[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by irish1958

That is quite true; all admirals wanted more of everything and they had to make do with what was available. The war dept stripped the Pacific fleet of most of their destroyers and sent them to the British. Because of Republican resistance in the Congress, no effort to gear up for war occurred before 1942 and decisions to concentrate on building the Army (and Marines), the Pacific fleet, and the Manhattan project took precedence.
However, the Navy department did nothing to limit merchant losses until 1943.
No coastal blackouts, no air patrols, no arming of merchant vessels, no formation of convoys to make use of the limited resources, no effort to seek out and eliminate the milk cow supply subs, without which the patrols to the East and Gulf coasts of the USA would be severely limited or impossible.
Admiral King was responsible for all of the above omissions.

Sadly, that was the case