Читать книгу Our Navy at war онлайн

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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.