GIGANTIC FLEET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 29, 4 February 1935, Page 5

GIGANTIC FLEET.

U.S. NAVY CRUISES. IN THE PACIFIC IN MAY. 177 SHIPS AND 577 'PLANES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN PEDRO (California), January 2. The North Pacific Ocean from May 3 to June 10, ]i):i.3, will be a theatre for the most gigantic mock naval battle ever staged on the face of the globe. Admiral Joseph M. Reeves, eommander-in-chief of the United States fleet, announced, plans for the annual summer manoeuvres of the U.S. navy, a project that will assemble the mightiest armada ever concentrated in peace time under one command. By a coincidence, his announcement came the day before representatives of the Japanese Government formally notified the United States of Japan's renunciation of the Washington naval treaty. The fleet will comprise 177 surface craft, 577 aeroplanes of tJie high ceas area force and the dirigible Macon. The total complement will be approximately 55,000 officers and - men. The surface ships will include fourteen battleships, among them the recently modernised Idaho, Mississippi and New Mexico, four aeroplane carriers, nine light cruisers, 32 submarines and 30 auxiliary craft. Mobilised in three Pacific Coast areas in ' April—the Los Ange'cs-San Diego. San Francisco and Puget Sound districts —the fleet will engage in gunnery practice before Ibe manoeuvres, and on May 3 will sail into the Pacific to manoeuvre on a "field" of 5.000,000 square miles. It will be bounded on the north by the Aleutian Islands, on the south by the Tropic of Cancer, on the east by the mainland of the United States, and on the west by Midway Island. 1200 miles ivest of Honolulu. The main force will head for Pearl Harbour, Honolulu, and a northern wing will disappear into the fogs and storms of the lonely Aleutian Islands. Separating at Pearl Harbour, another powerful unit of the fleet will continue westward to Midway Island. With these three

points as apexes of a triangle 5,000,000 miles in area, the different aggregations will start their tactics. The salient point in the plans is tnvastly increased scope of the fleet's aif forces. Eighty-five giant long-distance reconnaissance 'planes will be placed under command of Rear-Admiral Alfred W. Johnson. Their duties, accord) ig to plans of the Navy high command, will assume much greater importance than ever before in the history of the fleet.