Unrestricted Submarine Warfare attacks by kamikaze, which sank many warships and damaged over 200 Such desperate tactics could not match the astonishing Allied material advantage built up over three years of war or forestall the Navy delivering vast quantities of men and war matériel right to the shores of Japan For example, U.S Navy air strength alone was 41,272 aircraft by August 15, 1945, when Japan surrendered For the final invasions of Japan planned as Operation DOWNFALL, the Navy assembled 26 fleet carriers, 64 escort carriers, and 14,000 combat aircraft, supported by an armada of surface warships that exceeded 1,500 at Okinawa That extraordinary effort was supported by a vast logistical system, with help from the USAAF Air Transport Command that quickly moved supplies and personnel by air while the Navy’s Fleet Train moved vaster quantities more slowly by sea It should not be forgotten that behind the ships and crews of the Navy that saw active combat, enormous service was done by many thousands of uniformed personnel in noncombat roles in intelligence, cryptanalysis, communications, and logistics Less happily, the U.S Navy had long employed black sailors solely in menial positions This baleful practice continued for most blacks in the Navy throughout World War II, despite the fact that whenever a ship or naval shore command was under attack skin pigmentation suddenly ceased to make a difference to anyone involved In December 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order #9279 forcing all branches of the U.S military to end racial recruitment restrictions That did not end Navy discrimination, however The Navy as a whole was recalcitrant right to the end of the war Its auxiliary women’s association was especially discriminatory, beyond that experienced by other services See various naval battles and campaigns See also African Americans; Aleutian Islands; balloons; Bucket Brigade; Doolittle raid; Turner, Richard; Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service ( WAVES) Suggested Reading: Thomas Hone and Trent Hone, Battle Line: The U.S Navy, 1919–1939 (2006 ); see also selected passages and volumes in the magisterial official history by Samuel E Morrison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, 15 vols (1947–1962) UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE All-out submarine warfare by Germany famously and nearly brought the United States into World War I in 1915, and in fact forced its belligerency in 1917 It also very nearly crippled Great Britain Those related facts set up an essential tension in German naval thinking between the world wars that was not fully resolved in favor of all-out combat until U.S entry into the war By that time, the Kriegsmarine had lost the Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945) in terms of its own metric of tonnage sunk per day On the other side, no amendments were made to established rules of cruiser warfare between the world wars, partly because the British thought they had ensured an end to the German U-boat arm under terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the surrender of over 200 U-boats in 1918 London later vitiated its naval interests by agreeing to the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935, an error not saved by the merely symbolic bandage of the London Submarine Agreement of 1936, which 1128