Work in Progress

By this week Congress had been asked to vote $4,995,767,692 for Rearmament. Senate and House had passed the major items, were well along with the rest. On the basis of what President Roosevelt had requested, and Congress had done, the Army-&-Navy-to-be shaped up as follows:

Size. To be added to the Navy's 309 warships, 1,813 planes, were 143 new combat vessels (including four 45,000-ton battleships, six 35,000-tonners), 4,180 planes, 35 old destroyers and 36 old submarines, which last week were marked for recommissioning and assignment to the feeble Atlantic Squadron. Booked for the Regular Army was a standing force of 400,000 (up from 280,000, perhaps rising later to 750,000); 5,566 more planes, doubling the Air Corps; munitions for an initial wartime force of 1,000,000 men.

Strength & Possibilities. According to the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, the U. S., in order to wage an offensive war against Japan in the far Pacific, would have to double its projected fleet, spend a huge sum (perhaps $8,000,000,000) beyond what is now planned for the Navy.

The Navy wants to be strong enough to keep an effective threat-watch in the Pacific, or to handle a defensive war there.

The Navy would certainly have to be doubled to risk simultaneous war in both the Atlantic and the Pacific (without the aid of the imperiled British Fleet). The President this week proposed to build 84 aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines for Atlantic service. Eventual cost: $1,200,000,000.

The Army's Chief of Staff George C. Marshall has said that he cannot get his new material before December 1941--and therefore cannot fight anywhere before then. Said he in testimony published last week: "This plan is entirely devoted to the problems as we visualize them in the Western Hemisphere. We do not visualize any invasion of this country. An air raid or something of that sort is possible . . . but we see all manner of possibilties in the Western Hemisphere."

And More to Come. Funds voted so far for Defense are merely a starter. Two clues to the size of the eventual cost were given last week. Approving $200,000,000 to finance new airplane and munitions plants, the House Appropriations Committee reported that the U. S. in the next two years must spend on this one phase of Rearmament $1,000,000,000. A Senate committee figured that 22 of the Navy's 143 new combat vessels will cost at least $372,750,000. Buried in one of the naval bills which Congress passed last week was authority (but not money) for the Navy to fortify Guam, in Japan's Pacific backyard. Eventual cost: anywhere from $80,000,000 to $200,000,000, depending upon how safe the Navy wants Guam to be.

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