It is interesting to see how Adm. Stark is requesting funds for naval expansion at this point. We are still a half year away from “the Two Ocean Navy” Act of 1940 (which in my opinion had a lot to do with winning the war).
What is interesting is that our naval brain trust appears to be in some flux about exactly what sort of ships it will need to fight the coming war. Two things are apparent. One is that we will need more aircraft carriers, and various “stop gaps” are being considered to get them. And we were not alone, as Italy attempted to convert a passenger liner into a carrier, and the Japanese converted several merchant ships into carriers. We would eventually convert six light cruiser hulls of the Cleveland class into the CVL’s of the Independence class. They were good quick stop gaps until the Essex class began joining the fleet in large numbers in 1944.
The other issue is that we accepted that it was time to abandon the Washington Naval treaties of the early 1920’s. Stark has as much as admitted this in his request to build cruisers with more than 10,000 tons displacement, as required by the treaties. The displacement limit was a limiting factor, as heavy cruisers of WW2 needed far more protection than 10,000 tons. During the late 1930’s the Japanese built heavy cruisers of 12,000-14,000 tons. At the time Stark addressed Congress, design on our Baltimore class (14,000 tons) was already in progress.
Where the navy struggled in concept was how to deal with heavy armed surface raiders such as Graf Spee. There was concern that the Japanese were building similar ships. Our eventual answer was the Alaska class. Called “Large Cruisers” they carried the designation “BC” and were in fact battlecruisers with 27,000 ton displacement and 12” guns.
It turned out we really didn’t need the Alaskas, but we built them anyway. While other nations had limited naval construction programs and built only what they absolutely had to have, we were more or less able to build whatever we wanted. And for one simple reason: because we could.
I think the mentality in the War Department of a two ocean navy really took flight when there was the call to revise the Rainbow plans in October of 1939. It just hasn’t become policy yet. I agree though that the decision to have a two ocean navy played a large roll in winning the war. It started the ramp up of tremendous ship construction well before the U.S. was officially at war. Not only did that help offset the losses in the Pacific when at one point we were actually down to just one operation aircraft carrier, but it also helped in that there was a tremendous surge of construction of the support ships that were vital to the war effort.