The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-03-25
No. Continued From
Page One.

chief Of operations. to Secretary Danfe1
it was pointed out that should the six
dreadnaughts having 14-inch guns ex-
pend their supply of shells in battle
there would not be enough in reserve
to refill their magazines and none for
three more dreadnaughts then nearing
completion.
Without shells for guns battleships
are worthless the letter said. "They
not only cannot defend themselves but
cannot fight to save the country.
Ten days later Captain Laning testi-
fled, this letter was handed back to
him, "to see if there is any change in
the situation. No contracts for shells
had been placed he declared. Later
he said, the shells We're ordered.
That the lack of a general plan to
carry on the war in the beginning cost
huge sum- of money was indicated,
Captain Laning said by a conversation
he had with Paymaster General Nc
Gowan two months after the armistice
was signed At that time, he testified,
Rear Admiral MCGOWAN said:
"Do you remember the plan you tried
to put through at the outbreak of the
war that provided for handling emer-
/ wouldn't approve? God, man, if he
only had done it. The way things
have gone we find after charging off
everything we could to other appro-
priations we have over expended the
emergency fund by about s165. 900, 600"
Later congress authorized transfers
from other appropriations to make up
the over-expenditures Captain Laning
said.
Captain Laning was cross examined
by Senator TrammeIl, Democrat, Flori-
da, who read a letter written by Cap
tain Laning to Rear Admiral Sims on
August IS, 1918, apparently in answer
to criticisms of the department made
by the admiral.
81 am not convinced" wrote Captain
Laning, that operations has erred in
its general plans or that my office
(navigation) has erred greatly in
carrying out it's mission under them.
The problem as it seems to us was
not to deliver a puny and futile blow
at the start, but to build for blows
that in the end must crush the enemy.
To have wasted our strength to strike
quickly when that strength was not
sufficient to win would have been
foolish. We would have sacrificed all
and in the end could have been only
worse off than at the start. our
mission was and is to decisively beat
the enemy. Even you yourself ques
toned the advisability of keeping our
battleships in commission and suggest
putting them out to send the personnel
over there, To have done that would
have been disastrous, as these battle
ships have trained over a hundred
thousand men and thousands of Of
ficers, which we would not have now,
had we carried out the suggestion.
we recognize the Importance of the
work against the U beats. but we did
| not thfqk that their extinction could
alone win the war. As early as June
| 1 last year it became known on this
side that no a.a-+e- how much we
/ curtailed the u boats the war would
be lost if we did not get troops to
| France.
Hasn't it turned out that making
your force 60 and making the trans
| port and cruiser force go, were the
allied salvation? Those troops OF ours
are saving the day and / believe it
would be unfair to put blame on the
| department for putting them across in
| stead of sending the personnel to chase
| submarines.
Over there you give us the devil
| because we don't do all you want us
| to do. You feel we are failing. Does
| it help the morale over there or over
| here TO do that?