I can best stress the importance of the U.S. Navy to the American people when I state that without sea power on our side the United States would neve… - Ernest King

SUSPEND ALL OFFENSIVE ACTION. REMAIN ALERT.

It is no easy matter in a global war to have the right materials in the right places at the right times in the right quantities.

Never before in the history of war had there been a more convincing example of the effectiveness of sea power than when a well-armed, highly efficient and undefeated army of over a million men surrendered their homeland unconditionally to the invader without even token resistance. True, the devastation already wrought by past bombings, as well as the terrible demonstration of power by the first atomic bombs, augured nothing less for the Japanese than total extinction; yet without sea power there would have been no possession of Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa from which to launch these bombings. True, the Japanese homeland might have been taken by assault in one final amphibious operation of tremendous magnitude, yet without sea power such an assault could not have been attempted.