Postwar Fleet

ARMY & NAVY

How big should the postwar Navy be? Last week (in testimony published by the House Appropriations Committee) the Navy gave its own answer: a whopper. The Navy said it hoped to have a peacetime fleet three times as big as the pre-Pearl Harbor Navy.

As Admiral Frederick J. Home, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, described it, the fleet would consist of 5,830 vessels of all types. Not all of them would be kept in operation; 3,554 would be laid up, preserved by "methods of dehumidification and . . . modern scientific processes." always available in a crisis. In constant, active status, said Home, would be 482 combatant ships, from submarines and destroyer escorts to carriers and battleships.

Meanwhile, to finish its current job. the Navy is adding 308 combat ships to its present fleet, wants to lay down 640,000 tons more. Navy plans for the immediate future include five 45,000-ton carriers of the Midway class, to be finished in 1948. Within the next twelve months it wants to order 19,140 more combat planes. Said Admiral Ernest King in explanation: "We dare not plan to fire our last bullet on the day of victory."

As far as the House committee was concerned it all made good, hard sense. Without batting an eye, the committee approved a Navy supply bill of $24.8 billion for fiscal 1946.

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