Navy Department Communique No. 64

MARCH 27, 1942

The Navy Department issued the following communiqué today:

Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Areas.
On March 25, General Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, and Admiral King, Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet, with a view to increasing the effectiveness of antisubmarine warfare along our coast, issued instructions for a closer cooperation between the naval commanders of the sea frontiers and the Army defense commanders. These instructions govern operations over the sea for the protection of shipping and for antisubmarine and other operations against enemy seaborne activities.
In accordance with these instructions, Army defense commanders have allocated Army air units to the naval commanders of the sea frontiers. Command of the air units so allocated is vested in the naval sea frontier commanders.
The cooperation between these forces and the Navy antisubmarine and patrol forces has been close and effective. In most ports the operating centers of these commands have already been combined in one room. The new system of operating control under one service will eliminate any possible uncertainty regarding jurisdictional limits and will insure the smooth and effective working of our intensified antisubmarine campaign in the waters off our coasts.
Unity of command already exists for all Army and Navy forces in the Hawaiian Islands and in the Caribbean, those at Hawaii being under the Navy, those at Panama being under the Army, and those along the eastern Caribbean being under the Navy.
There is nothing to report from other areas.