How Many? How Big?

For more than a year, with victory in sight, the U.S. had maundered about the size & shape of its postwar fighting forces; now it was time to get set for a sound decision. Last week the U.S. Navy laid down a blueprint of what it thought the forces afloat should be for the next few years.

What the Navy had to propose was a fleet that would far surpass the combined fleets of the world (Britain, France and Russia). Before the House Naval Affairs Committee, Secretary James Forrestal summarized it: a 300-ship active fleet, a 100-ship "ready reserve," plus a 700-ship "laid-up reserve" to be called out only under the grimmest conditions.

In active and ready status would be eleven battleships, 15 carriers, 21 escort carriers, 49 heavy and light cruisers, 176 destroyers, 40 destroyer escorts, 90 submarines. As for air, Forrestal proposed "about 8,000" ready-to-use aircraft, plus 4,000 in reserve.

The House committee listened to the recital of this overwhelming array without batting an eye. Not so the Navy's flyers. Air-minded sailors of every rank groaned, "Ernie King and the battleship boys have won again." There were too many King-sized ships (i.e., battlewagons) in the deal, said one respected Admiral, who added that if he had his way he would sink them all. Only in the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea, airmen argued, had the battlewagon served as more than a fat flakship--and they were pre-Pearl Harbor ships at that.

The Congress would hear plenty from airmen about the battleship before the shape of the postwar Navy was finally set. It would also hear from the visionary pundits who would argue that this was the age of the atom bomb and the pushbutton war, and that there was no point in having a fleet at all.

Foreseeing the argument ahead, Jimmy Forrestal let it be known that the blueprint was no hard & fast plan; everybody would have a chance to make his case. Navy flyers and battleship men alike hoped that the prospect of weapons still to be built would not talk anybody into sinking the fleet or any part of it. Plain citizens who remembered the scrapping of some of the best of the fleet after World War I would agree with them.

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