US. BUILDING

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 40, 17 February 1942, Page 6

US. BUILDING

FOR SEA SUPREMACY

SIXTH BATTLESHIP LAUNCHED

LONDON, February 14. Evidence of the increasingly strong role which the United States will play at sea was given today at the launching of the 35,000-ton battleship Alabama at Portsmouth, Virginia, the sixth vessel of the defence programme, nine months ahead of schedule. Colonel Frank Knox. Secretary of the United States Navy, revealed that by the use of welding and other means it had been possible to decrease the Alabama's structural weight and thus add considerably to her capacity for guns, armour, and ammunition. As soon as the keel of the Alabama struck the water the keel of ihe 45,000-ton battleship Kentucky was laid. "Today we know beyond doubt that the burden on our navy is the greatest it has ever had to bear,"- said Colonel Knox. "We must protect our shores an' our coastal commerce. We must protect those strategic areas vital to our defences—Hawaii, the - Panama Canal, and the Caribbean Sea. "We must defend .our good neighbours to the south. We must protect the flow of supplies to Britain," that citadel of freedom. We must check as best we can the surging flow of Japariese aggression in the Antipodes Until we can muster oUr forces to send the Japanese back whence they came. "Ships will pour from our yards in ever-increasing quantities* • ships- that will bring us supremacy of the seas, ships that will bring us victory.",