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Editorial Week of April 14, 2002
Warships Are Not Built Overnight
by Philip Roberto
There is a common misconception that on December 7, 1941, the Japanese largely destroyed America's navy at Pearl Harbor -- and that on December 8, the United States began building the navy that won World War II, replacing our World War I era battle fleet with a modern one.
It is certainly undeniable that U.S. naval shipbuilding capabilities far outpaced our enemies during the war. However, many of the newer warships that helped defeat Japan were already either in service or were under construction before the surprise attack on that "day of infamy."
Thanks to the foresight of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congressional leaders such as Carl Vinson -- and no thanks to the dovish and isolationist Members of Congress who voted against the naval buildups of the 1930s, the U.S. had a stronger navy than Japan, arguably even after seven 20-year old plus battlewagons were sunk or seriously damaged at Pearl Harbor. In fact, of the ten U.S. battleships laid down after World War I that saw action in World War II, all were either in service, under construction or ordered prior to December 7, 1941.
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In a May 1940 "fireside chat," Roosevelt had noted that nearly seven times the number of combat ships were commissioned or laid down between 1933 and 1940 as during the seven years preceding that [during the Republican administrations of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover]. These new ships included the aircraft carriers Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown, which would later devastate the Japanese fleet at Midway in June 1942 and put the U.S. on the offensive for the rest of the war.
However, these massive and much needed warships were not built overnight. It took years of planning, design, procurement, construction and sea trials before they were ready to fight.
Today, the center of U.S. naval strength continues to rest upon on our aircraft carriers. The most massive of these vessels, those of the Nimitz-class, displace nearly 100,000 tons of water, cost about $5 billion apiece and take up to five years to construct and place into service.
Before September 11th, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office was questioning the value of aircraft carriers. Remarkably, despite a continuing increase in U.S. overseas deployments since the end of the Cold War (the Gulf War, Somalia, the Balkans, etc.), one recommendation during the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review actually centered on halving the Navy's current force of 12 carriers to just 6! [Note: Consider just one successfully hijacked commercial jumbo jet out of Cairo could make it "five carriers" in a matter of minutes by slamming into a vunerable carrier transiting the Suez Canal].
When it was uncertain as to whether more hijacked jets were aloft on September 11th, jet fighters from two aircraft carriers out of Norfolk provided air defense for the East Coast. When Operation Enduring Freedom got underway and so-called allies denied America use of their air bases, combat aircraft from our carriers in the Indian Ocean served as an alternative for conducting the large air strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. Given that the Suez Canal is one sunken cargo vessel away from being made temporarily unavailable, our nuclear-powered carriers can stay on combat station for even up to six months until relieved [as the USS Carl Vinson recently showed]. If military action is to be undertaken in the future against unfriendly nations, such as Iran, Iraq or North Korea, the U.S. Navy and its carrier force will play a major role in determining the outcome.
Nonetheless, aircraft carrier opponents in Rumsfeld's office still persist, advocating reducing our carrier force at a time when we should, instead, seriously consider increasing it.
Those who think that the U.S. can maintain vigilance, growing overseas peace-keeping deployments, deterrence and, if necessary, fight wars successfully, with an aging battle fleet, fighter aircraft older than its pilots and fewer aircraft carriers than this country had in 1941 are as irresponsible as those Members of Congress who opposed Roosevelt's naval buildups -- and puts us at risk of suffering a "third" Pearl Harbor.
Philip Roberto is the Editor of PoliticsOL.com, a veteran political activist and a member of the U.S. Naval Institute. The above opinions are his own and do not necessary reflect those of the Institute. Sign up to receive his FREE valuable e-book on E-Activism, How to Advocate Your Cause on the Internet, at: http://www.politicsol.com/ebook.html
![The aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) executes a sharp turn to starboard. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate Airman Tina Lamb. [020116-N-9312L-072] Jan. 16, 2002](http://www.politicsol.com/gifs/uss-stennis.jpg)
Thanks to the foresight of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congressional leaders such as Carl Vinson -- and no thanks to the dovish and isolationist Members of Congress who voted against the naval buildups of the 1930s, the U.S. had a stronger navy than Japan, arguably even after seven 20-year old plus battlewagons were sunk or seriously damaged at Pearl Harbor. In fact, of the ten U.S. battleships laid down after World War I that saw action in World War II, all were either in service, under construction or ordered prior to December 7, 1941.
Philip Roberto is the Editor of