One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power

by Smith, Douglas V.

  For Part VI (19–23 April 1940), Vice Admiral Adolphus Andrews’ Maroon (U.S.) fleet controlled Hawaii, Johnston Island, Midway, the Aleutians, and some other areas, including Balboa, in Panama; Purple (Japan), under Admiral Snyder, having captured Samoa, Guam, and Wake, was preparing to take Hawaii by landings at Lahaina Roads.70

  Snyder formed a main body around Saratoga with battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, escorting a landing force, and a “Raiding Force” of Lexington, with a smaller number of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers plus a patrol force of twenty-four PBYs and two aircraft tenders, subordinated to Raiding Force, thus dividing the carriers and tying them the much slower battleships and violating the principle that carriers should operate in fast, autonomous task forces. Oddly, although an aviator, Maroon’s Andrews made the same mistake, forming three task forces, a northern group of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers; a southern one of Yorktown, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers; and an “Island Force” of a light cruiser, a destroyer, submarines, and thirty-eight PBYs with three aircraft tenders, plus an oiler and mine layers, to secure French Frigate Shoals, Lahaina Roads, and other places in the Hawaiian chain.

  Purple began the maneuvers widely dispersed: the main body was about 300 miles south of Midway, the Raiding Force 700 miles south-by-southwest (about 360 miles south of Johnston Island), and the aircraft tenders about 50 miles southwest of French Frigate Shoals. Snyder planned to establish a Purple PBY base at French Frigate Shoals, while using carrier air strikes to deny Maroon the use of Johnston Island for their flying boats. Maroon was also widely dispersed, the northern force nearly 450 miles north of Oahu, as if coming from Dutch Harbor, the southern force about 350 miles directly south of Oahu, and the Island Force had an aircraft tender with some patrol bombers plus several submarines at both Johnston Island and French Frigate Shoals, with the rest of its forces spread through the Hawaiian Islands.

  The problem began early on the 19th, in adverse weather. Maroon patrol bombers from French Frigate Shoals and Johnston Island were able to conduct reconnaissance, but Purple’s Saratoga was unable to put scouts up until about noon, though Lexington, hundreds of miles farther south, conducted routine reconnaissance. Purple’s Admiral Snyder dispatched small task groups of cruisers, destroyers, and transports from his main body to attack French Frigate Shoals and Johnston Island. Both fleets probed for each other through the 19th and into the 20th. To facilitate this mission, Andrews detached Yorktown from his southern group and formed a scouting force with some cruisers and destroyers, demonstrating considerable organizational flexibility. Meanwhile, his patrol bombers from French Frigate Shoals spotted the Purple main body in mid-morning on the 20th, and he ordered his southern force to intercept.

  Meanwhile, Johnston had already fallen to Snyder’s small task force, sinking a Maroon aircraft tender and two submarines in the process, but the Purple task force assigned to capture French Frigate Shoals was beaten off with heavy losses.

  On the evening of the 20th, Snyder dissolved the Purple “Raiding Force,” adding the bulk of its ships to the main body, while forming an “Advance Detachment” of Lexington and some cruisers and destroyers to scout to 125 miles ahead of the fleet, another demonstration of the fleet’s organizational flexibility.

  Purple’s Advance Detachment had many contacts with Maroon submarines on 21–22 April, sinking several while suffering no harm. On the 22nd, Lexington’s aggressive air patrols paid off when at a little over ninety minutes after sunrise they spotted Maroon’s Yorktown Task Group. Lexington launched a series of large strikes, as Saratoga closed rapidly with the rest of the main body. Yorktown hit back, inflicting 26 percent damage on Lexington before being overwhelmed and sunk. With her flight deck ruled damaged beyond repair, Lexington “lost” most of her aircraft, “ditched” in the sea. By late afternoon on the 23rd, Purple’s main body had come up to support the Advance Detachment, while Maroon’s scouting group with Yorktown lost, broke off contact, retiring at high speed. Purple was by then less than three hundred miles south-southwest of Lahaina Roads, and Saratoga’s scouts were able to hit Maroon patrol bombers at anchor in Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Hawaii. After dark on the 24th surface forces began clashing in Hawaiian waters and a major battleline action began to develop. Part VI was declared over by CinCUS James O. Richardson at 0330.

  Despite the relative ease with which both Snyder and Pye had operated carrier task forces, not all “Gun Club” members were equally comfortable with the notion of autonomous carrier operations. CinCUS Richardson argued that operating Yorktown independently had led to her loss, demonstrating “the folly of stationing a carrier where it would not receive maximum protection from the antiaircraft gun resources of the Task Force of which it was part.”71 Richardson was wrong, of course, ignoring both the fact that the instrument of Yorktown’s loss was Lexington, also operating independently, as well as the experience in Carrier Task Force operations since Saratoga’s Panama raid eleven years earlier during FP IX.

  CONCLUSIONS

  By 1941 the Fleet Problems had contributed to a broad consensus in the Navy as to the value of naval aviation.

  •The aircraft carrier had become a partner with the battleship as an arbiter of sea power.

  •High-speed, autonomous carrier task forces possessed enormous ability to project naval air power over great distances.

  •Aircraft carriers were extraordinarily vulnerable to air attack, mandating a “carrier first” strike doctrine.

  •Carriers were extremely vulnerable when in proximity to enemy surface forces.

  •Carrier operations demanded extensive logistical support.

  •Air search was superior to surface search.

  •Dive-bombing was far superior against ships than horizontal bombing.

  •Patrol bombers were relatively ineffective as attack aircraft, but excellent for long-range reconnaissance and patrol.

  •Ship-borne floatplanes were of limited value for attack or reconnaissance, but highly useful for gunnery spotting.

  •Airships were ineffective as fleet scouts.

  The Fleet Problems also helped naval aviators and aviation personnel acquire much-needed practical experience. During a Fleet Problem it was not unusual for aviators to double their monthly flight time, from a normal Depression-era 20 to 25 hours to 50 or more. In the ten days of FP XIII (8–18 March 1932), Lexington generated 310 sorties for a total of 748 flying hours, while Saratoga did 423 sorties for 1,035 hours, aircraft averaging about 2.4 hours per sortie. This high sortie rate not only provided airmen and plane crews with invaluable experience, but also resulted in a more realistic understanding of the maintenance and logistical requirements demanded by a high operating tempo.72

  Several developments were essential to the success of the autonomous fast Carrier Task Force.

  •Large, fast carriers—achieved by 1928, though few in number until 1940

  •Task force concept—proposed in 1930

  •Radar—experimentally available from 1936

  •Underway replenishment—achieved by 1940

  •Long-range aircraft—achieved 1940–1941

  The Fleet Problems played a major role in the development of these capabilities. As a result, by about 1937, most senior officers in the U.S. Navy disagreed not so much as to whether naval aviation—specifically carrier aviation—would probably supplant the battleship, but as to when this was likely to take place, conservative thinkers believing it was still some time in the future, while the more optimistic thought it would be soon, if it had not already happened.

  Certainly carrier operations during Fleet Problems in 1938–1940 very closely resembled what actually transpired in the Pacific in 1942, when such non-aviators as Frank J. Fletcher, Wilson Brown, and Raymond Spruance turned in often outstanding performances commanding carrier task forces.73

  NOTES

  1.On the Fleet Problems, see my “To Train the Fleet For War”: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923–1940 (Newport, RI
: Naval War College Press, 2010), which looks at the process that underpinned the evolution of the Navy’s vision of what a future war would look like; and Craig C. Felker, Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923–1940 (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2007), on how the problems affected the ways in which specific technological and doctrinal developments (e.g., submarines, amphibious operations, aviation, etc.) were integrated into the Navy’s toolbox.

  2.The very apt term “naval force” is borrowed from Thomas C. Hone, e-mail, 2 September 2002.

  3.Mark Allen Campbell, “The Influence of Air Power Upon the Evolution of Battle Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1922–1941” (master’s thesis, University of Massachusetts at Boston, 1992), pp. 147–79, provides a very detailed analysis of lessons learned in aviation. This is a work in need of wider circulation.

  4.During such an exercise off Cuba in March 1919 Texas (BB-35) successfully used a catapulted floatplane to spot for her main battery, leading some officers to conclude that aerial spotting could result in a 200 percent increase in gunnery accuracy; see Thomas C. Hone and Trent Hone, Battleline: The United States Navy, 1919–1939 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006), p. 81.

  5.Peter M. Swartz, Sea Changes: Transforming U.S. Navy Deployment Strategy, 1775–2002 (Alexandria, VA: The CNA Corporation, unpublished study, 2002), p. 39. From 1904 to 1917, major elements of the fleet—including whole battle squadrons—were diverted from peacetime routine to Morocco during the Perdicaris Affair (1904) and Tangier Crisis (1905–6), to address problems in Cuba (1906–9 and 1912), Nicaragua (1912–13), Mexico (1914), and Haiti (1915), and to the Mediterranean during the Balkan Wars (1913–14), while smaller contingents responded to lesser crises on a regular basis, and there were also a half-dozen major transoceanic “show the flag” cruises, of which the “Great White Fleet” (1907–9) was the largest. In contrast, the interwar period saw only two modest diversions of fleet units—in 1924 when the Special Service Force (the Caribbean Squadron), two light cruisers, and a destroyer squadron were diverted from FP II due to tensions with Mexico, and during FP VII (1927) when two light cruisers were diverted to Nicaragua and four to the Far East, during the Chinese government’s “Northern Expedition”; and there was only one major transoceanic cruise, when the fleet visited Australia and New Zealand in 1925.

  6.Aviation-rated officers and enlisted personnel increased steadily during the interwar period, even during the years (1924–33) when overall manpower fell, rising from about 2 percent of manpower in the early 1920s to 20.4 percent in 1939.

  7.Naval War College Archives (hereafter NWCA), Carton 60, “Report on United States Fleet Problem Number One.”

  8.Ibid., especially pp. 131–34; and “Admiral Sums Up Canal Maneuvers,” New York Times, 8 April 1923.

  9.NWCA, Carton 60, “Report on United States Fleet Problem Number One,” pp. 89–90.

  10.Colon is about as far from Culebra as Manila is from Okinawa, some 1,100 miles, so the Caribbean was a good substitute for the China Seas.

  11.National Archives and Records Administration, Microfilm Series M964, Records Relating to United States Navy Fleet Problems I to XXI, 1923–1940 (Washington: NARA, 1975), 36 rolls, M964-3, 1, COMSCOFLT to CINCUS, “Fleet Problem No. 4—History of Operations,” p. 7 (NARA Microfilm Series M964 sources are cited hereafter as “M964-X,Y” to indicate roll and target, where appropriate, followed by document title).

  12.M964-2, 1, “Talk on Operations of Black Forces Delivered by Vice Admiral McCully, before Conference on Problem No. 3, 21 January 1924,” p. 5.

  13.NWCA, Carton 61, CINCUS, “Material Effectiveness, Fleet Problems II, III, and IV.”

  14.Coontz felt so strongly about aviation that he included these recommendations in his From the Mississippi to the Sea (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1930), p. 446.

  15.James M. Grimes, Aviation in the Fleet Exercises, 1911–1939, U.S. Naval Administrative Histories of World War II. Vol. 16 (Washington: United States Navy, n.d.), pp. 14–15; Thomas Wildenberg, All the Factors of Victory: Adm. Joseph Mason Reeves and the Origins of Carrier Air Power (Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2003), pp. 146–47.

  16.M964-8, 1, CINCUS to CNO, 4 May 1927, “U.S. Fleet Problem Seven—Report on,” pp. 2–3; Wildenberg, All the Factors, pp. 147–48.

  17.NWCA, Carton 61, CINCUS, Report of U.S. Fleet Problem Seven (4 May 1927), p. 2.

  18.“100 Planes Concentrate to Defend Hawaii in Manoeuvres,” New York Times, 16 May 1928; “‘Attackers’ Subdue Oahu in War Games,” New York Times, 18 May 1928; Norman Polmar, “Bombing Pearl Harbor,” Naval History, XVI, 3 (June 2002), pp. 14, 16; Wildenberg, All the Factors, p. 162.

  19.NWCA, Carton 64, White Task Force OpOrd No. 1, Task Organization, 18 May 1928; Wildenberg, All the Factors, pp. 162–64.

  20.For a good analysis of developments between 1931 and 1934, see Francis Lovell Keith, “United States Navy Task Force Evolution: An Analysis of United States Fleet Problems, 1931–1934” (master’s thesis, University of Maryland, 1974), pp. 281ff.

  21.More has been written about FP IX than any other. Among the more valuable analyses, comments, and observations are Eugene E. Wilson, “The Navy’s First Carrier Task Force,” Proceedings, February 1950, pp. 163–66; Wildenberg, All the Factors, pp. 1–10, 188–91; Grimes, Aviation in the Fleet Exercises, pp. 23–53; Gerald E. Wheeler, Admiral William Veazie Pratt, U.S. Navy: A Sailor’s Life (Washington, DC: Naval History Division, 1974), pp. 268–75. Press coverage was extensive, e.g., Lewis Freeman, “Saratoga’s Raid Left Fleet Behind,” New York Times, 18 February 1929; Lewis Freeman, “Commander’s Story of Saratoga’s Raid,” New York Times, 19 February 1929.

  22.The “communications relay” aircraft was necessary because, due to their weight, radios were not routinely fitted to all aircraft.

  23.M964-12, 1, “United States Fleet Problem IX, 1929, Report of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, Admiral H. A. Wiley, U.S.N.”

  24.Campbell, “The Influence of Air Power,” summarizes these, pp. 158–65, 174–75. Even during World War II there were several occasions on which carriers came under enemy surface fire or were within easy steaming distance of enemy surface combatants: the loss of HMS Glorious, June 1940; the “Bismarck Chase,” May 1941; Coral Sea, May 1942; Midway, June 1942; and most famously off Samar, 25 October 1944.

  25.M964-23, 1, “United States Fleet Problem X, 1930, Report of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, Admiral W. V. Pratt, U.S.N.,” pp. 40ff; Grimes, Aviation in the Fleet Exercises, p. 62.

  26.M964-23, 1, “United States Fleet Problem X, 1930, Report of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, Admiral W. V. Pratt, U.S.N.,” pp. 59ff includes comments by many officers.

  27.M964-13, 7, “United State Fleet Problem XI, 1930, Report of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, Admiral W. V. Pratt, U.S.N.,” esp. pp. 50–53.

  28.For FP XII, see M964-13, 13, “U.S. Fleet Problem XII, 1931, Report of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, Admiral J. V. Chase, U.S.N.”; NWCA, Carton 62, Comments of Adm. Frank H. Schofield, U.S.N., C-in-C Black Fleet, on Problem XII . . . (2 March 1931); Keith, “United States Navy Task Force Evolution,” pp. 22–57; Grimes, Aviation in the Fleet Exercises, pp. 81–96. The scenario postulated a notional Nicaraguan Canal as well, though this did not figure much in the way the problem unfolded.

  29.Los Angeles’ role in locating Black on the 18th appears to have been one of only two occasions during any of the fleet maneuvers that an airship did anything useful, the other being during FP XV (1934), when Macon (ZRS 5) had a very similar experience. Paolo E. Coletta, “Dirigibles in the U.S. Navy,” New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Tenth Naval History Symposium, ed. Jack Sweetman et al. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1993), pp. 213–29, is a concise overview of the use of airships by the fleet.

  30.“227 Planes to Fight in Caribbean ‘War’,” New York Times, 22 March 1931; “Navy Fliers Aloft this Week in Test over Caribbean Sea,” Washington Post,
22 March 1931; “Says Navy Must Get Small Plane Carriers,” New York Times, 28 March 1931; “Naval Planes Show Power in War Game,” New York Times, 29 March 1931; “A Lesson of the War Game,” New York Times, 30 March 1931.

  31.“Says Navy Must Get Small Plane Carriers,” New York Times, 28 March 1931. On “flying deck cruiser” see Norman Friedman, U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1983), pp. 89ff.