Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The programme to be laid before you contemplates the construction within
five years of ten battleships, six battle cruisers, ten scout cruisers,
fifty destroyers, fifteen fleet submarines, eighty-five coast submarines,
four gunboats, one hospital ship, two ammunition ships, two fuel oil ships,
and one repair ship. It is proposed that of this number we shall the first
year provide for the construction of two battleships, two battle cruisers,
three scout cruisers, fifteen destroyers, five fleet submarines,
twenty-five coast submarines, two gunboats, and one hospital ship; the
second year, two battleships, one scout cruiser, ten destroyers, four fleet
submarines, fifteen coast submarines, one gunboat, and one fuel oil ship;
the third year, two battleships, one battle cruiser, two scout cruisers,
five destroyers, two fleet sub marines, and fifteen coast submarines; the
fourth year, two battleships, two battle cruisers, two scout cruisers, ten
destroyers, two fleet submarines, fifteen coast submarines, one ammunition
ship, and one fuel oil ship; and the fifth year, two battleships, one
battle cruiser, two scout cruisers, ten destroyers, two fleet submarines,
fifteen coast submarines, one gunboat, one ammunition ship, and one repair
ship.
The Secretary of the Navy is asking also for the immediate addition to the
personnel of the navy of seven thousand five hundred sailors, twenty-five
hundred apprentice seamen, and fifteen hundred marines. This increase would
be sufficient to care for the ships which are to be completed within the
fiscal year 1917 and also for the number of men which must be put in
training to man the ships which will be completed early in 1918. It is also
necessary that the number of midshipmen at the Naval academy at Annapolis
should be increased by at least three hundred in order that the force of
officers should be more rapidly added to; and authority is asked to
appoint, for engineering duties only, approved graduates of engineering
colleges, and for service in the aviation corps a certain number of men
taken from civil life.
If this full programme should be carried out we should have built or
building in 1921, according to the estimates of survival and standards of
classification followed by the General Board of the Department, an
effective navy consisting of twenty-seven battleships of the first line,
six battle cruisers, twenty-five battleships of the second line, ten
armored cruisers, thirteen scout cruisers, five first class cruisers, three
second class cruisers, ten third class cruisers, one hundred and eight
destroyers, eighteen fleet submarines, one hundred and fifty-seven coast
submarines, six monitors, twenty gunboats, four supply ships, fifteen fuel
ships, four transports, three tenders to torpedo vessels, eight vessels of
special types, and two ammunition ships. This would be a navy fitted to our
needs and worthy of our traditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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