Biggest

ARMY & NAVY

South from San Pedro last week, bound for annual war games off Panama, foamed the great, grey majesty of the U. S. fleet.

To plain citizens that procession of battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers and destroyers might seem Might enough to protect even 40,000 miles of coastline. But it did not seem so to the U. S. Navy Department. Therefore in Washington last week the House Appropriations Committee reported the biggest Navy supply bill in peacetime history, including authorization to spend upward of $102,000,000 to build two new battleships in case any other signatory of the London Naval Treaty or the new 1936 treaty did so.* Same day in London the First Lord of the Admiralty informed Parliament that His Majesty's Government would this year begin to increase its fleet by 38 new war craft, including two battleships (see p. 23).

Responding to "the evident determination of our government ... to maintain a navy second to none," the House committee also provided for twelve new destroyers, six submarines, 333 airplanes, upped the Navy's enlisted force from 93,500 to 100,000, the Marine Corps' from 16,000 to 17,000. Declaring Government building costs greater than those of private manufacturers, the committee proposed to limit Government aircraft construction to experimental engines, primary training planes. Notably missing from the bill was any provision for airships to replace the crashed Shenandoah, Akron and Macon.

Total appropriation: $531,068,707. Within 24 hours the House passed the bill without change, sent it to the Senate.

*The U. S. launched its last battleship, the West Virginia, Nov. 19, 1921.

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