This newspaper wondered how naval battles in the Next Great War were fought. Certain scientists stated that ‘high-powered planes carrying monster bombs and torpedoes’ were battling with what they called ‘phantom battleships”. While torpedo aircraft would attack the battleship drive in to the enemy fleet was the latter protected by common warships with anti aircraft guns. The battleship in the meantime disappeared in a smoke screen at the same time opening huge panels in her sides showing her torpedo armament of 2x32=65 torpedoes which were immediately fired and destroying he enemy fleet. In other words””Imagine a battleship capable of destroying a great fleet at on blow! A grey monster, riding deep in the water, which steams into the centre of the enemy fleet, obscured by a smoke screen: which suddenly drops the steel panels of its sides and discharges simultaneously sixty-four torpedoes of a size never known before in warfare. The torpedoes find their mark, the fleet is wiped out.” The British author E.V. Spanner(1) described the events in a novel using findings of British and American naval experts and the strong belief by many world’s leading military scientists that the era ruled by ordinary battleships and battle cruisers was coming to an end. In his imaginary war between England and Japan he described what happened. The Japanese battle fleet is full speed underway towards Singapore. Coming into the range of the heavy torpedo aircraft they taken with them is Singapore bombed staring with the oil tanks leaving a burning town. The British battle fleet is going to the east. There waits them a naughty surprise. The Japanese converted in secret an ordinary battleship into a 2x32 giant torpedoes battleship. Off Sumatra, Dutch East Indies where the battle starts, happens what is above described and slaughtered the British fleet. The British Admiralty believed in the meantime that torpedo aircraft could sink anything afloat. Four “Hussies” (giant torpedo aircraft called battle cruisers) were ordered to serve in the Australian waters at a navigation base. When a Japanese invasion fleet is nearby attack and destroy the”navigation” torpedo aircraft the Japanese ships.(2)
Notes
1. Edward Frank Spanner (6 February 1888 Portsmouth, Hampshire, England-3 August 1953 Streatham, London, England), naval architect in service of the Royal Corps of Naval Construction wrote the Future War novels The Broken Trident in 1926 (torpedo aircraft attacking warships), The Naviators in 1926 and in 1927 The Harbour of Death with as background the Mediterranean. Spanner wanted to make England clear not to depend only on a navy for her defense. Founded in 1935 Spanner Thimble Tube Boiler Co. In 1929 he published About Warships and in 1934 The Fire-Proof Ship.
In the 1920s was a world wide debate over aircraft versus battleships with the main question could aircraft replace the traditional battleships and the latter becoming obsolete. The Second World War answered this question. Not battleships but aircraft carriers were the leading naval weapons. Battleships became suddenly a prey for torpedo aircraft as the disastrous Japanese air attack on the British HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse proves.
2. The article also published a sketch of world’s largest torpedo (bomb) to be carried by the giant planes and the phantom battleships to be built in the future. With a weight of 4,000 pounds and a length of nearly 14 feet was this weapon suitable to destroy a battle cruiser. This wireless guided missile torpedo with which cities over a distance of 100 miles could be attacked and which was in possession of the British government. Fitted out with small wings, invented by the New Zealander Captain Allan J. Roberts.
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