The defense of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Air Force against attacks made on them by a rebellious group of Navy officers had reached its climax.
Hard-bitten General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had taken the witness stand before the tense audience in the House Armed Services Committee room. Infantryman Bradley began to read his statement, which he had handwritten without help from public-relations experts, in his quarters at Fort Myer.
"The real issue to which we should devote our attention," he said, was "whether or not we are providing for the security of this country with the least expense to our economy." What were the requirements? Before the committee and the world, he repeated the U.S. military strategy agreed upon by the J.C.S.
"We are never going to start the war," he said. Therefore the strategy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was premised on the assumption that the U.S. would be attacked. "We will have to carry the war back to the enemy by all means at our disposal. I am convinced that this will include strategic air bombardment and large-scale land operations." There would be little need for Pacific island-hopping after the early phases, he thought, or any need for such amphibious operations as the Normandy invasion.
"If We Lose the War." Navymen had said strategic "mass" bombing by the Air Force's B-36 was militarily unsound, even immoral. Bradley gave them a direct unequivocal reply. Strategic bombing, he said, "is our first-priority retaliatory weapon," and the B-36 is the best heavy bomber in the U.S. arsenal.
"I find some comfort in the fact," he continued in his characteristic high-pitched voice, "that we have a long-range bomber that can fly from any base in the world, attack targets in the range of 4,000 miles and return home." It was obvious that "workers live near factories and that if you bomb the factories, you may bomb the people . . . Any great injury you can inflict upon the morale of that nation," he added, "contributes to the victory . . . We are all aware of the awful penalty if we lose the war." As for morality—"war itself is immoral."
Distaste for Disloyalty. For weeks, Bradley had been watching the Navy's admirals wage what he considered to be a reckless, unruly and dangerous campaign against this concept. Now, his anger up, he indignantly denied that as J.C.S. chairman he had been prejudiced against the Navy. When he stood against the Navy it was because, as he saw it, the Navy was wrong. He had been against building the Navy's supercarrier, the keel of which was laid early this year, then abandoned.
He thought the funds could be better employed elsewhere. The only enemy in sight was a great land force which had negligible naval strength outside of its submarines.
The admirals had insinuated that the J.C.S. did not know how a war should be fought and Bradley's heavy brows lowered behind his spectacles as he made scornful reply: "Even if I were not personally involved, I would harbor a distaste for such lack of loyalty."