Panama City, Jan. 16.
Admiral Claude Bloch, Commander of the Battle Force of the United States Fleet, announced today that eighty United States warships, includ.
g battleships and aircraft carriers, had completed their transit of the Panama Canal ~from west to east today without incident "The transit was a purely routine undertaking," he said. "Eighty men of war passed through the canal smoothly, efficiently and rapidly.
Movement of the large fleet through the Canal was carried out under strict military censorship which prevented correspondents from mentioning the movements of any ships. United States Army patrols kept civilians away from the Canal during the transit operations and Army scouting planes patrolled overhead as an extra precaution to protect the fleet from the remote possibility of attack from the air while caught in the new Atlantic squadron and several hundred Navy planes for the Caribbean and Atlantic manceuvres in which more than 150,000 men will participate. Before returning to the west coast, the Pacific fleet will participate in the vi it to Caribbean and Atlantic pari e than 100 United Star ships. The tour of the ports made in early April after the completion of "Fleet Problem XX," the main problem of the Atlantic manceuvres which are understood to emphasize defence of the Panama Canal.—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.