Washington Navy
Treaty Expires

Two Battleships Added to the U.S. Navy
The Literary Digest, 1936

The attached page from a 1936 LITERARY DIGEST reported on additions that were made to the U.S. Navy:

"At midnight, December 31, the Naval Limitations Treaty of 1930 will expire and, tho a treaty of a sort was negotiated last April, apparently it will not be ratified and put into effect by the end of the year."

With this in mind, Congress authorized the construction of two battleships at the cost of $50,000,000 each.

"And is it worth it, in these days of fleet and deadly torpedo planes or great diving bombers clutching demolition bombs weighing a ton apiece? Naval experts think so. The Battleship, they say, is still the backbone of the battle-fleet. In the phrase of the street, the battleship can dish it out."

The Navy would soon learn that they were actually living in the age of the aircraft carrier.

Click here to read more about the expansion of the U.S. Navy.

Click here to read another article about the pre-WW II expansion of the world's Naval power.