fleet auxiliaries. There were few morale problems, and discipline was “uniformly good.” The venereal disease rate was high, about 120 cases per 1,000 men, roughly double the Pacific norm, due to frequent visits to West Indian ports. On balance, and allowing for the difficult conditions in which they served, Admiral Johnson was pleased with his men, observing, “The morale and efficiency of the bluejackets. . . is of the highest quality and is satisfactory in every way.”9
In the thirties, Congress carefully watched over the Navy, making certain that new installations were located in appropriate districts and repair work was evenly shared by Depression-ridden cities.b The East Coast wanted the extra income that a large fleet could provide, and in 1937 the Adequate Coast Defense Association was founded in Norfolk under the motto, “A Battle Fleet for the Atlantic Coast.” It was argued that it would take three weeks for the Fleet to reach the East Coast from the Pacific in a sudden emergency, more than forty days if the Panama Canal could not be used. The movement gained converts because of the Navy’s obvious weakness in the Atlantic as international affairs in Europe grew more ominous. That winter H.R. 8819 was introduced in Congress; it directed the President to establish a “permanent” fleet that should “in all peacetime be maintained on the Atlantic Coast.” The bill also prescribed a minimum strength for the fleet in each category of ships and aircraft.10 Clearly unconstitutional because it infringed the President’s prerogative as Commander-in-Chief to dispose the nation’s armed forces, H.R. 8819 did not pass; but it placed Franklin Roosevelt in the happy position of being prodded and pressed to do what he had planned to do anyway.
American naval planning in the thirties was not unduly complex. As a result of a decade and a half of isolationist and pacifist sentiment, the planners shunned alliances and expeditionary forces as unthinkable, lending an artificial quality to their efforts. They were chiefly concerned with the danger of a Pacific War with Japan, a formidable naval power, and neglected Europe and the Atlantic. America’s basic war plan envisaged a conflict in one ocean against a single power, an uncomplicated contingency requiring a simple response, a long naval thrust across the Pacific to secure bases from which to defeat the Japanese main fleet in a decisive engagement in the central Pacific. However, by the late thirties, these inchoate arrangements were soon rendered obsolete by a forced march of untoward events; the increasing aggressiveness of Germany raised the spectre of a war in Europe, which in turn would pose grave problems of hemispheric defense. In Latin America, endemic poverty and an unstable political tradition offered favorable conditions for a German-nurtured military putsch, and the events of the Spanish Civil War seemed to underscore Hitler’s willingness to forcibly export Fascism. The United States required a more flexible strategy, one that provided for the possibility of a complex, two-ocean war against a coalition of hostile powers; and in the winter of 1937-1938, the Army-Navy Joint Board began to plan for “readiness for action in both oceans.”
American strategic planning in the next two years took increasing account of the possibility of simultaneous Japanese and Axis aggression in both oceans, and the nation’s basic war plan, Plan Orange, was modified and then replaced by five contingency plans, Rainbows I-V. Since American strategic interests in Europe—primarily, control over the Atlantic approaches to the Americas—seemed adequately safeguarded by the Royal Navy and the French Army, much of the Rainbow planning was focused on the Pacific and on problems of hemispheric defense. Although Rainbow V did provide for a strategic defensive in the Pacific and an offensive in the Atlantic in concert with the Allies, service planners devoted much of their time and attention to the details of Rainbow II, which seemed most relevant to existing world conditions. Rainbow II provided for the projection of American forces into the western Pacific, with but “limited participation of U.S. forces in Continental Europe and the Atlantic”; Britain and France would handle most of the European-Atlantic operations.11
Meanwhile, in the spring of 1938, in order to test the implications of the new Atlantic ingredient in American strategy, President Roosevelt had decided that the U.S. Fleet should visit the East Coast the following winter and that the annual Fleet Problem, which had invariably taken place in the Pacific, should be conducted in the Caribbean early in 1939. The Fleet’s presence in the Atlantic could be ascribed to ceremonies related to the opening of the New York World’s Fair. For once, a Flower Show proved useful.12
That fall, 1938, in anticipation of the Munich Agreement, which Roosevelt thought shameful,c the President directed Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Naval Operations, to speed up the reconditioning of the World War I destroyers reposing in “red lead” rows at Philadelphia and San Diego. After inquiring into the status of new construction on the East Coast, the President then ordered the formation of a temporary squadron of new cruisers in the Atlantic. He made it clear that these ships were to function independently of Training Detachment; they were to constitute a separate task force reserved for operational use. The task force was to be given an identity of its own: the Atlantic Squadron.13
The Atlantic Squadron was born on 6 September 1938. It was allotted fourteen new ships, and its mission was to serve as a task force strong enough to “discover and to turn back a sudden raid into the Caribbean” pending reinforcements from the Pacific. Three of its cruisers were to be held in readiness to show the flag in Latin America. The Squadron consisted of Cruiser Division 9 (the light cruisers Boise, Honolulu, and Phoenix), Cruiser Division 8 (the quick-firing, 10,000-ton light cruisers Philadelphia, Savannah, Brooklyn, and Nashville, which were favorites of the President), and the destroyers Sampson, Somers, Warrington, Ralph Talbot, Mugford, Helm, and Shaw.14 Since 1932 all new construction ships had been sent to the Pacific as a matter of routine, so Rear Admiral Sherwoode A. Taffinder, Director of the Ship Movements Division, wrote one of the cruiser commanders to explain his surprising assignment and perhaps to assure him that a command in the Atlantic was not evidence of official disfavor: “. . . the function of the Atlantic Squadron . . . is evidently a gesture aimed at political conditions abroad. The President personally directed the formation of the Squadron.”15
But Rear Admiral Johnson was vexed to discover the sudden appearance of an independent task force in his domain, especially as command of the Squadron, now the key post in the Atlantic, had been given to an officer junior to him, Rear Admiral Ford A. Todd, of CruDiv 8. Admiral Leahy coolly, if untruthfully, had to explain that the oversight was due to the speedy nature of the President’s decision. Roosevelt then agreed to honor the mandate of seniority, and on 10 October, the old battleships and destroyers of Training Detachment became part of the Atlantic Squadron commanded by Rear Admiral Alfred W. Johnson. While Johnson lacked the youth and fire that the President relished, he knew his ships and was not indifferent to progressive techniques of naval warfare.16 He would do.
Fleet Problem XX was slated for the Caribbean, and the Squadron was to participate. The ugly ducklings of Training Detachment had become part of a fighting command at last. It was a good feeling.
a New Bedford’s seafarers turned out 5,000 strong one day to see the Leary; in comparison, New York City had produced a maximum crowd of 3,000 to see the Texas a few weeks before.
b Congressman Donald O’Toole thought the Brooklyn Navy Yard should get more repair work because New York City contributed “more financially to the support of the Navy in the way of taxation” than other coastal regions.
c At the time of Munich, FDR was prepared to impound German ships in U.S. ports for Allied use.
3. A Mirror to War: Fleet Problem XX
IN KEEPING WITH THE NEW TREND of strategic thought, Fleet Problem XX was to be a comparatively realistic exercise in hemispheric defense. Its basic assumptions were these: A Fascist-led revolt had taken place in a friendly South American nation, Green (Brazil). While the United States (Black) tried to rally support for the legitimate government of Green, the rebels, fearing American
