One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power

by Smith, Douglas V.

  As McNamee had calculated, Black’s Clark decided to use his carriers individually to conduct two pairs of strikes on two successive days, hitting San Francisco twice and San Pedro and Puget Sound once each. Each carrier had three heavy cruisers as escorts, while his destroyers and oilers, unable to keep up with the carriers, formed a support group. The Carrier task forces began the problem roughly five hundred nautical miles south-southeast of Oahu on 10 February. The results were not impressive. Attempting to raid San Francisco on the morning of the 16th, the Lexington Task Force ran into fog, became lost, and was shortly intercepted by battleships and quickly dispatched. Saratoga had better luck, conducting extensive raids in the San Pedro area that morning, but she was also intercepted by enemy surface forces, barely escaping with some damage to her escorts—an experience repeated the following day when she undertook raids in the San Francisco area, once again barely escaping enemy battleships.

  Critics of naval aviation argued that the outcome demonstrated the vulnerability of carriers operating independently, but carrier advocates rightly observed that the results were due to faulty planning and tactics, and to the limitations of training and equipment rather than to a flawed concept, noting that had the carriers operated together, they would have benefited from mutual support and the attacks could have been delivered with maximum possible force. Moreover, had the carriers and their personnel been equipped and trained for night operations, their effectiveness would have been greatly enhanced. Most importantly, however, they pointed to the need for longer-range aircraft, so that carriers could stand well away from their objectives; McNamee’s 100–125-mile patrol areas around the critical ports had been dictated by the range of the existing carrier aircraft.40

  Vice Admiral Yarnell, commander of the Saratoga Task Force, observed that had the Black attack been made with six or eight carriers, it would likely have been devastating, and he called for more carriers—a goal already well in hand with USS Ranger (CV-4) about to be launched, USS Yorktown (CV-5) and USS Enterprise CV-6) about to be laid down, and USS Wasp (CV-7) soon to be ordered.

  Some naval aviators believed that the outcome of the Fleet Problem had a major effect on command arrangements in the Navy. Apparently Vice Admiral Clark had been widely expected to be appointed Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet in 1934, but the post went to Joseph M. Reeves, the highest ranking aviator in the fleet. The aviators attributed this development to Clark’s performance in the Fleet Problem.41

  The following year, FP XV (April–May 1934) was a series of loosely connected tactical and operational exercises in the Pacific and the Caribbean, representing phases of a war with a European-Asian coalition.42 The initial movement of the fleet to Central American waters was “harassed” by Brown (Japan) light forces, during which Blue’s three carriers, Lexington, Saratoga, and Langley (a surrogate for Ranger), proved effective in providing anti-submarine protection to the fleet, while cruiser and battleship floatplanes proved useful for patrols and reconnaissance.

  A mock attack on the Canal Zone followed, against some submarines, cruisers, and Army coast defense and air forces. While the Navy claimed to have wrought great destruction on the canal’s defenses, and the Army claimed to have sunk two aircraft carriers, no umpiring rules had been agreed upon, and the results were tactfully declared a “draw.”43

  The main event of the Fleet Problem, “Exercise M” (5–10 May), presumed that Gray (a “European coalition”) had captured the Virgin Islands and parts of Puerto Rico, and thus Blue (U.S.) had to undertake an offensive from Panama to recover these territories before enemy reinforcements arrived. Blue’s Admiral Joseph M. Reeves had Saratoga, representing herself and another carrier, Langley (as Ranger); five aircraft tenders and “aerial cruiser” Macon (ZRS-5); a large fleet consisting of numerous battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, about half notional, plus notional submarine and expeditionary forces based in Panama and some forces at Guantanamo Bay. Gray’s Vice Admiral Frank H. Brumby was given Lexington (representing three carriers); a smaller fleet of five battleships (one notional); many cruisers, destroyers, and submarines (mostly notional); plus a garrison in the captured territories.

  Exercise M was a knock-down, drag-out fight greatly resembling the protracted air-sea-land Battle of Guadalcanal, 12–15 November 1942. Contact between the fleets began early on 5 May and didn’t end until the maneuvers were over. From the afternoon of the 5th through the 9th, there were thirty-one separate engagements; fifteen surface actions, including five massed night destroyer torpedo attacks and a very successful Gray cruiser raid that wiped out Blue’s aircraft tenders in a Haitian bay; nine submarine attacks; and seven air attacks, including one by the new Consolidated P2Y flying boats.44 Early on the 10th the maneuvers culminated in a complex general action off Culebra characterized by coordinated air-surface combats, leaving Blue once more in possession of the island.

  The carriers were busy during Exercise M, and CinCUS David Foote Sellers wrote, “It is generally accepted in the Fleet that our carriers, accompanied by strong cruiser forces, should be used offensively,” and called for better aircraft, specifying that carrier bombers be able to carry 500- and 1,000-pound bombs long distances, recommended larger aircraft tenders, and noted problems operating and recovering cruiser scout planes.45 The call for heavier bombs, and thus aircraft capable of carrying them, had been made before, but it seems that the FP XV finally drove the point home to the fleet’s senior leadership.

  The extensive trials of coordinated air-surface-undersea actions—that is, surface combats in which air and submarine forces took part—were ruled quite successful and became a common feature of subsequent maneuvers. Despite much optimism about such tactics, there were not many occasions during World War II when they were used.46

  The problem finally settled the question of the value of airships. Macon had mostly been unable to operate due to contrary winds, and although on 6 May she had spotted the “enemy” main body, she was promptly shot down by fighters. This was the last problem in which an airship participated, for Macon crashed early the following year, after which reconnaissance and patrol mission was assigned to more reliable flying boats.47

  CinCUS Sellers’ comment, “It is generally accepted in the Fleet that our carriers . . . should be used offensively,” was not merely an opinion. 48 Although most of the fleet’s senior leaders still believed in the primacy of the battleship, by the mid-1930s they had also come to realize the extraordinary value of carrier aviation.49 This trend was strengthened when Joseph M. Reeves, the fleet’s premier carrierman, became Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet on 15 June 1934, just eleven days after Ranger was commissioned, developments that were reflected in subsequent Fleet Problems.

  CREATING THE “NAVAL FORCE”: FLEET PROBLEMS XVI-XXI, 1935–1940

  The largest maneuvers yet held in the Pacific FP XVI were the first to be truly strategic in scope, with multiple operations across a theater encompassing five million square miles from the West Coast to Hawaii to the Aleutians.50 It was also the first problem to include four carriers (Langley, Lexington, Saratoga, and Ranger) with nearly 500 aircraft, almost 50 percent more than in any previous problem. It assumed that Black (Japan), operating from the Aleutians, had established a strong advanced base at Midway and was threatening Hawaii, requiring White (U.S.), based on the West Coast and Hawaii, to recover Midway.

  In the first phase of the problem White was directly commanded by CinCUS Reeves, with virtually the entire U.S. Fleet, operating from the West Coast. Formed into five task forces, including one bound for Alaska and the Aleutians, White put to sea on 3 May 1935. White’s movement was uneventful, aggressive patrolling keeping Black’s many submarines at bay. By the 11th White’s task forces had reached the vicinity of Hawaii or of Alaska.

  The “main event” of the problem began on 15 May, with reorganized fleets. White, now commanded by Vice Admiral Harris Laning, had Saratoga, Ranger, and Langley, most of the battleships, plus some cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, as
well as the Fleet Marine Force, with some support from the Army’s Hawaiian Department. Black’s Vice Admiral Arthur J. Hepburn had Lexington, with a roughly equal force of surface combatants and submarines, plus 2 cruisers acting as battlecruisers, some minelayers, and 45 flying boats and their tenders at Midway. White was superior in air forces, especially combat aircraft, with 173 carrier airplanes and 62 ship-borne floatplanes against Black’s 74 carrier aircraft, 42 floatplanes, and 45 tender-based patrol bombers, though the latter had more patrol aircraft.

  On 15 May, most of White lay at Pearl Harbor, but Rear Admiral Thomas C. Hart had three heavy cruisers at sea 230 miles northeast of Midway. Black had three task forces; Lexington and her escorts, about 165 miles north-northwest of Midway (about 250 miles west of Hart); the battleships and their escorts some 560 miles north of Lexington; and the “battlecruisers” and some light cruisers in Alaskan waters, while strong submarine forces were deployed in and around Hawaii.

  Rather than push directly up the Hawaiian chain to Midway, Laning opted for an indirect approach. The fleet sortied from Pearl Harbor in two echelons on the 15th and 16th, covered by air anti-submarine warfare (ASW) patrols, and initially steamed as if bound directly for Midway, while Laning dispatched Ranger and some escorts northward to support Hart. After dark on the 16th, however, Laning altered course westward. Late on 17 May, while Laning was hiding his fleet in the ocean west of Oahu, Hart’s cruisers ran in toward Midway. By about midnight they were about ten miles off the atoll. Shortly afterward, with a full moon rising, the cruisers catapulted a dozen Vought O3U-1 floatplanes into the air, before heading directly away from Midway. The floatplanes hit Midway at 0150 on the 18th in two waves, strafing the forty-five Black flying boats clearly visible at anchor in the lagoon, destroying or damaging more than half of them, with three casualties to themselves. The floatplanes then followed the track of the cruisers for a dawn rendezvous, after which the ships headed eastward at high speed. Later that afternoon Hart made contact with Ranger and her escorts. His task force then began a series of diversionary maneuvers, to draw Black’s attention eastward.

  Meanwhile the White main body, having steamed west for about forty-eight hours, turned north toward Midway. At the same time, Black’s main body, proceeding south from Alaska, had reached the vicinity of Midway. The opposing fleets were thus only a few hundred miles apart. On the 22nd, opposing scout cruisers began to clash about two hundred miles south of Midway. As the fleets closed for a major surface action, a flying boat went missing. All air assets were diverted to the search as were some destroyers and light cruisers.51 The remaining elements of the two fleets resumed their surface engagement, the umpires ruling that both could assume they had observation planes to help spot targets. Through a staff error, however, White commander Laning was not informed of this decision. As a result when Black opened fire at very long range, taking advantage of the constructive spotting aircraft, Laning believed they were just “wasting ammunition,” while in fact the umpires were assessing hits against him. He did not learn of the communications error until the end of the Fleet Problem, by which time he had been “soundly defeated, a telling commentary on the extent to which the battle fleet had come to rely upon the use of spotter aircraft.”52

  Although this was the first—and as it turned out, only—problem in which opposing carriers neither attacked nor even detected each other, the problem was extremely important in the development of the Carrier Task Torce.53 During the advance from the West Coast toward Hawaii, Lexington, operating at high speed for five days while conducting ASW and reconnaissance patrols, ran critically low on fuel. This potentially disastrous development led to a call for experiments in the underway refueling of carriers and other heavier ships, which was crucial if carriers were to operate freely. The problem also helped develop procedures for large-scale coordinated operations by patrol bombers.

  Set in Central American waters, FP XVII (April–June 1936) assumed that White (Japan) had undertaken an offensive war against Blue (U.S.) at a time when conflict in Europe was occupying the latter’s attention, so that major portions of the Blue fleet were in the Atlantic or otherwise unavailable in the Pacific.54 So while White overran the Far East, the Blue main body, harassed by White light forces, had to proceed to Panama to unite with the Atlantic squadron and other dispersed forces, before undertaking operations against the enemy. The fleets were organized and commanded somewhat differently in each of the problem’s five parts. For naval aviation the most important part was a test of fleet carrier tactics on 21 May 1936, held south and west of Panama.55

  Brown (Japan), under Admiral William D. Leahy, had Saratoga and some patrol bombers and their tenders plus some battleships, cruisers, and destroyers with which to attack Balboa. Black (U.S.), under Vice Admiral Clarence S. Kempff, had to defend Balboa and the canal with Ranger and Lexington, plus a number of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers.

  At the start of the maneuvers, Black lay about 100–150 miles south of Balboa, while the outer edge of the Brown fleet was roughly 170 miles almost directly to its west. Black adopted a fairly standard disposition, with battleships in the center, surrounded by cruiser-destroyer screens, with a carrier and two destroyers about 60 miles on either flank, linked to the main body by a chain of two or three cruisers. The carriers were to “locate and bomb Brown battleline and carriers. Time is of the essence.”56 Brown’s sole carrier, Captain William S. Halsey’s Saratoga, and two destroyers were south of the Brown main body, while patrol bombers based in Panama provided air cover to the north.

  No detailed narrative of the operations appears to exist, but the course of events is roughly clear. Scouts off Black’s Ranger and Brown’s Saratoga each spotted the opposing carrier. Although the weather was poor, Halsey launched a strike, which failed to locate Ranger due to meteorological conditions. In contrast, Ranger’s Captain Patrick Bellinger acted with greater caution, launching a strike as the weather cleared. This caught Saratoga and inflicted heavy damage. Although getting in the first blow was normally best in carrier operations, in this instance Halsey’s aggressiveness in risky circumstances had not paid off, while Bellinger’s caution had. Shortly afterward, Ranger was caught by a succession of attacks from a flight of Brown patrol bombers, followed by torpedo bombers and then another group of flying boats, and was ruled 48 percent damaged. In a surface action later that day, Saratoga was sunk by notional Black “battlecruisers,” underscoring the continuing need for longer ranged aircraft.

  Although the problem shed little new light on the employment of carriers, during several phases Saratoga had maintained such high rates of speed—twenty-five knots was required to operate aircraft—for such long periods that her fuel consumption averaged 10 percent of bunkerage per day, similar to Lexington’s experience the previous year—a development that strengthened calls for the adoption of underway refueling for carriers. The problem was also a fairly vigorous test of various types of flying boats, reflecting the Navy’s belief that they could compete with the Army’s B-17s in long-range maritime patrol and reconnaissance and as strike aircraft. The Douglas P2D1s, Consolidated P2Ys, and Martin PMs and PM-2s, some capable of staying aloft for nearly twenty-four hours, performed well, particularly those equipped with an experimental autopilot, which eased the strain on their crews. Of these aircraft, however, only the P2Y was considered fully suited to the needs of the fleet, which led directly to the adoption of Consolidated’s follow-on patrol bomber, the PBY Catalina.57

  A test of the fleet’s ability to conduct advanced base operations, FP XVIII (April–May 1937) required Black (U.S.) to recapture the Hawaiian Islands and Johnston Island from White (Japan) as the initial phase of an offensive across the Pacific.58 Although naval aviation played a role in all of the problem’s six “periods,” it was particularly important in two.

  Period 2 (23–25 April), a joint Army-Navy exercise, tested the defenses of Hawaii and the effectiveness of independent carrier operations. On the 23rd, fleet aircraft c
onducted surprise reconnaissance and attacks across Oahu, while a strong task force subjected the island of Hawaii to a combined air-surface bombardment, followed by a successful simulated landing. Meanwhile, defending patrol bombers attempted to locate the main body of the attacking fleet, while the Air Corps responded vigorously to the air attacks. As, once again, no agreement had been made on how to assess casualties during air combats, no results were declared. The following day, defending reconnaissance aircraft located the fleet as it approached Oahu. A series of air attacks on the fleet followed, during which Army airmen claimed considerable success, but did not prevent the fleet from executing major raids across Oahu by carrier aircraft and battleship-cruiser floatplanes, providing cover for the approach of a simulated landing force and its escorts. The maneuvers ended before a “landing” could take place. Both Army and Navy commanders expressed their satisfaction with the exercises, but no major recommendations resulted and no formal report seems to have been made.

  The most important phase of the problem was Period 4 (4–9 May), a Black offensive against White bases in the Hawaiian chain. White’s Vice Admiral William T. Tarrant had Ranger (74 aircraft), two seaplane tenders, plus battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, while Black’s Admiral Claude C. Bloch, among the least imaginative of the Navy’s senior officers, had Lexington and Saratoga (162 aircraft) and three aircraft tenders, and was roughly equal to White in other combatants.

  ComAirRons Vice Admiral Frederick J. Horne urged Bloch to use his carriers to build two fast task forces, to seek the enemy’s carrier, arguing that “once an enemy carrier is within striking distance of our Fleet no security remains until it, its squadrons, or both, are destroyed, and our carriers, if with the main body, are at a tremendous initial disadvantage in conducting necessary operations.”59 Bloch, wishing to provide air cover for his main body and believing carriers highly vulnerable to air attack, disregarded Horne, limiting the carriers to reconnaissance, screening, and fleet defense, thus losing the benefit of their very high speed. In contrast, although not an aviator, Vice Admiral Tarrant, acting on the advice of his air chief, Rear Admiral Ernest J. King, decided to operate Ranger autonomously.