Admiral Morrell also said there was a sharp difference between the Guam project now planned by the Navy and the Guam proposal put before the last session of Congress.
He also pointed out that the Navy is now maintaining fourteen giant "flying battleships" in the Philippines for neutrality patrol work. He said it was essential that these planes should have a constant communications route to other Pacific bases.
Some of them, he said, must return to the United States, while other planes must be able to reach the Philippines regularly to relieve them, Guam is a necessary link in this communications line since it is not practicable to fly non-stop from the Philippines to Wake Island, he said.
Urging the committee also to appropriate funds for the fortification of Wake Island, Admiral Morrell quoted the report of Admiral Arthur Hepburn, former Chief of Naval Operations, who described the mid-Pacific island as of greatest strategic importance to the United States, second in importance only to Midway Island,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.