New Strain on the Ways

NAVY The Senate was willing to authorize the Navy to build 900,000 tons of new warships. The Navy sc'aled the figure down to 150,000 tons. Then the amateur strategists began to strut their stuff. Air power, said they, had made the battleship obsolete. The Navy had reduced its tonnage because it was afraid to build battleships, after the Hawaii fiasco.

As usual, the amateur strategists were wrong. The Navy wasn't planning on any more battleships because it had no place to build them. The ways of every shipyard in the country are choked and due to remain so for a long time. Four months ago Secretary of the Navy Knox pointed out that, if war came, the Navy would probably suspend all work on heavy units to free skilled labor for the production of destroyers, submarines and planes. The Navy is preparing to add many a cruiser in the 10,000-12,000-ton classes. Following the German lead, it intends to give them a much stiffer wallop than they have now.

Last week a Navy spokesman gave an admiral's-eye-view of the plane v. battleship controversy. Said he: "Anyone who thinks the battleship is passe simply has not studied the progress of naval war in the last two years. The battleship is vulnerable to air attack and must be protected by aircraft. . . . I'm not a diehard who thinks that any warship can be built to withstand air attack, but I am a die-hard who thinks that the final showdown will be ships of the line against ships of the line, aircraft being equal." The burden of the Navy's new 150,000 tons will put a terrific strain on the present shipbuilding program. But it is expected to creak through. Even though the Navy will get priority over merchant shipping, the U.S. Maritime Commission's Admiral Jerry Land still intends to maintain his ship-a-day schedule in 1942.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.