Base Hunting

ARMY & NAVY

Giddy Puerto Ricans last week leaped to the conclusion that the U. S. was about to go to war, that they would have to fight for a Motherland that many of them love none too well. Basis of these rumors was a braided assemblage at Governor Blanton Winship's palace, La Fortaleza, in San Juan. Admiral Arthur Japy Hepburn arrived with a retinue of officers to look at Isla Grande, a 300-acre smudge in upper San Juan Harbor, to see whether it would be useful as a Caribbean naval and air base.

Admiral Hepburn's friendly words to the press and populace soon deflated the island's fear of an emergency involving Puerto Rico, but left them convinced that the base was as good as built, at an estimated expenditure of some $4,000,000. Hard fact was that the visitors could not make the decision if they wanted to. That will be up to the U. S. Navy's General Board, the Secretary of the Navy, and Congress. Having persuaded Congress that more bases are needed in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific, the navy is inspecting all available sites (Virgin Islands, the Florida and Texas coasts, etc.), next year will ask for authority and money to expand its defense line.

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