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unable to secure the necessary equipment; to build, maintain and equip the necessary stations essential to a proper scheme of coast defense. [[star]] The policy of the Navy in warfare has been stated to be that they desire to be free of their bases in order to go on the high seas and seek out the enemy. To quote from Admiral Mahan, "Lessons on the War With Spain," "Thus,deficient coast protection reacts unfavorably upon the war fleet which in all its movements should be free from any responsibility for the mere safety of the ports it quits," and "in short, proper coast defense, the true and necessary complement of an efficient navy, releases the latter for proper work, --offensive, upon the open seas, or off the enemy shores." Every land naval air station maintained which is not for the purpose of directly assisting in this mission merely tends to tie the fleet to the shore to some extent and prevent its free operation on the high seas. This policy [[arrow pointing to: upon the open seas, or off]] has been the dream of the navy for years, but due to circumstances, if we turn to the history of naval warfare we will find that it has been impossible and that practically all naval battles have taken place just without the range of seacoast defenses. Such being the case, it stands to reason that future fights will take place without the range of the present defenses, which are limited only by the cruising radius of the army air force. If this is admitted the naval air service operating from naval land air stations would be in exactly the same position as that of the army air service would be duplicating work that could be done better be carried out by them. If both the army and navy air service are available for this purpose, better results would be obtained by concentrating them and using them as one force. To sum up, it is believed that the army air force can most efficiently perform all work in seacoast defense and protection of the coastwise sea lanes by operating from land bases, cooperating with the Army or with the Navy as circumstances require.

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