But it took another year for Congress to get the message. Only as the German offensive on the far shores of the Atlantic intensified did the nation's legislators eventually realize that it would be impossible for the United States to immunize itself the virus of Nazism merely by averting its gaze. In the last days of May 1040 they finally agreed to pour resources into the defence of the nation, appropriating even more than the billions of dollars the president had requested for the purpose. The standing army was to be expanded fourfold, from 280,000 to 1,200,000 men and the National Guard was to be fully at Roosevelt's disposal, and 16 million civilians were soon to be conscripted; America's industrial complex would be cranked up to deliver a throughput of 50,000 aeroplanes; and the shipyards would begin a crash programme to provide the navy with 9 new battleships, 31 cruisers and 181 destroyers. 'The problem', as historian Waldo Heinrichs noted, 'was no longer money but time and capacity.' From the French and British perspective, he might have added, it was also that, in the collective mind of the American people, these programmes were intended only for the defence of the United States, not to prop up a disintegrating Europe.I could comment on his starting a paragraph with "But", but as I am in the habit of at least so starting sentences maybe I should give that a pass...
I would like to focus on the naval building program. The Two Ocean Navy Act to which this paragraph presumably refers included 7 battleships and 6 Alaska class large cruisers. None of the battleships (the last two Iowas and the five Montanas) were completed and only two of the large cruisers. So to what does "new battleships" refer? I suppose it could refer to the new battleships which enter service after the act, but they were not ordered as part of the naval expansion program being discussed, and there were 10 of them anyway, 12 if we include the two completed Alaskas. I can make a total of 9 battleships if I take the 7 authorised as a result of the Two Ocean Navy Act and add in the second pair of Iowas already authorised but started at the same time as the third pair authorised under the act.
In some sense worse is the 18 carriers (Essex class) authorised by the act and passed over in silence by Dimbleby.
I will not bother to analyse the possible meaning of the remaining
numbers, I'm sure they will not add up however I chop the numbers. The numbers
should either be those authorised in the June 1940 acts, or the war production
subsequent to the acts. I don't like the idea that they include ships already
authorised, but if they do at least the numbers should add up.
