New Fleet

One of the largest naval forces in the world is one of the newest: 333 combat vessels, 1,274 mine craft and patrol craft, 151 auxiliaries and 654 yard and district craft, 12,964 landing craft. The new fleet, of respectable strength in its own right, comprises the vessels of the U.S. Navy completed in the three years between July 1940 and July 1943. Added to the existing tonnage (and allowing for losses and transfers), the new ships give the U.S. "the mightiest surface fleet in world history."

Such was the solid conclusion of the Navy's three-year-progress report published last week. Highlights:

>The number of vessels completed in the one month of June 1943 approximates the number completed in the first 18 months of the defense program.

>Following Pearl Harbor, "greatest urgency" was for the new battleships of the Iowa and North Carolina classes. The 45,000-ton New Jersey was completed in 26% less time than the 35,000-ton Washington. After Coral Sea and Midway, emphasis shifted to carriers, then to landing craft and destroyer escorts.

>The modern battleship's anti-aircraft fire power is 100 times greater than it was three years ago.

>The U.S. Fleet has 613 warships, as against 383 three years ago, this after losses of 58 warships and transfers (to other nations or noncombat use) of 129 warships. Present warship tonnage (2,217,982 displacement tons) exceeds tonnage of 1940 fighting ships by 70%.

>The U.S. has the most powerful naval air force in the world: 18,269 planes on July 31, 1943, a ten times net increase over 1940, when Navy planes totaled 1,744. Since then the Navy has lost or written off as obsolete 6,800 planes and has transferred 2,100. >"Total naval shipbuilding is approaching its peak--as planned. . . . In the midst of war the U.S. has built its Navy into the greatest sea-air power on earth. Its size is dwarfed only by the size of the task which confronts it."

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