On a day just 18 months after the final ratification of the Limitation of Armaments Treaty, the Navy Department sent its compliments to the State Department with a report.
The report stated that, within the 18 months allotted for carrying out the terms of the treaty, the U. S. had scrapped and sold the following completed or partially completed battleships and cruisers: Kansas, Minnesota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Michigan, Indiana, Delaware, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Georgia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Louisiana, Vermont, New. Hampshire, Montana, North Carolina, lowa, Massachusetts, Constitution, United States, Constellation, Ranger. These ships had cost $197,418,620; for the scrap, the Government received $2,257,474.
In addition, the battleships Virginia, New Jersey, and Washington were sunk at sea in target practice.
The North Dakota is still to be destroyed in this way. The cruisers Lexington and Saratoga, also surviving, are being converted into airplane carriers.
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