1941: Panama Canal Zone

Measures for the defense of the Panama Canal have received increased attention this year, as the world crisis deepened and the involvement of the United States and the Latin American states in the War became more and more inevitable. A contract was awarded in May for excavation for the third set of locks at the Pacific end of the Canal, for which appropriations had been made in 1940. The new locks are considered vital to hemisphere defense since they will be virtually equivalent to a second canal. In June President Roosevelt suspended the eight-hour day for laborers on cantonments, airfields, fortifications and defense construction in the Panama Canal Zone, Alaska and Puerto Rico, the 'extraordinary emergency' making necessary the completion of such works at the earliest practicable date. Previous to the July occupation of Indo-China by Japan, Japanese ships had been denied the use of the Canal on the plea that it was undergoing repair. Preparation of the air and naval bases acquired from Britain in 1940, to which were added this year the outlying bases in Greenland and Iceland, has been rushed to the point where they are almost ready to handle an active defense program. (See also PUERTO RICO; VIRGIN ISLANDS.) This ring of Caribbean bases guards the eastern approaches to the Canal. The danger of attack is considered greater from the Pacific, and plans for sea defenses of the Pacific side of the Canal have been pushed. These call for seaplane bases in the Gulf of Fonseca, at Cocos and Galápagos Islands, and on the coast of Ecuador, but permission to establish all of them has not been forthcoming (see ECUADOR). With Balboa as main base, a wide patrol of the Pacific area beyond the Canal Zone could then be maintained. Recognition of the fact that the Canal can never be defended if defenses are confined to the Canal Zone has made the United States press the Republic of Panama, too, for permission to erect defense sites on its territory. This was finally authorized in March (see PANAMA), but the conditioning clause regarding compensation seemed to cause delay in fulfillment of the agreement. Outposts are needed, and the installation of airbases, searchlights, aircraft detectors, and aircraft defenses on Panamanian soil is essential. The strategic location of the Central American and Caribbean republics with reference to the Panama Canal in these days of aerial warfare gives to their active belligerency positive defense value. With the formal entry of the United States into the World War, the Panama Canal has been put on full war footing and blackout prevails in this most vulnerable point in the Western Hemisphere.