The U.S. Navy

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 6th Year

Issue

Issue No.

4

Date Released

Sep 1940

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1The U.S. Navy

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: The March of Time brings to the screen a thorough survey of the present status of the American Navy, showing how it will be developed and expanded under that nation’s huge new national defence programme.

Featured in the film are several scenes of the now historic Washington Naval Disarmament Conference of 1922, which resulted in the scrapping of more than half a million tons of U.S. warships, including unfinished cruisers and dreadnoughts that had already cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The work of rebuilding the U.S. Navy was begun nine years ago, when Japan’s invasion of China led off the long parade of international aggression culminating in the current second World War. For more than a decade the drastically reduced Navy had been regarded by American citizens merely as a symbol of glamorous extravagance, but now for the construction of 130 new ships and general maintenance the American people must pay many billions of dollars more. No more important task faces American Naval officers today than the enlistment and training of sailors and marines. It is estimated that a minimum of 200,000 men will be required to man the new ships and stations which were planned long before the present war reached its present situation. Every young citizen who enters the Navy has months of specialised training before he goes to sea as an apprentice. Congress has authorised a Naval Reserve of 56,000 officers and men to meet today’s emergency. Also at many universities Reserve Officers Training Corps units, commanded by handpicked regualr officers are giving thousands of undergraduates the fundamentals of a naval education. Those cadets who complete the four-year naval R.O.T.C. course get commissions as ensigns in the U.S. Naval Reserve.

Since Japan’s invasion of China in 1931, the U.S. Navy has been called upon again and again to perfom vital and dangerous duties. The film pictures many of the commissions that the men of the Navy and the Marines had to carry out in China, such as transporting refugees to places of safety, and includes scenes of the sinking of the American ship, "Panay". But number one key to the defence strategy of the American hemisphere is the 51-mile Panama Canal. Today no spot in the world is more closely guarded. For if the locks were attacked and rendered useless, the U.S. Navy might be stranded in one ocean, leaving the other ocean defenceless to the enemy. Congress has authorised the building of another set of locks, to be as bombproof as science can make them, but engineers acknowledge that these cannot be completed before 1946. The air arm of the U.S. Navy is to be expanded to ten thousand planes and sixteen thousand officer pilots. Most formidable naval air weapon is the long-range patrol bomber which can operate thousands of miles off-shore. Also about 500 Navy planes operate with the fleet from the six aircraf carriers, known throughout the service as the "covered wagons". In times of national emergency an important auxilliary is the nation’s "little navy", the U.S. Coast Guard, whose seagoing Coast Guard cutters now on neutrality patrol could be available immediately as gunboats or convoy ships in the case of war. The whole coast line is dotted with Coast Guard air stations. The Fleet Marine Force also is in immediate readiness at all times to embark for active service with the Navy. Today men of the U.S. Fleet know that many months and years must pass before the new government appropriations can be turned into fighting ships and fighting planes, but they are confident that already guarding America’s ramparts on the seas there stands in the way of any enemy, a formidable foe - rich in spirit and tradition. And the tradition is not of defensive but offensive war - the only kind the U.S. Navy has been trained to fight.

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.6 No.11 of the US edition.

Keywords

Navy

Written sources

Documentary News Letter   Vol.1 No.9 September 1940, p13.
Fielding, Raymond. The March of Time 1935-1951 (New York, 1978)   p266.
The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.