Our Navy at war

by Josephus Daniels

The launching of the destroyer Ward at the Mare Island Navy Yard 17-1/2 days after her keel was laid established a new record.

Upon our return from Europe all the information gathered was laid before the General Board. Admirals Mayo and Rodman, who had recently returned from Europe, where they had been interested in the question, were invited to act with them. The General Board made a unanimous recommendation that the twelve battleships should be "completed as expeditiously as possible on present lines of development in battleship construction." In view of the importance of protection as indicated by experience at the Battle of Jutland, where thinly protected battle-cruisers were unable to stand up under heavy fire, the Board recommended that "the six battle-cruisers now authorized be completed as expeditiously as possible, but with additional protection, particularly to turrets, conning towers, magazines and communications, at the expense of a small reduction in speed." The recommendations were approved, and directions given to press their construction.

The new battleships under construction will be 660 feet long, with displacement of 43,200 tons, with an extreme breadth of 105 feet and a mean draft of 33 feet. Engines developing 60,000 horse-power will drive them at a speed of 23 knots. Their twelve 16-inch guns will be mounted in four turrets, which revolve so that all can be fired simultaneously to either side of the vessel. In a single salvo these guns will throw 25,000 pounds of projectiles. In every way they outclass any ships of the line ever built.

The six battle-cruisers will be larger than any warships heretofore constructed. Each will have 43,500 tons displacement, practically the same as the battleships, but will be longer by over 200 feet, their length being 874 feet, and they will be ten knots faster, making 33-1/4 knots, 38 miles an hour. No less than 180,000 horse-power is required to drive these immense vessels through the water. Their engines will develop as much electric power as is required to supply a good-sized city. The six battle-cruisers will have a total of 1,080,000 horse-power. Each will be armed with eight 16-inch guns, firing 16,800 pounds of projectiles. The weight of metal is not, however, nearly as important in gunfire as is the range. The guns of our battle-cruisers will easily outrange those of any ships now afloat. Both battleships and battle-cruisers will be propelled by electric drive, the new method which, first installed on the New Mexico, proved its superiority, and was adopted for all our later major vessels.

With the completion of these eighteen capital ships, together with the scout cruisers and other types under construction, the Navy of the United States will be at least "equal to the most powerful maintained by any other nation of the world." That was the goal in view when the big three-year program proposed in 1915 was adopted by Congress in the act of August 29, 1916, to which, when this program is completed, the Navy will owe its supremacy.

It is a matter of gratification that the United States, which brought forth the steamship, the ironclad monitor, the torpedo boat, the aeroplane, the flying boat, has again taken the lead in naval construction and will soon have the most powerful of all armadas.

This country should keep that position for all time until—and unless—with a powerful navy and great national wealth, the United States succeeds in securing an international agreement to reduce armament. The very act making possible our supremacy on the seas, declared it to be the "policy of the United States to adjust and settle its international disputes through mediation and arbitration"; authorized the President to invite a conference of all the great governments to formulate a plan of arbitration and "consider the question of disarmament"; and declared that the ships authorized but not already under contract were not to be built if international reduction of armament could be secured.

That statement of policy in the naval appropriation act of 1916—"a most unusual place," said the President in an address at Seattle—was in line with the policy of the Government from the day of Wilson's inauguration. It was the authorization for the international agreement looking to a reduction of armament contained in the Treaty of Versailles. The Bryan treaties, ratified by every European country except Germany, which insured cooling time and opportunity for discussion in a world forum, were a long step toward settling international differences by reason rather than by resort to war. It was about the time those treaties were proposed that Winston Churchill, First Lord of the British Admiralty, suggested a "naval holiday." In my first report in 1913, reiterated in every subsequent report, I declared: "It is not a vacation we need, but a permanent policy to guard against extravagant and needless expansion." I recommended then that "the war and navy officials, and other representatives of all nations, be invited to hold a conference to discuss whether they cannot agree upon a plan for lessening the cost of preparation for war" and added this observation:

It is recognized that the desired end of competitive building, carried on under whip and spur, could not be effective without agreement between great nations. It ought not to be difficult to secure an agreement by which navies will be adequate without being overgrown and without imposing over-heavy taxes upon the industries of a nation.

Long before the match was struck by the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, President Wilson, Ambassador Page and Colonel House were taking steps which, if Germany had been willing and Great Britain and France had sensed the coming conflict, might have averted the World War. To that end in the early part of 1914, President Wilson sent Colonel House abroad with letters to the Kaiser and the heads of the British and French governments, with whom earnest conferences were held. President Wilson and his associates in 1913-14, as this shows, had the vision of world agreement for peace to secure which he and the representatives of other free nations signed the treaty in Paris in 1919.