SEA SUPREMACY PASSES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 237, 5 September 1945, Page 5

SEA SUPREMACY PASSES

AMERICA'S NAVAL LEAD

LONDON, Sept. 4. "The sea supremacy traditional to the British people has at last passed elsewhere," says the naval correspondent of the Sunday Times* "The numerical lead of the American over the British Fleet is now too long to be overtaken and Britain can no longer compete with America on the sea."

Discussing the size of Britain's postwar fleet, the correspondent says the problem is a "major naval issue." Hitherto, there had always been a standard at hand on which to propose her naval strength—the essential defensive requirements for trade protection. More important, however, was ■ the size of the fleet maintained by Britain's most likely enemies. Whereas there were once formidable fleets possessed by America, Japan, Germany. France, Italy and. Russia, with Britain the most 'powerful, there _ is now only one fleet of any great importance' left apart from Britain's, and thnt- i"« . tb> fle<>t of her plly America, The other* have been either destroyed or outmoded.