In July 1939, the Secretary of War, Harry H. Woodring, out lined measures which had been taken to hasten accomplishment of the defence program advocated by President Roosevelt in his message to Congress on Jan. 12, 1939. The Secretary of War stated that completion of this program would not only place the Army in what could be termed a "position of readiness" for any eventuality, but would bring to full fruition the important air defence program initially instituted in 1933. As the result of Congressional action up to July 1939, there had been made avail able to the War Department for military expenditures during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1940, funds to the amount of approxi mately $961,000,000.
rihe Air Corps augmentation program called for an expenditure of approximately $300,000,000 and assured an air armada of 5,500 aeroplanes for the Army, this number to be exclusive of the aero plane strength of the Navy. During 1939-40 the enlisted strength of the Air Corps was to be more than doubled, and over a period of years, approximately 2,100 additional trained commissioned pilots were to be procured. Provision was also made for a material increase in the personnel strength and defensive installations of the Panama Canal Zone. Congress provided $27,000,000 for the expansion of the Panama Canal Zone ground garrisons and a total of $53,000,000 for augmentation of the defences of the Panama Canal, including air corps appropriations.
Approximately $110,000,000 was made available for the pro curement of critical items of equipment, mainly ordnance, re quired to prepare the Army for any emergency calls which might be made upon it. Contributing to this same purpose was an item of about $16,000,000 designated for the placing of so-called "edu cational orders" with industrial firms to lay the foundation for rapid procurement, in the event of emergency, of essential items of equipment of noncommercial nature.
Since the World War the military education system has been added to and perfected. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is a four-year course in which cadets receive, beside a gen eral education, theoretical and practical training as junior officers. The next schooling consists of a course in the Infantry, Field Artillery, Cavalry, Engineers, Air Corps, or other special service schools. The next available school is the Command and Gen eral Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., which trains its students to be general staff officers and to exercise command to include an army corps. The final school is the Army War College, Washington, D.C., where training is given in the higher branches of war. There is also in Washington an Army Industrial College to train officers in industrial mobilization.
The troops available for immediate service consisted on June 30, 1939 of the Regular Army of 13,039 officers, 775 warrant officers, and 174,079 enlisted men, including 6,367 Philippine Scouts, and the National Guard of 14,455 officers, 211 warrant officers, and 184,845 enlisted men. There were available on the same date 104,
575 Reserve officers with limited training who could be called immediately to furnish the cadre for either volunteers or men chosen by the draft, in either case, untrained civilians. There were 161,938 students in R.O.T.C. in 274 educational institutions. In the summer of 1939 there were trained 35,000 C.M.T.C. en rollees. As the boys and young men of these two forces assume no obligation for service, they are not available, in case of war, under a volunteer system. The graduates, however, furnish a consider able number of reserve officers in the grade of second lieutenant.
The Congressional appropriations for the War Department in clude, each year, a large sum for non-military activities, such as river and harbour improvement and operation of the Panama Canal. These make up from 25% to 33% of the total appropria tions. In April 1933, the Regular Army medically examined, clothed, equipped, transported, fed, and encamped the first units of the Civilian Conservation Corps. From then until June 30, 1939 the Army handled 3,018,184 in this corps. On June 30, 1939 there were 233,439 enrollees handled by 115 Regular Army officers, Army Reserve officers, 164 Naval and Marine Corps Reserve officers and 6o warrant officers of the Coast Guard. The maximum number of camps in operation within the year was 1,500. (X.) The present United States navy was preceded by several pro vincial navies and a Continental navy which had their origin in the Revolutionary War. When the colonists besieged Boston the British Government sent supplies to convert the garrison into a field army. This mobilization brought many transports from England to the American coast without adequate naval pro tection, and in September, 1775, Washington commissioned seven ships of war and filled his own needs with stores captured from the British. The most important prize was an ammunition ship which enabled him to compel the evacuation of Boston. The following summer, General Arnold retreating from his repulse at Quebec built a flotilla on Lake Champlain with which he de layed the advance of the British army into New York until work men could be summoned from Canada to outbuild navy. This was then destroyed, but the delay thus incurred caused the British invasion to be postponed till the following year, 1777, and by that time the conditions in New York had so changed that the British force from. Canada surrendered at Saratoga. This cam paign on the lake was in effect the most important American naval incident of the war.