Qualified Score

Against the Japanese afloat the U.S. Navy has done plenty of damage since Pearl Harbor. Because of such hit-&-run battles as the Battle of Macassar Strait, only the Japanese know how badly they have been hurt. But the U.S. Navy, with a fair idea of what it had done, knew enough last week to publish a summary of Japanese ships that it was positive it had sunk or knocked up.

Combined with the Army Air Force's list, also compiled with an eye to history, it made a fat total: 91 ships definitely sunk, 95 more hit (and listed scrupulously as "sunk or probably sunk," "possibly sunk," "believed sunk," "damaged").

The prize catch was one battleship (the Haruna) sunk by Captain Colin Kelly off Luzon, and a fair swap for the sinking of the one battleship (Arizona) irrevocably lost at Pearl Harbor. Other Japanese warships also sunk: one carrier, four cruisers, ten destroyers, seven submarines. Noncombatant ships (freighters, tankers, etc.) known sunk: 51.

Against these losses, the U.S. balanced its own and found the balance in its favor. Besides the Arizona it has lost a cruiser (Houston), seven destroyers, three submarines, a few auxiliary craft. Inferior in tonnage and gunpower when the war began, sure to be outbuilt from now on, the Japanese were losing at a rate they could ill afford. But it was still a rate the U.S. Navy must sharply increase before the Japanese Navy is crippled.

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