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In the early part of the 20th century, the most important event for the Navy was World War I (1914–1918). The Navy did not actually fight against enemy naval forces, but in 1916, the U.S. government began a massive naval-building program, which resulted in the Navy expanding to eight times its pre-war strength. Using its new fleet of transport ships, it carried more than two million U.S. troops to France when the United States officially joined the war in 1917. World War I ended, however, with many nations questioning the value of battleships after witnessing the lethal power of German U-boats, or submarines. Indeed, the U.S. Navy decided to concentrate on building smaller, faster ships, like destroyers. In 1922, the aircraft carrier Langley was launched, the first of a type of ship that was soon to dominate the future. In 1941, the United States entered World War II (1939–1945). The Navy was already one of the biggest in the world, after huge redevelopment efforts in the 1930s aimed at making it operational in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. During the war itself, U.S. industry and technology created a navy that was bigger than all other Allied navies combined. Its major job in the European theater was protecting Atlantic supply convoys from German subma- rines, a battle it seemed to be losing for the first two years of the war before new technology and tactics eventually gave it the edge. In the Pacific, the Navy fought pitched battles with the Japanese navy, both sides relying heavily on the aircraft carrier as their main offensive weapon. At the battles of Midway, Solomon Islands, Philippine Sea, and Leyte Gulf, the Japanese navy was almost entirely destroyed by the tactically and technologically superior U.S. forces. One role the Navy performed in all theaters was assisting amphibious landings. U.S. boats formed a large part of the armada of 6,000 craft that landed the Allies on D-Day, June 6, 1944. In the Pacific, the Navy took U.S. Marine and Army units “island hopping” as they cleared the region of Japanese forces. The Navy’s ability to transport thousands of soldiers across the world’s oceans was a key factor in the Allied victory in World War II.

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