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      alter decisively the strength of the line of battle. We get relief 
      in June when the "Duke of York" will be ready and will 
      be still better off at the end of 1941 when the "Anson" 
      also will have joined. But those two first class, modern, thirty-five 
      thousand ton, fifteen inch gun German battleships force us to 
      maintain a concentration never previously necessary in this war.
 
      
 
 
8. We hope that the two Italian "Littorles" will 
      be out of action for a while and anyway they are not so dangerous 
      as if the Germans manned them. Perhaps they might be| We are 
      indebted to you for your help about the "Richelieu" 
      and the "Jean Bart" and I daresay that will be all 
      right. But, Mr. President, as no one will see more clearly than 
      you, we have during these months to consider for the first time 
      in this war, a fleet action in which the enemy will have to ships 
      at least as good as our two best and only two modern ones. It 
      will be impossible to reduce our strength in the Mediterranean 
      of the attitude of Turkey and indeed the whole in the eastern 
      basin depends upon our having