The Board of Trade disliked converting valuable merchant hulls to jobs for which they had not been built. Its concern was immediate: every converted ship stopped carrying ordinary trade and earning revenue. Naval planners saw the opposite risk, because under-protected shipping could be sunk in still larger quantities. The dispute shows how an escort-carrier program required one department to surrender visible capacity so another could reduce less visible future losses.
Notable Point · 18:35-19:09
Why the Board of Trade resisted merchant-carrier conversions
Converting merchant hulls forced officials to trade visible cargo capacity and revenue against protection from larger future shipping losses.