Word: naval
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Neither naval nor military authorities in the U. S. believe Europe's totalitarian toughies would risk transatlantic invasion. But it is the Navy's job to remind them of the risk. According to latest reports published by the U. S. Navy Department (November 1938), a combined Italo-German fleet would outnumber the U. S. only in destroyers and submarines...
...third omniscient remained in the bare, concrete barrack on Washington's Constitution Avenue where naval command is centred. To Navy men, Admiral William Daniel Leahy is the Navy. As Chief of Naval Operations, he is a one-man counterpart of the Army's General Staff, wielding a vast authority vested in his office by cumulative custom rather than by statute. To that grey and modest gentleman, who normally retires next June, the most important man in the U. S. Navy is Franklin Roosevelt. Because the President has made it so, an important area in the Navy...
...Naval preoccupation with South America is historic. The Monroe Doctrine has ever been a handy reason for a Big Navy. But the Navy's traditional reason for existence has long been Japan and its threat to U. S. possessions and trade in the Pacific. Japan outnumbers the U. S. in some ship categories, particularly submarines. Leahy & Co. do not worry greatly about this, having small respect for Japanese numbers. By U. S. standards, the Japanese have yet to learn to build efficient surface ships, tend to overload them with disastrously topheavy armor and guns...
...Against Bugs. William Leahy says all the U. S. has to do to keep on good naval footing is to maintain its Navy at its present relative standing in battleships and aircraft carriers, continue its cruiser and destroyer construction program, sharply accelerate its aircraft and submarine program, step up its aircraft procurement to 500 planes per year. Object: to stay just behind Great Britain in heavy categories, come well up with the authoritarians in lighter ships. The job of building ships is therefore highly important to the U. S. Navy, equally important to the U. S. citizens who must...
...death in 1936 of Assistant Secretary Henry Latrobe Roosevelt (fourth of the blood to hold the office) enabled Franklin Roosevelt to put Charles Edison on the job. Recent naval history made it a formidable task. Post-War reaction against armaments in 1922 led the U. S. into the Washington (naval limitation) Treaty and a long naval sleep. Sailor Roosevelt woke up the country with a bang in 1933, dumped PWA funds into an emergency program, followed up with regular appropriations as soon as Depression I began to lift, has not let up during Depression II. On its Navy...