Every opportunity should be used to encourage men to keep their service records clear, thus making themselves eligible for the rewards that follow. It is a human desire to prove worth of the expectations of one's family, officers, and fellow men, and the importance of this appeal should not be overlooked. Many men committing acts necessitating general courts martial trial have not weighed for themselves the eventual results of the punishment on their own lives or the effect on their family.

Among offenses most frequently requiring trial by general courts martial, confinement and a bad conduct discharge are "absent over leave" and "absence without leave." Punishment for these and other general courts martial offenses does not end when the convicted man comes out of prison. Where such confinement is followed by a bad conduct or dishonorable discharge, the man so discharged should not elude himself by thinking his punishment has ended and that he still has a competitive opportunity in civil life equal to others of similar age, education, and training. The commercial world generally has learned from years of experience that an honorable discharge and the good service record it evidences is a recommendation on which it may rely. The business world has also learned that if the United States navy has evidence, by any form of unsatisfactory discharge, inability to utilize the man's services and risks which are not desirable. There are few openings in civil life for the man who has violated his obligation to his country at war by acts necessitating imprisonment and a disciplinary discharge. The confinement imposed by the court may be measured in months and years - but the stigma remains. No matter how clever the attempt, the record cannot be concealed for any length of time.

Since few crimes are more serious than desertion in time of war, men should not be permitted to lose sight of the consequences of desertion. The law provides that every person who deserts from naval service in time of war, and is convicted of desertion, it not only deemed to have voluntarily relinquished and forfeited his Federal citizenship rights but is also forever incapable of holding any office of trust or profit in the United States, or of exercising any rights of a citizen thereof. Such men can not be reenlisted in the naval service. Even a Presidential pardon does not remove the disqualification.

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Oct. 3rd, 1943
"Memorandum for all Hands"
by L. W. Busbey Jr., Captain

The ship will be in San Francisco for several days, during which period the maximum amount of liberty will be granted consistent with the S.O.P.A. instructions and the proper security of the ship. The visit will not be over long and some will feel that they could do with more liberty than can be given, but I consider that we are very fortunate to have the visit at all and should regard it in the light of a happy break.

This ship bears a proud name throughout the fleet which it won in battle, and it is my desire that you uphold this reputation under the stress of good times as well as you did when the going was tough. We have the opportunity before us to add one more "flirts" to the ship's already long line of "firsts", and I'm banking on you to put it across; by seeing that we have not one single absentee at the time of sailing.

The proof of the fighting man does not rest entirely upon his ability to carryon on during battle, but is in a large part dependent upon his ability to cheerfully meet the exacting conditions of wartime cruising and lack of regular leave and liberty periods. In other words, brave as he may be personally, the man who is absent from his station when the ship goes to sea is no better to that ship than the most craven coward.

I am very proud of this ship and its crew, for I know that there is none better in the fleet. I feel confident that I can depend on all of you to see that we sail from San Francisco with every man at his station and ready to fight.

Have good time.

Nov. 14th, 1943
Captain's memorandum No. 2-43
We are going to a War Zone -- the life of the ship depends upon each man in the ship doing his particular job and more too. Caressness might not only lose you your life, but those of your shipmates. A light after dark, a carelessly set water tight fitting, a dozing lookout, a bum set of phones, a hole in a fire hose; these and many others may cost you your life. Spot them - correct them - protect yourself and othes and help this ship to keep her name and reputation. She's a fighting ship because she carries fighting men, each of whom does his part full time.

L. W. Busbey, Jr., Captain, USN

"Your Navy" --- Spearhead of Victory" was the official slogan for Navy Day this year. Navy Day was first sponsored by the Navy League of the United States, which sought to establish at least one day in the year when the citizens of the country would turn their thoughts in a special way to what their Navy means to them. October 27 was selected as Navy Day because it is the anniversary of the birth of Theodore Roosevelt, so much of whose public life was devoted to establishing a sound naval policy for the United States. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and finally as President, Theodore Roosevelt bent his tremendous energies to impress upon the American people the necessity for an adequate Navy.

October 27th is also the birthday of the American Navy, because on that day in 1775 the first resolution to authorize American warships was introduced into the Continental Congress, which measure passed three days later.
Navy Day was first celebrated in 1922, and since then has met with general approval as an appropriate occasion for civilians to become better acquainted with the naval service. With the United States at war, more significance than ever is attached to Navy Day.

THEN...Those were dark days. The backbone of the fleet seemed broken along battleship row at Ford Island. Ships were undermanned, and lacked proper anti-aircraft weapons. You had no air bases in the South Pacific, nor were sufficient carriers, from which to cover the movement of the ships you sailed and ships alone almost helpless. The Philippines were lost. Singapore fell. Wake and Guam were taken. The Japs landed on Attu and Kiska, and stayed there. The Navy lacked equipment of all kinds -- guns, ships, planes, and cargo vessels. Much of the equipment you fought with was obsolescent. And worst of all, there were not enough of the old timers to train and bolster the recruits who were being too hastily sent to man the new construction. As short a time as a year ago, most of this was still true, and if ever men had cause to falter, that was the time. But you did not falter. And where do you stand today?

TODAY --- One of the largest naval forces in the world is one of the newest: 333 combat vessels, 1,274 mine craft and patrol craft, 151 auxiliaries, and 654 yard and district crafts, 12,964 landing craft. The new fleet comprises the vessels of the US Navy completed in the three years between July 1940 and July 1943. Added to the existing tonnage (allowing for losses and transfers) the new ships give the U.S. "the mightiest surface fleet in world history."

Such was the solid conclusion of the Navy's three-year-progress report published recently. Highlights: The number of vessels completed in the one month of June 1943 approximates the number completed in the first 18 months of the defense program.

Following Pearl Harbor, "greatest urgency" was for the new battleships of IOWA and NORTH CAROLINA classes. The 45,000 ton NEW JERSEY was completed in 26% less time than the 35,000 ton WASHINGTON. After Coral Sea and Midway, emphasis shifted to carriers, then to landing craft and destroyer escorts.

The US Fleet has 613 warships, as against 383 three years ago, this after losses of 58 warships and transfers (to other nations or noncombat use) of 129 warships. Present warship tonnage (2,217,982 displacement tons) exceeds tonnage of 1940 fighting ships by 70%.

The US has the most powerful Naval Air Force in the world: 18,269 planes on July 31, 1943 - a ten times net increase over 1940, when Navy planes totaled 1,744. Since then the Navy has lost or written off as obsolete 6,800 planes and has transferred 2,100.

"Total naval shipbuilding is approaching its peak --- as planned. In the midst of war the US has built its Navy into the greatest sea-air power on earth."