This book comprises four manuals compiled from official sources during World War II Manuals such as those in this book, were distributed widely through the fleet and used constantly as a standard reference. The Office of Naval Intelligence published a library of manuals that covered our own Navy as well as British, French, Soviet, Japanese and German Navies, among others. The first part of this book comprises the manual entitiled ONI 222-US:United States Naval Vessels.

In the official introduction to this manual. Commodore Thomas B. Inglis, USN,Acting Director of Naval Intelligence states, "It is a graphic and statistical picture of the U.S.

Navy at its peak in numerical strength. The information in this maunal is corrected to and as of 1 September 1945." The second part of this book is study compiled by the Statistical Section of the Officer of Naval Intelligence. Entitled The United States Fleet(From Pearl Harbor to Oct.

1, 1945). the purpose of this study is two fold. As it states in the introduction, "the purpose of the present table is A: To provide a compact and readily intelligible overall view of the United States Fleet.

(1) Before the onset of War, (2) At the end of the war, (3) At the present time, and (4) As presently being built for the future, and B: To present a summary of the charges which have taken place in the United States Fleet, Documented by the names or hull numbers of the vessels whose status have changed". The latter includes those ships sunk during the war and converted/reclassified to other uses. The final part of this book is a reprint of a 1 December 1944 document entitled Index of United States Fleet.

This document was prepared by Commander, Air Force, Pacific Fleet. Excepting un-named ships and craft, all vessels are included. They are listed individually by their classification, followed by their name, in tabular form under their class name.

While this document does not include unnamed ships, such as those found in the Patrol Vessel and Amphibious categories, the manual does include a separate section for Landing Ships, Craft and Vehicles, with charecteristics and illustrations, at the end of the document.