In early November 1945, about six weeks after the surrender signing aboard USS Missouri, Congress outlined the first demobilization plan for the US Navy. When the Japanese emperor made his surrender announcement in August 1945, the total manpower of the US Navy hovered around 3,000,000 plus another 400,000 non-active reservists, female WAVEs, and recruits still in training. There couldn’t be warships still on duty without a crew, but, demobilization couldn’t be held up either. The post-WWII mothballing effort was a juggling act between the need to get men back to civilian life, and the need for their services to lay up the fleet. Senator David Walsh (D-MA), an expert on naval affairs, calculated in September 1945 that this would require total manning of 500,000 men. Using a very broad brush and not differentiating between types and classes, it recommended retaining 30% of it’s ships on active duty, placing 50% into mothballs, and scrapping 20%. In September 1945, immediately following the end of WWII, the US Navy put forth it’s first draft of what the peacetime fleet would look like. (The Suisun Bay, CA facility packed full of mothballed warships after WWII.) These warships had been in reserve for 14 years and show the characteristic “igloos”.) (official US Navy photo) (WWII Cruisers USS Huntington (CL-107), USS Dayton (CL-105), and battleship USS South Dakota (BB-57) in mothballs at Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility Philadelphia, PA in August 1961. What followed was the largest warship preservation effort in history. The US Navy at the end of WWII was the largest on the planet, and would be unaffordable at that size in peacetime.
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