U.S. Navy in the 1940s

Identification Sea branch of the U.S. armed forces

The United States entered World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. The Japanese navy seemed unbeatable to many Americans, but Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, took the offensive and soon won several decisive battles that led to the surrender of Japan.

At the end of the 1930’s, the U.S. Navy began preparing to fight a war in both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. The Navy continued to rely heavily on battleships and aircraft carriers, but it also began building a fleet of long-range submarines. Prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Navy from the coast of California to Hawaii as a show of force, hoping to deter the Japanese from attacking. In the Atlantic, American submarines fought German U-boats in an unofficial naval war. When Roosevelt declared a state of emergency on September 8, 1939, the Navy was authorized to increase its number of enlisted personnel by almost sixty thousand, to 191,000. Officers and nurses in the reserves were also called back to active duty. On June 14, 1940, Roosevelt signed a bill authorizing the expansion of the Navy’s number of combatant ships by 11 percent as a precautionary measure. As the war in Europe spread, Congress passed a second bill, signed on July 19, increasing the size of the Navy by 1,325,000 tons of combatant ships.

During World War II, Fleet Admiral Ernest King served as the commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet. The fleet was divided into three theaters. As of 1942, the leaders of the Navy were Admiral T. C. Hart, commander in chief of the Asiatic Fleet; Admiral R. E. Ingersoll, commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet; and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. The position of chief of naval operations was a two-year term held by Admiral Harold R. Stark at the beginning of the war. Admiral King became the chief of naval operations in March, 1942, and the duties were combined with those of commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet. Stark then became commander in chief of U.S. naval forces in Europe. The position of fleet admiral (five stars) was created in 1944, making it the top rank in the Navy. Admiral Nimitz was the last surviving fleet admiral when he died in 1966.

Atlantic and Pacific Theaters

After the United States officially entered World War II, German U-boats still had control of the Atlantic. The German navy torpedoed Allied ships off the eastern coast of the United States. The U.S. Navy spent most of 1942 relearning lessons from its World War I encounters with U-boats. The German navy remained a threat throughout the war, but by the middle of 1943 the Allies had learned how to diminish that threat using advanced tactics, advances in technology, intelligence, and more efficient shipbuilding.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese navy was perceived to be invincible. Admiral Nimitz, in command of the Pacific Fleet, took the offensive against the enemy as soon as the Navy’s resources had recovered from Pearl Harbor. Nimitz relied heavily on intelligence gathered by a joint military agency as well as his previous studies at the Naval War College on the logistics of a possible Pacific war. His strategy, called “island hopping,” slowly reclaimed the Pacific with large-scale amphibious assaults that were supported by carrier-borne aircraft. The strategy ended the Japanese occupation of a number of islands throughout the Pacific.

Nimitz defeated the Japanese navy in a number of battles during 1942. His victories at Coral Sea and Midway Island are considered a turning point in the war. Nimitz had proven that the Japanese navy was not unbeatable—a large morale booster for both the Allied forces and the American people. In 1944, the U.S. Navy effectively eliminated Japan as a threat after winning the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. In 1945, Allied naval forces took control of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. U.S. Air Force and Navy air strikes inflicted severe damage to Japan before the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. Japan officially surrendered on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. Admiral Nimitz signed the surrender papers as the representative of the United States.

Postwar

In December, 1945, Admiral Nimitz began his two-year term as chief of naval operations. One of his main tasks was reducing the Navy to a smaller peacetime fleet. In 1943, the U.S. Navy was larger than all the other combatant navies combined. By the end of the war, the Navy had added several new vessels, including eighteen aircraft carriers and eight battleships. In 1945, the Navy had 1,194 major combatant vessels; three years later, the fleet had been narrowed to just 267. The British navy had suffered significant losses during the war, leaving the U.S. Navy with the responsibility of protecting the world’s sea-lanes and oceans. The Navy sent the first postwar expedition to Antarctica during the winter of 1946-1947. The operation was directed by Admiral Richard Byrd, a leading expert on the Arctic region. Into the 1950’s, the Navy continued exploration into the Arctic using air, surface, and submarine forces.

However, with the navies of Germany, Italy, and Japan destroyed, many Americans felt that a standing peacetime Navy was unnecessary. Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson called for drastic cuts to the Navy. During the late 1940’s, Johnson eliminated the Navy’s plan to build a 65,000-ton aircraft carrier prototype named the United States. The carrier was intended to support nuclear-capable aircraft over the next twenty years. Secretary Johnson’s severe downsizing of the Navy was still being debated in Congress when the Soviet Union created its first atomic bomb, which was tested in August, 1949. Facing the threat of communism spreading through the world, American leaders increased military funding to all branches, including the Navy. A few months later, in June, 1950, the United States entered the Korean War, in which the Navy played an important role.

Navy Seabees

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy could no longer use civilian employees to build bases and for other duties internationally. In January, 1942, Rear Admiral Ben Moreell was granted authority to create a militarized naval construction force, and he began recruiting men in the construction trades to form three battalions. Command of the units was given to Civil Engineer Corps officers instead of line officers. The term “construction battalion” was abbreviated as “C.B.,” which led to the name “Seabees.” The first Seabees were recruits that already had experience working in various construction trades; their average age was thirty-seven. Bases were established on both coasts to train them how to fight and use light arms. The Seabee mottos were “We Build, We Fight” and “Can Do!”—emphasizing their duel role as sailors and construction workers. Most of the work the Seabees did was in the Pacific theater. They landed shortly after the Marines and built airstrips, bridges, warehouses, roads, hospitals, and housing. By the end of World War II, there were more than 325,000 Seabees. By 1950, their number had been reduced to 3,300. The start of the Korean War led to strong Seabee recruitment by the Navy.

Impact

American submarines were responsible for almost one-third of all Japanese ships sunk during the war. The submarines were also responsible for almost two-thirds of the damage caused to Japanese merchant ships and trade. Submarines were also used for reconnaissance, rescues, supply missions, and lifeguarding. The Navy collaborated with the scientific community and manufacturing industry throughout the 1940’s in order to improve submarine design, construction, and technology. The United States became a leader in undersea warfare, which was key during the Cold War.

After World War II, the Seabees continued to be a valuable part of the Navy. During the Vietnam War, the Seabees built a number of naval bases, as well as hospitals, roads, bridges, and airstrips. They also conducted a large number of civilian projects for the South Vietnamese people, building schools and churches and repairing roads and villages. In the early twenty-first century, Seabees are stationed throughout the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan, working as carpenters, mechanics, electricians, and large-equipment operators, and in many other related trades.

Bibliography

Howarth, Stephen. To Shining Sea: A History of the United States Navy, 1775-1991. New York: Random House, 1991. A political and diplomatic history of the Navy. Includes several maps and photographs.

Kimmel, Jay. U.S. Navy Seabees: Since Pearl Harbor. 3d ed. Portland, Oreg.: Corey/Stevens Publishing, 2005. The history of the Seabees, the Navy’s construction force, which was formed in 1942. Includes more than two hundred photographs and is based in part on personal accounts.

King, Ernest. U.S. Navy at War, 1941-1945. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946. Official reports to the Secretary of the Navy written by Admiral King, chief of naval operations during World War II. Includes appendixes on Japanese naval ships, losses of U.S. naval vessels, and combat vessels added to the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Love, Robert. History of the U.S. Navy. 2 vols. Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 1992. A detailed strategic history of the Navy. Includes a helpful glossary that explains operations, aircraft types, and acronyms.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963. A shorter version of the author’s fifteen-volume history of the Navy during World War II. Provides detailed histories of major battles and campaigns throughout the war. Includes several maps and charts.

Weir, Gary E. Forged in War: The Naval-Industrial Complex and American Submarine Construction, 1940-1961. Washington, D.C.: Washington Naval Historical Center, 1993. Examines how the joint effort of the Navy, industry, and scientific community led the United States to dominate undersea warfare. Based on extensive research of Navy documents and records of the involved scientific organizations and businesses.