National Defense: THE STRATEGIC GEOGRAPHY OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA

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Keys to Windward Passage. The Caribbean hook consists of three areas which grow progressively more vulnerable from north to south. Northernmost and strongest is the stretch from the Strait of Florida to the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. Florida's Strait is full of shoals, has well-defined channels, is well within the range of aircraft operating from Tampa, Jacksonville, Miami, Pensacola and dozens of inland fields. To the east the 706 islands of the Bahamas protect it, forming a tactical screen, an ideal area for submarines, destroyers, advanced aircraft bases. Except for attack by an overwhelming naval force, the Florida passage is invulnerable. Five hundred miles east of the Strait, between Cuba and Haiti, lies the Caribbean's central and most used sea gate: the deep, so-mile-wide Windward Passage. Commanding the passage is the U. S. Navy's leased station on Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, only a few miles from the rusting hulls of Cervera's armada.

Its deep harbor can accommodate any units of the Fleet.

Its field is a good base for Navy or Army aircraft. It has no dry docks or major repair facilities. Disabled first-line battleships would have to go north to Norfolk or Philadelphia or pass through the Canal to Balboa for dry-dock repairs. In an emergency the Canal's locks could be used as dry docks.

Cuba to Leewards. Second section of the hook ranges east to Anegada Passage, between the Virgin Islands and the Leewards. Farther from major U. S. establishments, this defensive sector of the Caribbean is proportionately more vulnerable, but is currently being strengthened. Its strong points are Puerto Rico and St. Thomas. At San Juan a cruiser dock and naval workshop are in construction, and off San Juan Harbor at Isla Grande, a naval air base is being built. Completed, the U. S. defenses at Puerto Rico will also have the eastern striking force of the Army Air Corps, flying fortresses capable of operating more than 1,000 miles to sea from a new field near San Juan. At St. Thomas, V. I., the Marines have an air base and $1,510,000 has been authorized to develop St. Thomas' fine harbor into a naval station.