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| 1944 |
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| By 1944 the Allied nations had achieved a position of naval supremacy that increased monthly and could no longer be seriously challenged. Despite improvements in submarine construction, 500 U-boats had been destroyed and merchant ship losses from this cause sharply reduced. The Germans no longer had any capital ships in fighting condition and had all but ceased to build or repair shipping. What warships survived of the Italian and French navies were wrecked or in Allied control, part of the French fleet having been repaired at a cost of $200 million. The Japanese still possessed a respectable navy, including 17 capital ships, but it was inadequate to protect the long route to the East Indies and Malaya, threatened increasingly by American and British aircraft and submarines. Japanese air power in particular was seriously reduced, and fewer than ten Japanese carriers survived, a fatal deficiency when the British carrier list had risen to 40 and the U.S. Navy possessed over 100. Inability to maintain air protection for warships even in harbor was to doom the remnants of the Japanese navy in 1945. | 1 |
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| 1944, Jan. 22 |
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| The Allies landed forces on the Italian coast south of Rome in a second amphibious invasion of the Italian mainland (See 1944, Jan. 22). | 2 |
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| June 6 |
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| ALLIED FORCES LANDED AT SEVERAL POINTS ON THE COAST OF NORMANDY, with strong naval support, an armada of 4,000 ships, and over 10,000 aircraft (See 1944, June 6). (For naval activities in the Pacific areas, see (See 1944, June 6).) | 3 |
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