"What if the U.S. Navy had fully rearmed in the 1930s and had been truly prepared in December 1941 to fight a two ocean war?
Robert M. Love
American fleet strength fell somewhat below the benchmark of “treaty” limits in the 1920s, but what really retarded the prosecution of the war in 1942 and 1943 was Roosevelt’s failure in 1935 to realize that the naval disarmament system had collapsed and his insistence that, with a few exceptions, American naval shipbuilding conform to the 1936 Second London treaty until as late as December 1939. The White House, not Congress, retarded naval rearmament under the New Deal. The 1934 Vinson Act aimed only at building to a “treaty fleet” by 1942, the 1938 Second Vinson act stretched this out to 1946, and even the enormous 1940 Two Ocean Navy Act was not to be completed until 1948. As late as the spring of 1940, on the eve of the fall of France, Roosevelt slashed a Navy Department request for an increase of twenty-five percent in authorized fleet tonnage to eleven percent, although it was clear at the time that congress would vote for the larger figure.
American naval rearmament in the decade of the Great Depression was not retarded by a shortage of skilled manpower, raw materials, or unused industrial or shipyard capacity, nor indeed by opposition in Congress. Every major shipbuilding program between 1933 and 1941 was initiated by the Navy Department, supported by overwhelming majorities on the Hill, and slashed by the White House. Roosevelt vacillated between negotiating further naval disarmament treaties and building up to treaty limits in the 1930s, with the result that the Navy in 1941 had no frontline battleships and or post “treaty-class” carriers afloat, a bare handful, a bare handful of modern, long-range maritime patrol planes, few fighter, bomber or torpedo squadrons operating heavy, all-metal, single-engine monoplanes, and almost no modern austere escorts or ship-to-shore or shore-to-shore landing craft. A powerful, balanced fleet capable of conducting major offensive air, sea and amphibious operations in both the Atlantic and the Pacific theaters concurrently in 1941 probably would not have deterred Hitler, but the effect of Japan might have been significant. Admiral Yamamoto supported the decision to go to war on the basis that the combined Fleet could hold off an American offensive for about two years, but even his stance might have changed had he believed that he could not defend Japan’s far-flung empire for more than a few months."
So, did Robert Love posit a reasonable what-if here? Are his arguments about the relative positions of Roosevelt and Congress on naval matters correct? If Roosevelt wanted more navy, could he have gotten it, and what might he have had to give up to get it? And could any plausible increase in naval construction from either the first or second Roosevelt term have provided the capabilities Love describes?
Robert M. Love
American fleet strength fell somewhat below the benchmark of “treaty” limits in the 1920s, but what really retarded the prosecution of the war in 1942 and 1943 was Roosevelt’s failure in 1935 to realize that the naval disarmament system had collapsed and his insistence that, with a few exceptions, American naval shipbuilding conform to the 1936 Second London treaty until as late as December 1939. The White House, not Congress, retarded naval rearmament under the New Deal. The 1934 Vinson Act aimed only at building to a “treaty fleet” by 1942, the 1938 Second Vinson act stretched this out to 1946, and even the enormous 1940 Two Ocean Navy Act was not to be completed until 1948. As late as the spring of 1940, on the eve of the fall of France, Roosevelt slashed a Navy Department request for an increase of twenty-five percent in authorized fleet tonnage to eleven percent, although it was clear at the time that congress would vote for the larger figure.
American naval rearmament in the decade of the Great Depression was not retarded by a shortage of skilled manpower, raw materials, or unused industrial or shipyard capacity, nor indeed by opposition in Congress. Every major shipbuilding program between 1933 and 1941 was initiated by the Navy Department, supported by overwhelming majorities on the Hill, and slashed by the White House. Roosevelt vacillated between negotiating further naval disarmament treaties and building up to treaty limits in the 1930s, with the result that the Navy in 1941 had no frontline battleships and or post “treaty-class” carriers afloat, a bare handful, a bare handful of modern, long-range maritime patrol planes, few fighter, bomber or torpedo squadrons operating heavy, all-metal, single-engine monoplanes, and almost no modern austere escorts or ship-to-shore or shore-to-shore landing craft. A powerful, balanced fleet capable of conducting major offensive air, sea and amphibious operations in both the Atlantic and the Pacific theaters concurrently in 1941 probably would not have deterred Hitler, but the effect of Japan might have been significant. Admiral Yamamoto supported the decision to go to war on the basis that the combined Fleet could hold off an American offensive for about two years, but even his stance might have changed had he believed that he could not defend Japan’s far-flung empire for more than a few months."
So, did Robert Love posit a reasonable what-if here? Are his arguments about the relative positions of Roosevelt and Congress on naval matters correct? If Roosevelt wanted more navy, could he have gotten it, and what might he have had to give up to get it? And could any plausible increase in naval construction from either the first or second Roosevelt term have provided the capabilities Love describes?