Several years ago the late Admiral Moffet said that "A second best Navy is no
better than a second best poker hand".

POST WAR NAVAL STRENGTH:

Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King recently made an important declaration of
naval post war policy in an address in New York to members of the Academy of
Political Science and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Admiral King
advised the nation not to squander or barter the naval greatness that we
have achieved "for the moment." He declared that the United States must insist
on a Navy constantly kept modernized, so that it would always be ahead of possible
aggressors.

He stated unequivocally that this country must keep a large navy in post
war years and retain permanent possession of our newly won Pacific island bases.
Thus would America be safe from future aggressors. The penalty for failure to
maintain both a Navy and bases raised the question, said Admiral King: "How long
can the United States afford to continue the cycle--the cycle of fighting and
building and winning and giving away, only to fight again and give away again."

"Rich as we are," he said, "we do not have the physical and human resources
to dissipate our patrimony in this manner, generation after generation."

Admiral King declared that we shall never permit our naval power to be
squandered or bartered er if our people realized what this would mean in terms
of America's future.

"Hence our sea power should be maintained," he stated, "and furthermore, it
should be dedicated, in both war and peace alike, to promote the security and
well being of our people and the peaceful stabilization of an improving world
organization.

"We who have gone through this war have paid the penalty of forgetting the
lessons of the years between the wars. This time we shall win the victory in
spite of our past mistakes. But next time the penalty of forgetting these lessons
may be the loss of America and liberty.

"If we give up our Pacific bases now, the time may come," continued Admiral
King, “when we will have to fight to win them back. These atolls and these
island harbors will have been paid for by the sacrifice of American blood. They
will have been Scooped out of sand and rock and coral and volcanic ash by Americans,
who gave their service, ingenuity and money."

WE INVADED OKINAWA IN 1853:

This is not the first time the Navy has invaded Okinawa. Commodore Matthew
Ce Perry, U.S.N., did it in 1853, under somewwhat different circumstancese But
that invasion, unlike this one, was more or less incidental, a small act as
it were, in a greater drama of the Commodore's opening of the Japanese mainland.
to American trade.

NAVY V-12 COLLEGE UNITS:

All Navy V-12 college units will remain in operation for the term July 1 to
Nove 1, 1945, and establishment of additional Naval Reserve officers' training
corps units will be postponed.

The expanded NROTC program is planned to permit transfer of V-12 officers candi-
dates so that they may complete a full eight-term course in college, and the
postponement in the establishment of additional NROTC units will have no effect
on the general principles of this plan.