One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power (72 page)

  
38
.
  
According to Turnbull (ibid., p. 311), Patrol Wings 3 and 5 had fifty-four aircraft between the two of them, the battleship fleets had twenty-five.

  
39
.
  
According to
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Japan)
(Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, multiple volumes). See specifically USSBS,
The Campaigns of the Pacific War
(published in 1946), which states more precisely that there were 1,426 Allied planes in the Pacific, 688 frontline aircraft (the rest obsolete and obsolescent), and of these 332 were British and Australian.

  
40
.
  
It was actually closer to 2,000 combat aircraft with an additional 1,250 trainers and transport.

  
41
.
  
Again, overestimations; the Japanese did not have nearly that many, but American intelligence was remiss. However, it must be mentioned that the Japanese, while lacking in numbers, by 1939 (and into 1941) had the world's finest collection of naval aircraft and pilots. See specifically
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Japan)
, p. 4.

  
42
.
  
Turnbull,
History
, p. 317. The number of pilots included Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard pilots ready for duty.

  
43
.
  
Robert Carlisle,
Cats over the Atlantic, VPB-73 in WW II
(Santa Barbara, CA: Fithian Press, 1995), p. 28.

  
44
.
  
See Allan Carey,
U.S. Navy PB4Y-1 (B24) Liberator Squadrons in Great Britain during World War II
(Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 2003), pp. 21–22.

  
45
.
  
Richard Knott,
Black Cat Raiders of World War II
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2000).

  
46
.
  
Special thanks to Curt Lawson of the U.S. Naval Aviation Museum (Pensacola NAS, FL) for his well-researched and detailed listing of Navy aircraft, their acceptance dates, numbers built, and roles in the Navy. In addition to his research, this author benefited from his extensive knowledge in numerous conversations.

  
47
.
  
Samuel Griffith,
The Battle for Guadalcanal
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000).

  
48
.
  
Julius Furer,
Administration of the Navy Department in World War II
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1959), pp. 391–92.

  
49
.
  
Ibid., p. 392.

  
50
.
  
Jeffrey Barlow,
Revolt of the Admirals: The Fight for Naval Aviation, 1945–1950
(Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1994).

  
51
.
  
Korean War Documents, Aviation Statistics Specific Report 2-50, “Combat Activity of Navy Aircraft in Korean Theater June 1950–July 1953,” June 1950 entry, pp. 3–5 (Aviation Statistics Section, Aviation Plans Division, U.S. Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola NAS, FL). The massive binder is divided by month of the conflict.

  
52
.
  
Ibid., pp. 7, 9–11. The breakdown is: VP-1 (8 aircraft), VP-6 (7), VP-28 (9), VP-42 (9), VP-46 (7), VP-47 (8), VU-5 (5).

  
53
.
  
Ibid., July 1953 overview, pp. 71–81 (tables 15, 16, 20, and 21). Two patrol planes were shot down by enemy AA; 32 lost to “operational” losses (accidents, crashes, etc.), and 7 were lost to “All other causes.” Of the 41 lost, 26 were seaplanes and 15 were landplanes.

  
54
.
  
For more details see the corresponding chapters in this Korean War Documents collection on the development of aircraft carriers and aircraft.

  
55
.
  
Grumman AF-2W, first in service in 1950.

  
56
.
  
Grumman S2F-1, first in service in 1954.

  
57
.
  
Grumman W2F-1 (E-2A), first in service in 1964.

  
58
.
  
See specifically the P-3 entry in Rene Francillion,
Lockheed Aircraft since 1913
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1987), pp. 408–19.

  
59
.
  
Specifically, VP-2, 4, 16, 17, 31, 40, and 50.

  
60
.
  
Edward Marolda and Oscar Fitzgerald,
The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict
, vol. 2,
From Military Assistance to Combat 1959–1965
(Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986), pp. 494–95.

  
61
.
  
Peter Mersky and Norman Polmar,
The Naval Air War in Vietnam
(Baltimore, MD: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1986), pp. 31–34.

  
62
.
  
Marolda and Fitzgerald,
The United States Navy
, pp. 518–21.

  
63
.
  
Mersky and Polmar,
The Naval Air War
, pp. 171–72.

  
64
.
  
Kit Lavell,
Flying Black Ponies
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2000).

  
65
.
  
Lockheed S-3A and later B
Viking
, first delivered in 1974.

  
66
.
  
Convair R3Y-1, 2 Tradewind, first flown in 1954, twelve delivered.

  
67
.
  
Martin XP6M-1 SeaMaster, first flown in July 1955, five built (two experimental, three pre-production).

  
68
.
  
Convair XF2Y-1 Sea Dart, first flown in April 1953, five built.

  
69
.
  
B. J. Long, “Sea Dart,”
Journal of American Aviation Historical Society
24, no. 1 (Spring 1979), pp. 2–12.

  
70
.
  
Lockheed P-3A/B/C/D/E/F Orion, first delivered in 1962, 516 built to date. See specifically Francillion,
Lockheed Aircraft
, pp. 408–19.

  
71
.
  
David Reade,
The Age of Orion, the Lockheed P-3 Orion Story
(Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 1998), pp. 42–49. Reade suggests that the P-3s actively targeted 55 of the 110 Iraqi ships destroyed in the Gulf War (1991).

  
72
.
  
Although there is little in the secondary research on this as of yet, and the official documents are still classified, the open source news media (CNN, BBC, etc.) covered this story extensively from 1 to 11 April 2001, and in subsequent news stories. Today (in 2009) it seems as if the incident has been forgotten in diplomatic circles, with increasingly friendly relationships with China.

  
73
.
  
See specifically
http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,SS_070505_Navy,00.html
(accessed 18 November 2009), for a discussion of Navy P-3s in Afghanistan.

  
74
.
  
See “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” as proposed by the U.S. Navy in 2007,
http://www.navy.mil/maritime/MaritimeStrategy.pdf
(accessed 18 November 2009).

  
75
.
  
See Boeing's Web site on the P-8 (MMA),
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/p8a/index.html
(accessed 18 November 2009).

CHAPTER 15

U.S. Aircraft Carrier Evolution: 1945–2011

Norman Friedman

I
n dramatic contrast to the carriers that won World War II, the carrier fleet built since World War II was conceived primarily to strike land targets.
¹
The strike missions conceived in 1945–1950 defined a new generation of carrier-based bombers. These aircraft in turn shaped the new carriers, beginning with USS
Forrestal
. The
Forrestal
design in turn defined succeeding aircraft, all of which were designed to fit essentially the same flight deck, hangar deck, and catapults and arresting gear. It turned out, unexpectedly, that many of the same aircraft could operate from existing carriers, once they had been modernized. Although U.S. carriers have changed considerably since the 1950s, their modern form is recognizably that of the
Forrestal
, so this account will concentrate on the first postwar decade, which shaped her.

The postwar carrier force was shaped by a combination of new (and changing) strategic conditions and rapidly changing technology, the latter occurring particularly in the years immediately after World War II. Another factor, until about 1970, was the large inventory of carriers remaining after World War II, comprising two classes of fleet carriers (
Midway
and
Essex
) and numerous smaller ones (particularly the wartime light carriers and the
Commencement Bay
–class escort carriers).

The major new technologies were the atomic (and then hydrogen) bomb, jet aircraft, guided missiles, nuclear power for ships, and new kinds of submarines (first fast diesel-electric types and then nuclear submarines), electronics, navigation, and communications. All changed during the fifty postwar years to interact in various ways.

NEW STRATEGIC CONDITIONS

By the end of World War II, carriers were operating in two rather different roles. One was land attack, either strategic (the strikes on Tokyo) or tactical (direct support of troops, particularly as they landed) the other was anti-submarine warfare either in the hunter-killer role or in direct support of convoys.
²
Which would be the dominant postwar role? It seemed unlikely that the struggle with the powerful Japanese surface fleet would be repeated. The Soviet Union, a dominant land power, would probably be the next enemy. The main naval component of Soviet power was a large submarine fleet. The Soviets also operated a large land-based naval air arm, but it seemed far less significant (at least to the U.S. Navy) than the submarines in the immediate postwar period.
³

From a strategic point of view, the United States was an island that would be supporting a war on the periphery of Eurasia. Throughout the Cold War, there were three opposing views of what that might mean. One view, the Navy's, was that the sea gave U.S. forces enormous mobility. They might not match sheer Soviet numbers, but the threat of powerful attacks around the periphery could force the Soviets to split up their forces, denying them the superiority in any one place that might be fatal to the West. This was much the Western strategy of World War II. The opposing view was that peripheral attacks were pointless because only one land theater mattered: the Central Front along the inter-German border. In this view, the point of sea power was to guarantee re-supply of the Western force fighting in central Europe.

A third view emerged from the successful bombing of Japan. Until 1949 the United States had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. The Truman administration hoped that the threat of such weapons, which at the time could be delivered only by heavy land-based bombers, might deter the Soviets even though the United States and other Western countries could not maintain sufficient land forces in Western Europe. The situation became particularly difficult in 1948–1950. U.S. rearmament (after the Soviets seized power in Czechoslovakia by a coup, and thus convinced doubters that there was indeed a Cold War in progress) stalled because funds were split between Marshall Plan aid to Europe and defense. The argument was that the Marshall Plan was in effect defense against the real possibility that Soviet-controlled Communist parties would simply seize power in weakened countries like France, Germany, and Italy. The outbreak of war in Korea in June 1950 effectively demonstrated the limits of nuclear deterrence.

These alternatives had radically different consequences for the shape of the Navy and its carrier force. The Navy view was that the strike carrier capability developed during World War II and demonstrated so dramatically in the Pacific should be adapted to the new conditions. For example, if the Soviets decided to advance into Western Europe, a powerful naval force in the Mediterranean and the North
Sea could land U.S. ground forces on their flanks, slowing or stopping them. Such a force, so employed, would be far more effective than it would be if simply placed in the path of an overwhelming Soviet Army in Germany.

Strike carriers might also be the best way to deal with Soviet submarines. Although the Soviet submarines available in 1945 were obsolescent at best, the Soviets (like the Western Allies) had captured new German technology. Within a few years they would be building submarines that could probably defeat the anti-submarine measures that had won the Battle of the Atlantic. There was little chance that the Western navies would be able to build enough escorts to conduct a World War II–style convoy defense of their vital shipping. In that case the choices would be either to hunt down the submarines or to destroy them at their bases (“at source”).