1946 outlook for the U.S. Navy

USS Iowa (BB-61), 1946

Charles M. Hatcher, of “Our Navy magazine, September 1946, after reading about the 2 bomb explosions on Bikini Atoll, came across the discussion as to whether those tests proved to render navies obsolete.  Here is an excerpt from that article, written in September 1946.  Do you feel it still applies today?

The battleship was obsolescent long before the A-bomb, proven so by Billy Mitchell on the Atlantic Coast, Taranto, Pearl Harbor and Malaya merely lent emphasis to the knowledge and belief of airmen that airborne bombs and torpedoes would and could sink any ships built.

The US Navy tacitly recognized the departure of Line-of-battle tactics when it brilliantly organized its task forces, train-fleets and amphibious assault groups.

That it was taken by the scruff of the neck and damn well forced to do some brilliant improvising when the battle fleet was blotted out at Pearl.  But that the US Navy high command did come up with some tremendous ideas, the recently won global war will attest.  And that this same leadership might reasonably be expected to be alert to continuing new ideas, tactics and strategy should seem logical to any by the blindly partisan or the uninformed.

LST-731

The US Navy needs to worry about John Q. Uninformed.  Assailed by enough propaganda and blinded by continuous smoke clouds of half truth, the general public may in time forget the concrete exploits which won the Pacific War and made the European campaigns possible.

He may consent to a drying up of funds for experiment, practice and construction – as happened after the first World War.  And then he’ll wonder what hit him when a catastrophic emergency explodes all over an undertrained, under-built and under-researched fighting outfit.

We can count on this: if there is a U.S. Navy in the future, it will be largely an aviation Navy plus submarines.

Obviously, it’s the job of every man in this outfit, seaman deuce on up, to start worrying about his Navy if he believes in anything… Volunteering as a sailor and saying to hell with whining or letters of complaint to Congressmen, then he’d better scram out.  We’ve got a rugged cruise ahead.

USS Arnold J. Isbell (DD-869), 1946

The job is to learn something every day to toughen ourselves up; to develop a justified pride in our outfit, and to make ourselves the best damned fighting men in the world.  He who stimulates dissatisfaction in the ship; who grumbles without constructive effort; who whines and whimpers and goldbricks – that man is the Navy’s worst enemy within.

I just got to looking around and watching the beautiful new equipment being handled by youngsters so busy complaining about personal problems, they couldn’t appreciate the swell new equipment they were getting.

BY:  Charles M. Hatcher, “The Sky’s the Limit: Aviation News and Views” article in Our Navy magazine, September 1946

Courtesy of Jeanne Bryan Insalaco     @https://everyonehasafamilystorytotell.wordpress.com/

##############################################################################

Military Humor – 

##############################################################################

Farewell Salutes – 

Albert H. Cote – Morristown, NJ; US Army, Vietnam, Colonel, (Ret.)

Richard A. Dunn – Perry, MI; US Army/US Navy, Vietnam, Captain (Ret. 35 y.), Bronze Star

US Flag at Half-staff, courtesy of Dan Antion

Herbert A. Higgins – Brooklyn, NY; US Navy, WWII

James B. McCartney – Ridgway, CO; US Army, WWII, ETO, Pvt., Co B/1/222/42 Infantry Division, KIA (Wildenguth, FRA)

Ralph Puckett – Tifton, GA; US Army, Korea & Vietnam, Colonel (Ret.), Distinquished Service Cross, Medal of Honor, 2 Silver Stars, 2 Bronze Stars, 5 Purple Hearts

Daniel L. Ruby – North Beach, WA; US Army, Vietnam

Raymond U. Schlamp – Dubuque, IA; US Army, WWII, ETO, Pfc., Co G/2/11/5th Infantry Division, KIA (Dormot, FRA)

Clifford H. Strickland – Fowler, CO; US Army, WWII, PTO, Co C/803 Engineers, POW, KIA (Cabanatuan Camp, Luzon)

Robert Thompson – Lewistown, IL; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 11th Airborne Division

Doris Eileen Zeissig (102) – Decatur, IN; US Army WAC, WWII, ETO, Nurse

##############################################################################

####################################################################################