement could be made whereby the strategic areas designated by the United States as military bases could be outside of United Nations control. In such a case, the United Nations would have no authority whatever over these strategic areas and would not even have access to them. Well, such an arrangement might work out in the case of Okinawa, with the island under United Nations trusteeship, with the U.S. as sole trustee, and with certain strategic areas reserved for American military or naval use. Well, Okinawa has a population of something like a quarter of a million Japanese. Okinawa perhaps should be returned to Japan. The Navy not only wants to keep the islands for bases, but has asked the Congress to give the Navy specific authority to govern them. In recent years, the administration of such islands has been handled by the Department of the Interior. Thus, the Navy wants permanent peacetime bases on Okinawa, Iwo, Saipan, and Tinian, and also asks that it govern them with its own bureau. Today, the Navy administers all Japanese island possessions and mandates north, east, south, and west of Kwajalei. And Navy officials and Army Air Force officers urge that the U.S. retain these islands. Not only was the cost of taking these islands heavy, but their possession gave the enemy great advantage in war over us. Therefore, without regard to the claims of other powers to control them jointly with us, the United States should retain control of them. But aside from the problem of control of the islands taken from the Japanese, problems of a different kind are posed by the islands which belong to friendly nations. Yes, what about the Philippines, which are now an independent republic? And what about the island of Manus and the Admiralty Group, which is under Australian mandate? And what about the island of Espritusanto, which is a British possession? During the war, the U.S. established strong bases on all of these islands. Manus here in the Admiralty was one of the great staging bases of the Western Pacific. Manus is slightly more than 200 miles north of New Guinea. This was the staging area for both supplies and personnel for the attacks on the Philippines, on the Marianas, and on a good many other Japanese strongholds. In effect, Manus was during the war another Guam. And in the proposed network of bases, it is thought of by some as a reserve base or alternate base for Guam. Manus with its great installation should be part of our defense system in the Pacific. But Manus is under mandate to Australia. As for the Australians, their views have been mixed. The powers interested in the Pacific cannot be satisfied with dividing the great ocean into spheres of naval control. The strategic interests of the powers involve the whole ocean and not specific areas of the Pacific basin. Those with this view regarded the American position as to the Carolins, the Marshalls, and the Marianas. If America claims these islands, under what system are they to be held? If they are to be under trusteeship, then the U.S. can scarcely fortify them. For fortification is inconsistent with administration under mandate. This position was reflected somewhat in the attitude of the government of Australia toward Manus. Australia wishes to feel that all essential bases throughout the Pacific should be available at all times for use by the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Australia has no intention of handing over Manus Island to the United States, although the United States might use its facilities provided there was reciprocal use of American bases in the Pacific. The U.S. started moving its forces and equipment out of Manus. This evoked a different Australian point of view. The moving of forces and equipment from Manus by the U.S. must disturb every Australian. The only defense policy for us is one with America and Australia in active partnership. Australia cannot hope to hold Manus without U.S. help. So far as Manus is concerned, the U.S. and Australia are in effect in a deadlock. But some Australians were not ready to write off the possibility of reaching an agreement. It may not yet be too late. The decay of Australia's security is an incredible price to pay for a quibble over the territorial rights of a jungle island. Both Australia and New Zealand have evolved a policy as to the disposal of islands which directly concern them. In 1944, they signed an agreement. No change in sovereignty or system of control of any of the islands in the Pacific shall be effected except as a result of agreement to which Australia and New Zealand are parties, all in terms of which they have concurred. Australia and New Zealand mean to have something to say about change in sovereignty or system of control of the islands which directly affect them. On the British-owned island of Esparita, Santu, as on the Australian-mandated island of Manus, the U.S. built a great base during the war. Use of this as a base would contemplate the British use of American bases in the Pacific. This is the most practicable arrangement. We should conclude reciprocal agreements with Britain, France, Australia, China, and the Netherlands. We would then have access to their bases as they would to ours. But quite apart from this is the matter of bases in the Philippines. Both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army have formidable plans for bases in the Philippines. The Navy should have two large fleet bases, two secondary air bases, a submarine base, and a minor air surface base in the Philippines. The Army should have several military bases and bases for long-range bombers. Although reports have been made of an imminent signing of an agreement granting the U.S. such bases, not all Filipinos are in sympathy with the idea. Why should we set up our islands to be a battleground for the United States? It is as much a protection for us as for America. Nations with which we have no quarrel whatever, but which do not like the United States, will attack the American bases here in the Philippines, and our islands could be overrun in warfare in which we have no part. To put it the other way, how could we defend ourselves from any power without the help of the U.S.? If we do not quarrel with the great powers, what reason will they have to attack us? Let us see to it that we do not have quarrels with the powers. Whether or not we have quarrels is not related to the question of bases. Should some power wish to move into the Philippines for reasons of its own, we must be prepared to defend ourselves. How could we defend ourselves without the help of the United States? This is the nature of some of the talk within the Philippines concerning American bases there. Some of the objections come from the higher echelons. There is a growing reluctance in some quarters of the Philippine government toward American bases in the Philippines. The crux of the dispute concerns the Manila area. The United States wishes a large measure of control in this area, particularly the port area. But some influential Filipinos favor only a 15-year lease and reduced facilities. Another aspect of the question was discussed recently in a speech by President of the Philippines, Rojas. It is not easy to reach an accord in the current discussions on military bases. Some critics are trying to gain political advantage by inflammatory denunciation of the proposal to turn land over to the United States for military installations. But let it be said so that all may know that most nations are spending from one-third to two-thirds of their national budgets for defense. We support an army of 12,000 men, mostly in training, at a cost of less than one-tenth of our budget. We are fortunate that we can devote the greater part of our subsistence to the pursuit of peace. Despite the bickering inside and outside the Philippines, an announcement has been made by Assistant Secretary of War Howard C. Peterson that the new independent Philippines government and the U.S. are about to conclude an agreement granting us naval and military bases in the Philippines. Apart from the islands which belonged to the United States before the war, the other islands proposed that they fall into three categories. First, the islands which were under Japanese mandate before the war but which were not legally owned by Japan, namely the Carolines, the Marshalls, and the Marianas. Second, the islands which belonged to Japan before the war, namely Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and the Bonines. Third, the islands which belonged to friendly nations, Manos, Espiritu Santo, and the Philippines. I say we should annex the Carolines, the Marshalls, and the Marianas and work out agreements on the others. Or to begin with, if we are to support the United Nations, we are in no position to annex the mandated islands outright. Secondly, we can hardly work out reciprocal arrangements with other nations if we take the islands with the thought of keeping all other nations, even friendly nations, out of them. To these divergent views is added a third consideration. Personnel for the bases, establishment of bases implies more than costly installations, such as waterfront facilities, power stations, runways, warehouses. It implies the need of many men, homes for the men, food and recreation facilities. Take the island of Guam. At the close of the war, it had 113 acres of covered storage. It had hospitals with a bed capacity of 9,550. It had seven main and 125 branch telephone exchanges. It had a water system capable of supplying 15 million gallons a day. It had 113 miles of paved roads, all built since the island was taken from the Japanese. And in addition to all this, there were the living quarters for the men. Are we prepared to maintain bases on this scale in peacetime? There are several answers to that. First, all our bases during the war were not on the scale of the one at Guam. Second, even some of the bases we built up during the war must be abandoned now. They had wartime importance, but their job is done. They must be written off now. So no proposal is made that all the bases would be on the scale of the one at Guam. But many of the bases will be at least as large as they were during the war. That means that we must man them. We must have enough men on them to defend them. If we do not, we run the risk of having them seized and used against us. Thus, a great base, unless it is adequately manned, becomes a danger to us. For that reason, we must decide which islands are actually necessary to our security. These, we must secure with a guarded line of supply and a garrison, able to defend them from any foreseeable threat. We have learned the price in blood and money of not having the bases we need in the Pacific. In the interest of security, we must be prepared not only to build the bases we need, but to raise and train the personnel who defend them. What the permanent international status of the islands in question will be is one no one is in a position to say about at least this time. This will depend on the arrangements made in the peace treaty with Japan. Thus far, no clear policy has been laid down. And the fundamental question of policy remains, will the United States insist on maintaining the Japanese-mandated islands outside the United Nations trustee system, or will the American government support the United Nations by placing these islands under United Nations supervision? Should the United States assume control of the bases wanted by the armed forces, the U.S. would have control of virtually the whole Pacific Ocean north of the equator. Those bases established during the war must continue to be outposts of our national defense. So say the officers whose task it was to take back the islands from the enemy. And they point to the cost. Quadrillion. 147 Americans. Killed. Palau. 1,144 Americans. Killed. Saipan. 3,049 Americans. Killed. Philippines. 4,223 Americans. Killed. Iwo Jima. 2,050 Americans. Killed. Okinawa. 11,260 Americans. Killed. Beside the plots where the Americans lie in measured rows are the runways, the power stations, the fuel and ammunition dumps which they gave their lives to establish. The machinery of war on these islands is quiet now and the wind sighs softly through the crosses. And thousands of miles away, men sitting around conference tables regard all this and trying to anticipate the events of the years to come strive for wisdom in reaching a decision about the islands. We must have permanent possession of our new naval and air bases in the Pacific. Many of these bases will be necessary for policing the world against future aggression. In the interest of world security, we must support the United Nations by placing the islands in question under trusteeship to reciprocate with other nations as we expect them to reciprocate with us. Only in this way can we show our faith in the United Nations. The islands of the Pacific are no longer isolated outposts of humanity. Today they are stepping stones of advance or retreat. Upon them rests the pattern of the peace in the Pacific and perhaps the whole world. You have been listening to the Pacific Story presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross currents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send ten cents in stamp or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. To repeat, for a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific Story is written and produced by Arnold Marquis. The original musical score was scored and conducted by Henry Russell. Your narrator, Gaine Whitman. Programs in this series of particular interest to servicemen and women are broadcast overseas through the worldwide facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. This program came to you from Hollywood and is heard in Canada over the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.
