HUGE INCREASE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1942, Page 3

HUGE INCREASE

LN THE AMERICAN NAVY STRENGTH TO BE DOUBLED. MORE AIRCRAFT-CARRIERS TO BE BUILT. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, June 16. The American Navy is to be doubled in size, at a cost of £2,000,000,006. This vote was approved in Washington today by the House of Representatives Navy Committee. The new programme provides for a great increase in the number of air-craft-carriers. Plans for huge new battleships have been deferred. GIANT WIDE AWAKE GROWTH OF AMERICAN STRENGTH. WASHINGTON, June 15. The British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, in a statement, said: “The American people are developing their giant strength on a scale and with speed which is truly staggering. Every hour of the day brings nearer the time of liberation. The American giant is now truly wide awake. “Already the shattering of their industries and munition factories by the R.A.F. has given our enemies a foretaste of what is coming. The enemy does not know when and where he will be attacked. He may struggle to delay the day, but he cannot hope to prevent it. Our forces are swiftly and steadily assembling. It is not the enemy but the United Nations who will set the time and the place.” CHANGE IN POLICY SOME BATTLESHIPS ABANDONED. IN FAVOUR OF PLANE CARRIERS. (Received This Day, 10.35 a.m.) WASHINGTON, June 16. Senators Allender and Brewster, members of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, told the Press that the Navy had decided to abandon the construction of five huge battleships and that cruisers now under way were being converted into aircraft-carriers. The new decision will not interfere with the completion of several battleships due to be launched within the next few months. The loss of the Repulse and the Prince of Wales, coupled jwith the results of the Coral Sea and Midway battles, proved the turning point in changing the construction policy from battleships to aircraftcarriers.