Comprehensive plans for possible war against Germany—we then called it "war in the Atlantic"—had been made by the General Board, and were constantly corrected and brought up to date in accordance with war developments.
When the fleet was reviewed by President Wilson at New York, May 15, 1915, Admiral Dewey wrote:
The people of New York have just cause for pride in the fleet now assembled in their harbor. Not only is it composed of the finest and most efficient warships that we have ever had, but it is not excelled, except in size, by the fleet of any nation in the world. Our ships and guns are as good as any in the world; our officers are as good as any; and our enlisted men are superior in training, education, physical development and devotion to duty to those of any other navy. As President of the General Board for the past fifteen years, I can say with absolute confidence that the efficiency of the fleet has steadily progressed, and has never been so high as it is today.
For months we had been at work on a plan for reorganizing the fleet. Completed and put into effect in July, 1915, that plan proved so efficient that it was continued throughout the war. Four battleships, the Pennsylvania, Nevada, Oklahoma and Arizona, ten destroyers, seven submarines, and two tenders, the Melville and the Bushnell, were completed in 1915-16.
Battle and target practice were conducted with a constant improvement in gunnery. In August, 1916, there was held off the North Atlantic Coast the largest "war game" in the annals of the Navy. Eighty-three vessels, including twenty-eight battleships and thirteen submarines, engaged in this strategic maneuver, which lasted for four days, and simulated the conditions of a great naval battle.
Congress had, in 1913-14, authorized the construction of five dreadnaughts as compared with only two granted by the previous Congress, and we were building more destroyers and submarines than in previous years. Forty-one more ships were in commission, and there were 5,000 more men in the service than there had been in 1913. The fleet was incomparably stronger than it had ever been before, but we were heartily tired of the hand-to-mouth policy that had prevailed so long, a policy that made it impossible to plan far ahead and develop a consistent and well-balanced fleet. In common with its officers, I wanted the United States to possess a navy equal to any afloat, and to initiate a building program that should be continuous and not haphazard.
Consequently, in July, 1915, I requested Admiral Dewey to have the General Board submit its opinion of what should be done to give us a navy worthy of this country and able to cope with any probable enemy. In response the General Board set forth this policy, which has guided us ever since and is now nearing a triumphant reality:
The Navy of the United States should ultimately be equal to the most powerful maintained by any other nation of the world. It should be gradually increased to this point by such a rate of development, year by year, as may be permitted by the facilities of the country, but the limit above defined should be attained not later than 1925.
WAR CHIEFS OF THE NAVY, THE SECRETARY AND HIS ADVISORY COUNCIL