One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power (30 page)

  
60
.
  
M964-23, 1, Commander Battle Force (Commander Black Fleet, Fleet Problem XVIII), to CINCUS, 23 June 1937, “Comments and Recommendations on Fleet Problem XVII,” pp. 7–11, 18–19.

  
61
.
  
Joseph J. “Jocko” Clark, Capt., USN. “Comments and Recommendations-Fleet Problem XVIII,” M964-23, 1, Commander Aircraft, Battle Force, to CINCUS, 4 June 1937, p. 65.

  
62
.
  
Reynolds,
John H. Towers
, p. 272. If true, this suggests that Horne's available final report, M964-23, 1, Commander Aircraft, Battle Force, to CINCUS, 4 June 1937, “Comments and Recommendations—Fleet Problem XVIII,” is a much toned-down document.

  
63
.
  
M964-24, 1, United States Fleet, 3 January 1938, Operation Order No. 3-38, Task Organization, with annexes; NWCA, Carton 65, U.S. Fleet, General Instructions and Information (12 January 1938), and U.S. Fleet OpPlan 3-38 (6 January 1938), with annexes.

  
64
.
  
Captain John Towers commanded
Saratoga
, the first of the Navy's pioneer airmen to command a carrier, having earned his wings in 1911.
Lexington
did not take part because food poisoning had incapacitated 450 of her crew. For a brief treatment, see “
Lexington
, CV-2, March 29, 1938, Hawaiian Flu Felled 450 Sailors,”
Carrier Capsules
151 (31 March 2000),
www.carriersg.org/151.htm
.

  
65
.
  
Very tight security resulted in King's “surprise attack” on Pearl Harbor receiving no press coverage at the time, but word eventually leaked out; see Lieutenant Stephen Jurika Jr., “Pilots, Man Your Planes,”
The Saturday Evening Post
, 7 January 1939, pp. 33ff.

  
66
.
  
Grimes,
Aviation in the Fleet Exercises
, p. 184.

  
67
.
  
M964-25, 1, CNO to CINCUS, n.d., “Fleet Problem XX—Concept of”; NWCA, Carton 65, U.S. Fleet OpOrd No. 13-38 (4 November 1938), Task Organization; M964-25, 4, U.S. Fleet Operation Order 3 November 1938; E. C. Kalbfus, “Fleet Problem XX: White Fleet Estimate of the Situation”; Black Fleet, “Fleet Problem XX Estimate of the Situation,” 18 January 1939; Commander Battle Force to CINCUS, 20 March 1939, Critique Fleet Problem XX—Remarks of Commander WHITE Fleet; Commander, Black Fleet (Commander, Scouting Force) to CINCUS, Fleet Problem XX—Comment and Recommendation. Patrick Abbazia,
Mr. Roosevelt's Navy: The Private War of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, 1939–1942
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1975), pp. 33–50, has an excellent treatment. The scenario assumed that a coup in Green (notionally comprising northern
Brazil, the Guianas, half of Venezuela, and most of the Lesser Antilles) had secured Italo-German support. It reflected the events of the Spanish Civil War and was hardly fanciful, given pro-fascist movements in several Latin American countries. A commentator in
Time
flatly stated that the problem was intended to “remind Europe's fascists that the U.S. is still a major power in the Atlantic,” see “Fleet Problem XX,”
Time
, 9 January 1939.

  
68
.
  
Saratoga
remained in the Pacific with a small task force showing the flag and conducting exercises in underway replenishment. As carriers required about two years to become fully operational,
Yorktown
(CV-5) and
Enterprise
(CV-6), commissioned in September 1937 and May 1938, respectively, were limited to operating aircraft in good weather during daylight hours only. Minoru Genda later claimed that watching a newsreel of the four American carriers operating together during King's maneuvers led him to propose creation of the “First Air Fleet,” which opened the Pacific War for Japan in spectacular fashion. See Minoru Genda, “Evolution of Aircraft Carrier Tactics in the Imperial Japanese Navy,”
Air Raid: Pearl Harbor! Recollections of a Day of Infamy
, ed. Paul Stillwell (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1981), p. 24. In October 1943 three fleet carriers and three light carriers conducted a series of raids on Wake Island.

  
69
.
  
M964-32, 1, United States Fleet, 16 February 1940, Change No. 1 to U.S. Fleet Operation Order No. 2–40; NWCA, Carton 66, U.S. Fleet OpOrd 2-40, Task Organization, 15 January 1940, with Annex B, “General Plan for Fleet Problem XXI and Annual Fleet Exercises, 1 April-17 May 1940.” Of particular interest is James O. Richardson,
On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor: The Memoirs of Admiral James O. Richardson, U.S.N. (Ret.)
, as told to George C. Dyer (Washington, DC: Naval History Division, 1973), pp. 236–50, the only published critique of a problem by a CinCUS. See also, John F. Wukovits,
Devotion to Duty: A Biography of Admiral Clifton A. F. Sprague
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995), pp. 49–56.

  
70
.
  
M964-33, 4, COMSCOFOR (Commander Maroon Fleet), to CINCUS, “Maroon Report of Part VI, Fleet Problem XXI,” with COMSCOFOR to CINCUS, 26 April 1940, “Fleet Problem XXI, Part VI, Narrative,” attached; M964-35, 1, COMBATFOR to CINCUS, 15 May 1940, “Part VI, Fleet Problem XXI—Report of Commander Purple Fleet.”

  
71
.
  
Richardson,
Treadmill
, p. 246. Campbell, “The Influence of Air Power,” pp. 177–79.

  
72
.
  
M964-14, 1, “U.S. Fleet Problem XIII, Report of the Commander-in-Chief, Adm. Frederick H. Schofield,” pp. 16, 32. The higher operating tempo was particularly important during the years of Depression budgets (FYs 1930–1933), when flying hours appear to have fallen as low as fifteen a month; for some comment, see Steve Ewing,
Thach Weave: The Life of Jimmie Thach
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2004), pp. 15ff.

  
73
.
  
Two of these officers have good biographies: Thomas B. Buell,
The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1974); and John B. Lundstrom,
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006). But Wilson Brown, and most of the other officers mentioned in this essay, still await one.

CHAPTER 8

The Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940: The Impact on American Preparedness for World War II

Timothy H. Jackson and Stanley D. M. Carpenter

C
ommander of the Asiatic Fleet, Rear Admiral William F. Fullam, observing a display of naval aviation on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, stated: “They came in waves, until they stretched almost from horizon to horizon, row upon row of these flying machines. What chance, I thought, would any ship, any fleet have against an aggregate such as this? You could shoot them from the skies like passenger pigeons, and still there would be more than enough to sink you. Now I loved the battleship, devoted my whole career to it, but at that moment I knew the battleship was through.”
¹

Common perception has long held that the advocates of the large, dreadnought, big-gun capital ship actively frustrated and obfuscated aircraft carrier and general naval aviation development in the interwar period. While the battleship advocates, especially those associated with the Bureau of Naval Ordnance (aka the “Gun Club”) refused to view the aircraft carrier as the key capital ship of the future, many primary players of the period nevertheless did not discourage the development of naval aviation. Rather, most battleship advocates viewed the carrier as an adjunct to the battle line, performing fleet support roles such as scouting, reconnaissance, and gunfire spotting. Key leaders such as Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) from 1921 until his untimely death in an airship accident in 1933, pushed naval aviation development with great vigor and positive results. In Congress, naval aviation advocates such as Representative Carl Vinson (D-GA), formed a corps of powerful advocates who ensured that the legislative and budgetary process supported naval aviation through the fiscally challenging 1930s. The
ultimate expression of naval expansion following the lean interwar years, as characterized by ship and personnel drawdowns in accordance with naval armament treaties (1922 and 1930), came in the summer of 1940 with the two-ocean naval legislation (Vinson-Walsh Act). That legislation, the result of which was the massive United States Navy of World War II, will be examined in light of the impact on the evolution and development of naval aviation that rapidly replaced the battleship as the ultimate capital ship in the immediate post–Pearl Harbor era.

Left to right:
Representative Carl Vinson (D-GA); Secretary of Navy Francis P. Matthews; Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, Chief of Naval Operations; and Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Commander, Pacific Fleet, 6 October 1949
.

While many directions might be taken, this chapter examines three essential topics. Part I addresses the contextual background to the evolution of aircraft carriers and naval aviation in the interwar period of 1919–1939. Part II examines the legislative process, particularly the actions of Representative Vinson, the major political champion of naval expansion and aviation. Finally, part III looks at the results of the 1940 legislation in practical terms and how it put to sea the fleet of 1943–1945 that won the war in the Pacific and ensured Allied domination of the Atlantic against the
German Kriegsmarine. While other ship types resulting from the 1940 legislation will be mentioned, this chapter focuses on aircraft carriers and naval aviation.

PART I—THE INTERWAR CONTEXT: CARRIERS IN THE WINGS

In the interwar period, several prominent admirals and decision makers publicly stated the importance of naval aviation to fleet operations. While not yet proclaiming aviation as the essential core of the fleet supplanting the battleship, many senior officers nonetheless captured the essence of the new aviation thinking. Two examples illustrate this dynamic. In 1933, British Royal Navy First Sea Lord Admiral of the Fleet Alfred Chatfield commented: “The air side is an integral part of our naval operation . . . not something which is added on like the submarine, but something which is an integral part of the navy itself, closely woven into the naval fabric. Whether our air weapon is present or not will make the whole difference to the nature of the fighting of the fleet and our strategical dispositions. That is a fact which will increase more and more, year by year.”
²

Of great importance to the acceptance of Navy aviation in the United States was the attitude of Admiral William S. Sims. Sims had commanded U.S. naval forces in Europe during World War I and had a keen appreciation of naval aviation as pioneered by the Royal Navy. As President of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, from 1919 to 1922, he encouraged war game simulations to validate the concept of aviation not only as a fleet support adjunct, but also as an offensive weapon. Sims argued against the “unreasoning effect of deadly conservatism” on the part of those senior officers unable or unwilling to recognize naval aviation's potential.
³
In testimony before Congress in 1925, the Admiral, then retired, concluded decisively that the fast carrier was the capital ship of the future and that it carried far more offensive capability than a battleship.
⁴
With a supporter of Sims' stature, naval aviation could only prosper in the long haul.

In truth, few top officials argued against naval aviation. Rather, it was the role played by aircraft that generated controversy. Immediately following World War I, even later aviation advocates doubted that aircraft carriers would ever play more than a supporting role in fleet operations. Then-Commander John H. Towers, Naval Aviator #3 and eventual Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, testified to the Navy General Board in 1919 that he doubted that aircraft operating from an airplane carrier would “last very long.”
⁵
Despite doubts about the utility of shipboard-based aircraft, the General Board reported to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels that the United States should ensure air supremacy or at least meet on equal terms any potential adversary. Not only did the General Board assert that aviation had become an “essential arm of the fleet,” but that “fleet aviation must be developed to the fullest extent.”
⁶
The real argument in those days of limited defense budgets was not over
whether the airplane was needed, rather it was over aviation's role as an adjunct for fleet support or as an offensive weapon based on its own lethality. Indicative of Navy aviation's rise to prominence was the creation of the Bureau of Aeronautics in August 1921 under Rear Admiral Moffett. Answering only to the Secretary of the Navy (as was common to all Navy bureaus), the creation helped insulate early aviation from those officers most adamantly opposed to Navy air power.