STRATEGY: Naval Problem of the Orient

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As Washington talked under its breath last week of the possibility that the U. S. might soon find itself at war with Japan, Admiral Harold Raynsford Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral James Richardson, Commander in Chief of the U. S. Fleet, and Secretary of Navy Frank Knox conferred in Washington. Before them was not the question of what foreign policy the U. S. should pursue, not the question of whether the U. S. should or should not fight Japan. Their duty was simply to consider the practical problem of what the U. S. Navy should do if called upon to fight Japan and what would be likely to happen in such a war.

Their conclusions, if any, were high naval secrets, but lesser Navy men and civilian experts were at work on the same problem. From the standpoint of strategy, is the time good or bad for a war with Japan? What could the Japanese and U. S. fleets do, if they were matched against each other?

Timing. If Navy men are going to be called upon to fight the Japanese (most of them, having trained for that job for years, would just as soon), they would, on the whole, like to do so sooner rather than later. One of their reasons is that, if Britain falls, the U. S. Navy's biggest potential enemy will soon be in the Atlantic. Therefore they would, in cold-blooded terms, prefer to liquidate the fleet of their No. 2 potential enemy, Japan, before they have to face a second threat. In war undertaken in order to keep Japan out of Dutch and British possessions in the Orient, the U. S. would almost certainly have Britain as an ally, a fact which would provide additional insurance against the British Fleet's surrender to Germany. Since Navy men can't be sure that Britain's tight little island may not be battered to bits in a few more months of aerial warfare, they would like to get a move on.

They have another reason for preferring a Japanese war sooner rather than later. Today the U. S. Fleet in the Pacific, in gun power and tonnage, is conservatively 15% bigger than the Japanese Navy. By the calculations of naval experts, that is a decisive margin. Within two years, however, that margin will be pared perilously thin. The U. S. and Japan both have new ships building. The U. S. building program was only recently begun. The Japanese program, begun two or three years earlier, will begin producing on a big scale very soon.

In her busy navy yards, Japan today has on the stocks eight new battleships (including four fast, superpowerful, 40-45,000-tonners), two aircraft carriers, four fast, hard-hitting, 22,000-ton battle cruisers, four light cruisers, four destroyers, nine big submarines. Four of the big (nine 16-inch guns) battleships will be commissioned in 1942; the other four, barring-accidents, in 1943. These, added to her present ten battleships, will give Japan 18 capital ships. The U. S. today has twelve capital ships in the Pacific (plus three of ancient vintage in the Atlantic). It will get two more in 1941 (the 16-inch-gunned Washington and North Carolina), will have to wait until 1943 for its next capital additions—six battleships, including two 45,000-tonners.

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