Naval limitation, like Prohibition, was a “noble experiment” which failed. Yet, for almost two decades it was the defense policy of the United States. Pacifism, isolationism, and “penny-pinching” became the watchwords of the 1920’s and early 1930’s. Preparedness went by default. Morale in the fleet sank while naval officers dutifully carried out the policies of the Coolidge and Hoover Administrations. Not until Franklin D. Roosevelt became President did the Navy again find a champion. “Thank God, we have a President!” wrote Admiral Mark L. Bristol in a private letter in July, 1933, epitomizing the feelings of many of his fellow officers. Admiral Bristol felt relieved that “the frantic efforts for cutting expenditures have given way to a program of using money for the best interests of the Navy and for our country.”
The circumstances which produced naval limitation and disarmament are almost incomprehensible to a generation of Americans raised in the atmosphere of World War II, the Korean War, and the atom bomb. A review of the period, however, will disclose widespread popular apathy and naivete which almost brought the United States to the brink of disaster on the eve of World War II.
Disarmament by Example
The bitter reaction to World War I had produced in its wake a resentment of all things military. Once the huge armies were demobilized, pacifists turned to the denunciation of armaments and, as a primary step in their program, attempted to sweep naval vessels from the seas. Many pacifists were stimulated by genuine idealism. Clergymen, educators, students, and women’s organizations, enthusiastically supported by the press, actively opposed all measures of preparedness. Others were motivated by more practical considerations. Statesmen, with an eye on the taxpayer, raised their voices in Congress against expenditures for naval armaments. The tocsin sounded by naval officers and students of defense problems was disregarded.
Despite the fact that the United States did not join the League of Nations, Presidents and Secretaries of State had to make concessions to public demands for international cooperation. Diplomacy by conference became the usual practice. Beginning with the Washington Naval Conference of 1921- 1922, the United States tried to launch a program of naval limitation by setting the example for other maritime nations. Even though the primary objective of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes failed, both he and his successors felt that the limitation of capital ships might serve as a prelude to the general limitation of all armament.
The desire of the United States government to resort to cooperation in order to decrease competitive armaments was significant. The United States was determined to become a sea power second to none by ensuring parity with Great Britain and superiority over Japan. Dominance on the sea went hand in hand with the concept of national security, but genuine security depended upon enforcement by an organized permanent national authority. The United States in 1921, 1927, 1930, and 1935 had sought to create a program of collective security without turning to general organized world cooperation. The tragic illusion of such a policy is clear in the perspective of the past twenty-five years.
The traditional roles of the United States and Great Britain had been transformed drastically. The United States had emerged from World War I with enhanced power and prestige as well as new, vast, international responsibilities. On the other hand, the economic consequences of the war were particularly disturbing to Great Britain. Widespread unemployment, antiquated industrial facilities, diminishing trade, decreased overseas holdings, and excessive taxation were manifestations of Britain’s new condition. The industries which had made Britain great—coal, iron, steel, textiles— were now depressed. The rich Latin American markets were shrinking. These trade difficulties seriously undermined Britain’s old economic position and were responsible largely for forcing Britain to abandon her traditional role of mistress.
At the Washington Conference, Great Britain conceded parity in principle. She did, however, rid herself of the danger of sinking to second place in the battle line without resigning her decisive superiority in cruisers. At the Geneva Naval Conference in 1927, however, it was another matter. The British stubbornly refused to make any further concessions. Ill feelings between Britain and the United States followed. In this atmosphere, Congress passed the Cruiser Bill providing for the construction of fifteen new cruisers.
An Anglo-American rapprochement took place in 1929 after Herbert Hoover became President. Public opinion, influenced by the press, the increasing participation in foreign affairs by the Dominions, and the fear of increased Japanese power in the Far East, forced Great Britain to strengthen her friendship with the United States. Ambassador Charles G. Dawes and Britain’s new Labor Prime Minister, J. Ramsay MacDonald, held extensive conversations on the intricate naval question. In October, 1929, Mr. MacDonald visited the United States, becoming the first British Prime Minister ever to do so. Ramsay MacDonald was able to capitalize on the good will potential existing on both sides of the Atlantic. At the Rapidan Conference, both President Hoover and Prime Minister MacDonald expressed the belief that a British-American naval agreement would be of vast importance in keeping Japan in check. In this way, both American and British interests in the Far East could be safeguarded. Even more significant to the taxpayers of both countries was the fact that the threat of naval competition would be removed and armament expenditures stabilized.
The London Naval Conference of 1930 was a testimonial of Anglo-American harmony. The London Treaty limited for five years all categories of naval vessels by the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. It offered all three naval powers a framework within which to build. France and Italy, however, refused to sign the treaty.
Totalitarian Challenge to Collective Security
The year 1931 serves as a line of demarcation in the long struggle to achieve peace by the limitation of armament through international cooperation. The Mukden Incident on September 18,1931, not only marked the beginning of an unofficial war between Japan and China, but completely changed the complexion of affairs in the Far East. Japan had defied the whole system of collective security as devised in the years following World War I. When the League of Nations appeared powerless to restrain Japan, a sequence of international crises in Ethiopia, in the Mediterranean, in Spain, and in Germany resulted. These events revealed the imminent danger of military aggression on a world-wide scale. Nevertheless, public opinion in the United States and Great Britain naively continued to press for the limitation of armaments in the face of an ever growing totalitarian menace.
In the fall of 1931, Senator William E. Borah, the Idaho Republican who was the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and a leading exponent of isolationism, proposed a five year naval “holiday” on ship construction. Senator Borah had a keen interest in naval affairs and was instrumental in the calling of the Washington Naval Conference of 1921. Now, a decade later, he hoped to achieve disarmament and economy simultaneously. Senator Borah’s plan received considerable support in the United States, especially from pacifist organizations. Abroad, however, the proposal went unheeded. President Hoover, however, was impressed by Senator Borah’s proposition and incorporated it into his own proposals of June, 1932.
Preparations for a General Disarmament Conference under the sponsorship of the League of Nations had been in progress since 1925. Six sessions of the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference had been held prior to 1932. The Preparatory Commission had attempted to examine all phases of the intricate question and to arrive at the most expedient methods of solving them. Intensified study and research produced voluminous reports, but little else to substantiate the tremendous labor involved. Beginning in 1926, the United States had participated in the work of the Preparatory Commission.
The General Disarmament Conference opened in Geneva on February 2, 1932, with more than five hundred delegates representing sixty nations in attendance. The Conference was characterized by intricate proposals and counter-proposals, much of the time being consumed in receiving reports of technical committees and reviewing negotiations and conversations carried on by the various governments represented.
The Conference became snarled in political controversies over collective security when the French proposed an international police system and reaffirmed their thesis that security must precede disarmament. There had been no concerted effort on the part of France, Italy, and Germany, the three countries chiefly concerned in the question of land armament, to solve their fundamental questions. After Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann’s sudden death in 1929, German leaders no longer urged a conciliatory policy. Instead, the Germans demanded equality of status and the abolition of all armament restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The conference confronted by this impasse floundered for months in a bog of irrelevant debate.
On June 22, 1932, President Hoover made a sensational proposal in which he urged a one-third reduction of military and naval forces and the total abolition of all bombing planes by the air forces. The Hoover Plan appealed to laymen everywhere because of its relative simplicity and logic. Technical experts, however, remained unimpressed. France flatly rejected the plan, while the British did the same thing in a more polite, subtle way. The Japanese declared that Mr. Hoover’s proposals were impossible to fulfill. Only Italy’s principal delegate, Dino Grandi (an original member of the Fascist Party and one of Mussolini’s most trusted diplomats), had fully endorsed the Hoover Plan, although the Soviet Delegation, headed by Maxim Litvinov (People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, 1930-1939, and Russian Ambassador to the United States, 1941— 1943) seemed sympathetic toward it immediately after the initial announcement.
The Disarmament Conference went through many sessions beset by crisis after crisis. Because Germany’s demand for military equality could not be reconciled with the French insistence upon security first, Chancellor Franz von Papen, in August 1932, ordered the German Delegation to leave the Conference. Shortly afterwards, the Conference adjourned until January 31, 1933. When it reconvened, Adolf Hitler already had become Chancellor. In an effort to promote harmony, the American Delegation pushed for a compromise plan which stressed qualitative disarmament in an attempt to meet the French demand for security without making any political commitments. The attempt was in vain. On October 14, 1933, the German Government announced its permanent withdrawal from the Disarmament Conference, and several weeks later, Hitler’s Government gave notice of its resignation from the League of Nations. Although the departure of Germany did not formally break up the Conference, the move had a demoralizing effect, and after months of futile discussion, the Disarmament Conference literally faded out of existence early in 1935. Disarmament had become a dead issue.
President Roosevelt Builds a Navy
With the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 4, 1933, the American disarmament policy underwent a fundamental change. From his days as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Wilson, Mr. Roosevelt had a deep interest and pride in the American Navy. The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral William H. Standley, writing to a fellow Admiral (David F. Sellers) proudly reported, “The President says he is having a good time ‘running the Navy’ and I am tickled pink that he takes enough interest in the Navy to try to run it. More power to him!”
President Roosevelt soon discovered that the shipbuilding industry was a key one in the economic rehabilitation of the nation. Over one hundred and twenty-five trades and professions were involved in ship construction and, still more important, the materials utilized came from just about every state in the Union. Furthermore, an analysis showed that eighty-four per cent of the cost of shipbuilding went directly and indirectly to labor. With millions unemployed and morale at a low ebb, shipbuilding appeared as a significant and effective solution to a dire emergency. At the same time, the security of the nation could be promoted by building naval vessels as authorized by the London Treaty of 1930.
The National Industrial Recovery Act (June 16, 1933) provided for a program of public works. Construction of naval vessels stood high among the most important public works projects. For this purpose, $238,000,000 was allocated. Six weeks after the N.R.A. had been approved by Congress, the Navy Department awarded contracts for the construction of thirty-two ships amounting to 120,600 tons. Besides these, in accordance with previous congressional authorization and appropriation of money, contracts were signed for five more ships aggregating 17,400 tons. No such naval building program had been undertaken since the Act of 1916. The 1933 program provided steady employment over a long period of time for thousands of highly skilled workers both in private and government shipyards. Further, it stimulated all industries allied with shipbuilding. By the end of the year, fifty-four naval vessels were under construction in the United States. The shipyards hummed with activity, creating the nucleus of the naval might which proved such a decisive factor in World War II.
Before the end of 1933, Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson had recommended the adoption of a naval building program which would bring the fleet up to the full strength authorized by the London Naval Treaty of 1930.
In January, 1934, Congressman Carl Vinson, Chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, put Mr. Swanson’s recommendations into a program designed to reach treaty strength by the end of 1942. The Vinson Bill, therefore, provided for a definite naval policy which projected into the future an orderly construction and replacement program for the United States. More specifically, the Bill empowered the President to authorize the construction of:
(a) One 10,000-ton 8-inch gun cruiser after January 1, 1935
(b) 33,000 tons of 6-inch gun cruisers
(c) Additional tonnage as replacement for experimental vessels and those which would become overage by 1939
The Bill also provided for the aircraft authorized to be carried on the naval vessels.
The Navy Department strongly recommended the enactment of the Vinson Bill. Admiral William H. Standley told the House Naval Affairs Committee that the Vinson Bill was “in accordance with the plans of President Roosevelt.” Assistant Secretary of the Navy Henry L. Roosevelt emphasized that the United States must have “a Navy second to none, a Navy built up to the Treaty commitments to the last rivet, the last sailor, to the last Marine. . . . There is no such thing as a second best winner of a war.”
A New York Times editorial urged the passage of the Vinson Bill, stressing that the United States and Great Britain had lagged far behind in naval construction, while Japan had steadily followed a program designed to attain a full treaty navy by 1937. “Obviously,” the editorial pointed out, “the United States could hesitate no longer to strengthen her fleet under the terms of the Washington and London Treaties.”
Pacifist and church groups lodged strong protests against the Vinson Bill. Women’s organizations assailed the projected naval expansion. A group of New York clergymen in a telegram to President Roosevelt stated, “We believe the proposed naval construction program seriously compromises your Good Neighbor Policy and is a denial of our moral obligations under the Kellogg Pact.”
The House of Representatives passed the Vinson Bill with little opposition against it. The Senate version, known as the Vinson-Trammel Bill, was approved on March 6 by a vote of 65 to 18. As passed, the Vinson-Trammel Bill was an authorization for one hundred and two vessels and 1184 planes. No money for construction was provided in the Bill.
When President Roosevelt signed the Vinson-Trammel Act on March 27, 1934, he issued a press statement which read in part:
The general purpose of the Bill is solely a statement of the Congress that it approves the building of our Navy up to and not beyond the strength in the various types of ships authorized first by the Washington Treaty of 1922 and secondly by the London Naval Treaty of 1930. It has been and will be the policy of the Administration to favor continued limitation of naval armament.
The Japanese press expressed strong disapproval of the enactment of the Vinson-Trammel Act.
By the end of April, 1934, President Roosevelt announced that he planned to ask Congress for authority to use an indeterminate amount of Public Works funds for naval construction in the new fiscal year. The Navy League, from its headquarters in Washington, strongly agreed with the President’s intention. Declaring that the United States had a “third rate” Navy, the Navy League officials asserted that there was a “particular need for funds to carry out the provisions of the Vinson Act.”
On May 30, 1934, the United States Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral David Foote Sellers was reviewed by President Roosevelt in New York harbor. This was the first naval review in New York since 1918 and was the first time the whole Fleet had been in the Atlantic since the Coolidge Administration. Eighty-one war vessels and one hundred and eighty-five naval planes took part in the review. One observer, however, was not impressed by the display of naval might. Ex-General “Billy” Mitchell wrote to his friend, columnist Arthur Brisbane:
These vessels are chained to their bases by a string that does not exceed 2,000 miles in length. A navy such as you see in the Hudson will have no application in a first class war. It will prove to be a broken reed on which our people lean.
While the Roosevelt Administration was active in building up the United States Navy to treaty strength, in Japan there was a growing feeling of resentment and contempt for anything connected with the London Naval Treaty. This attitude on the part of the naval and military leaders was a factor in the assassination of Premier Inukai on May 15, 1932. The violent death of the premier marked the end of party government in Japan. Military premiers and cabinets followed.
On March 25, 1933, the Japanese Ambassador informed Under Secretary of State William Phillips that Japan planned to withdraw from the London Naval Treaty at its expiration on December 31, 1936. The Ambassador told Mr. Phillips that Japan had signed the treaty only because of its limited duration. On May 27, 1933, as a result of the Lytton Report, Japan announced her intention of withdrawing from the League of Nations. The Japanese Naval attaché in Washington, during a press conference on October 23, 1934, openly admitted that Japan had always resented the London Treaty and had felt that the American insistence on capital ships and aircraft carriers was directed entirely against Japan.
At the preliminary naval conversations held prior to the opening of the 1935 Conference, Japan insisted upon full equality with the United States and Great Britain. The Japanese hoped to produce a deadlock in the negotiations in order to gain a revision of the 5:5:3 ratio in any private conversations which might take place. As early as August 28, 1934, a Japanese Foreign Office spokesman, Eiji Amau, publicly stated that Japan would abrogate the Washington Naval Treaty unless the other signatories gave evidence of favorable consideration to a new scheme for limitation of armaments which Japan would propose. It was, therefore, no surprise, when on December 29, 1934, Japan announced that she would withdraw from the Washington Treaty on December 31, 1936. The latter was also the automatic expiration date of the London Naval Treaty.
In a confidential memorandum dated November 14, 1934, President Roosevelt had set forth the policy to be followed if and when Japan denounced the naval treaties. He instructed Mr. Hull to try to make a “gentleman’s agreement” with Britain and Japan. The President wanted both nations to agree not to lay down any vessels above those stipulated in the treaties until after December 31, 1936. Further, Mr. Roosevelt urged his Secretary of State to attempt to reach an understanding that none of the three powers would lay down any vessel over 500 tons without formal notification to the other two powers. Mr. Roosevelt expressed the thought that full publicity concerning naval construction would be conducive to future limitation and would “perhaps make unnecessary the expenditures of large sums for naval intelligence purposes.”
In mid-December, 1934, President Roosevelt ordered the Secretary of the Navy to undertake studies of possible new types of ships to be built if the Washington and London Treaty restrictions were removed within the following two years. He was especially interested in the design of an 8- inch gun spring style cruiser and instructed that the designs be sent to the fleet for discussion and recommendations.
Both the Washington and London Naval Treaties stipulated that a Conference had to take place before the end of 1935. The Ethiopian War, however, raised international tension to a high pitch. Great Britain and Italy came close to a collision in the Mediterranean. The British became alarmed at their sad state of preparedness and sought to obtain allies among the French, the Yugoslavs, the Greeks, and the Turks. Earlier, in June, 1935, Great Britain had concluded the Anglo-German Naval Agreement which specified that Germany was to build not more than thirty-five per cent of the British tonnage. France was most unfavorably impressed by this rapprochement of Britain and Nazi Germany. The Ethiopian crisis, however, moved the British to make hasty overtures to improve Anglo-French relations.
On December 9, 1935, the Second London Naval Conference convened in the Locarno Room of the Foreign Office. All the other sessions were held at Clarence House, Westminster. Only the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan were represented, although there was a tacit understanding that Germany and the Soviet Union would be invited to participate in the latter stages of the Conference.
At the request of the Japanese Delegation, the first item on the Conference agenda was the Japanese proposal calling for a “common upper limit” instead of the 5:5:3 ratio. This initial proposal produced adverse circumstances which doomed the Conference. Because none of the naval powers would accept the Japanese proposal, even as a basis for negotiation, Japan officially withdrew from the Conference on January 15, 1936, leaving observers to follow the proceedings. Japan’s departure made it evident that quantitative limitation could not form the basis of an agreement among the remaining powers. France and Italy were almost as determined in their opposition to fixed ratios as the Japanese.
In personal letters to President Roosevelt, Norman H. Davis, who headed the American Delegation, and William R. Phillips, the Under Secretary of State who was present in London, told of the behind the scenes attempts to persuade the Japanese to repudiate their demands for a common upper limit. Both Davis and Phillips urged a strong Ango-American front as the best possible means of avoiding trouble with Japan. Phillips lauded the cooperative spirit of the British Delegation and told the President, “In fact, the British do not make a move without talking it over with Norman Davis.”
Although some British interests favored appeasing Japan, Davis sought to convince the British Delegation that the United States and Britain must stand firm in opposing Japan’s demand for equality. To avert a naval race, Davis tried to get the Japanese to agree upon a modus vivendi for a few years until a more favorable atmosphere of good will and confidence existed. Davis informed the President that he had pointed out to Admiral Osami Nagano that from a defense point of view, the United States could not agree to Japan’s insistence upon parity. To do so would be tantamount to a surrender of American ability to defend Alaska, the Philippines, and other possessions in the Pacific, and even jeopardize our own interests in the Atlantic. In effect, Davis emphasized to Admiral Nagano that the United States could not afford to sanction any material alteration in its naval strength as related to Great Britain and Japan.
With the withdrawal of the Japanese Delegation, the remaining delegates continued to negotiate. Early in February, a drafting committee was appointed, and by March 22, the Treaty had been drawn up and approved by the First Committee. A final plenary session of the Conference was held on March 25, and the text of the Treaty was signed on behalf of the United States, Great Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India. Since the Irish Free State and the Union of South Africa had no navies, their representatives decided to dispense with the signing of the Treaty. Italy refrained from signing on political grounds.
The London Treaty of 1936, unlike the 1930 Treaty and the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, provided for no quantitative limitation. Each nation was free to build as many vessels of the permitted types as desired, subject only to the provisions of Part III regarding advance notification and exchange of information. The caliber of capital ship guns was reduced from sixteen to fourteen inches. The treaty provided for a six year building holiday in heavy cruisers (those over 8,000 tons). In order to prevent the circumvention of the heavy cruiser holiday, a “zone of non-construction” of capital ships was written into the treaty. No capital ships could be built between the displacements of 8,000 and 17,500 tons. The displacement of aircraft carriers was reduced from 27,000 to 23,000 tons. A safeguarding or escalator clause was again inserted in the treaty to protect signatory nations against excessive building by non-signatory powers. The treaty was supposed to remain in effect until December 31, 1942.
Unlike the 1930 Treaty, little difficulty was experienced in the ratification of the London Naval Treaty of 1936. The United States Senate voted to ratify on May 18, 1936, after only two hours of debate. A bill for the ratification of the treaty was passed by both Houses of Parliament during the last week of July, 1937. On July 29, 1937, the instruments of ratification were deposited in the Foreign Office in London, and the treaty went into effect.
Earlier, in February, 1936, when President Roosevelt had been anxious to avoid a repetition of the fight to ratify the 1930 Treaty, he had suggested to the Delegation that the naval accord be drawn up in the form of an Executive Agreement. At all times, the President followed the naval negotiations with keen interest. In a letter written early in 1936, Mr. Roosevelt told Norman H. Davis, “I still worry about world affairs more than domestic problems which includes election.”
The rest of 1936 was marked by active preparations for naval expansion to commence at the expiration of the Washington and London Treaties. Even before the 1936 Conference had convened, Italy and France had begun the construction of 35,000-ton battleships. Italy and France were further alarmed by the rapid building of Nazi Germany in an attempt to reach the limit set by the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935. Great Britain and the United States both announced extensive building programs for the fiscal year 1937. Japan, meanwhile, was building steadily to attain the long cherished parity with the United States and Great Britain. Rumors abroad stated that the Soviet Union, after having greatly expanded its air and land forces under the Second Five Year Plan, proposed the construction of a large navy under the Third Five Year Plan. Even the smaller countries of Europe started to strengthen their defense systems. Canada and the Latin American countries did likewise.
Everywhere, rearmament appeared dominant in the treatyless period beyond December 31, 1936. More ominous was the gradual consolidation of Germany, Italy, and Japan into an aggressor bloc. The United States and Great Britain had begun to prepare a free world against a death struggle with totalitarianism.
In May, 1938, Congress passed the Vinson Naval Act. This provided for the expansion of a two-ocean navy during the ensuing ten years. The Act provided for a tonnage of 600,000 in capital ships, 412,500 in cruisers and 175,000 in aircraft carriers. In 1940, President Roosevelt requested additional funds for naval requirements, and Congress, stunned by the fall of France and the growing plight of Britain, passed the required legislation. From 1934 to 1940, the annual naval expenditures had progressively increased. By 1940, a figure in excess of $885,000,000 had been reached.
It is ironical that the pacifist movement responsible for naval limitation indirectly contributed to naval expansion. In retrospect, the London Treaty of 1930 was of utmost importance. If no treaty levels had existed, it is doubtful whether Congress, operating in the isolationist atmosphere after 1933, would have authorized the construction of so many vessels. The Roosevelt Administration, aided by the ominous international situation, was able to build up to the treaty levels in all categories. The 1938 and 1940 building programs were built upon the base provided by the London Naval Treaty of 1930. Provided in these programs were the Independence Class and the Essex Class aircraft carriers and the Iowa Class battleships. These and the other combat vessels authorized aided in achieving the American goal of a two-ocean navy more rapidly, because, by 1942, the London Treaty program was scheduled for completion. By acceleration, these vessels were launched and rendered invaluable service following Pearl Harbor.