In the meantime, the people had been moved away from Los Angeles as fast as possible. There had been several minor attacks by the enemy and more buildings had been destroyed and only a few of the enemy's planes had been brought down. The situation was desperate. People were frantic. The United States was hopelessly outnumbered by the Spanish and Japanese air forces. England was threatening to join forces with Japan and Spain. An attack on San Francisco was expected at any hour. People wanted to get away and move east into the mountains for protection, but the Government had notified everyone to remain. The fact that the foreign planes were noiseless put the United States at a great disadvantage. Robert and Walter were using their secret radio to communicate with each other. They had offered this invention to the Government and it had been accepted. This was a great help as the Japanese were unable to intercept their code messages or take any message from the air because there were none. The United States Army officers knew that they must fight for time to get some new inventions ready to combat the enemy. On June 14th, Los Angeles was surrendered. White flags were run up all over the city as a signal for the enemy planes to stop attacking. The plan was to send no message to the enemy headquarters in Mexico but to wait and see what action they would take or what terms they would offer to make. General Pearson of the Aviation Corps, General Johnson of the Cavalry, Admiral Dawson of the Navy and General Marshall of the Infantry held a council to decide the next and wisest move to make. A plan was discussed for crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico with land troops and making an attempt to capture the supply base of the enemy. General Pearson said that the days of old tactics and war had changed, that the enemy evidently intended to make this a war in the air and that they would attack troops from the air. To send an army into the mountains of Mexico would not only mean the loss of thousands of lives, which would prove useless, but that part of the air force would have to be sent into Mexico to protect the army and this would weaken the coast patrol and give the enemy a chance to make an air attack on other coast cities. Admiral Dawson said that in the weakened condition of the Navy, since the disaster from the first attack by the Japanese planes, it would be foolhardy to attempt any aggressive campaign by the Navy, that what ships they had were now scattered along the Southern, Eastern and Western shores for protection and to concentrate them at one point would only weaken other joints from which they would have to be withdrawn. General Marshall was of the opinion that the best plan was not to attack, but let the enemy make the first move every time and try to find some way to protect the coast cities, that what we needed was time to get better equipped with sufficient airplanes to cope with the enemy's superior air force.