One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power

by Smith, Douglas V.

  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.

  Technology and geography also played a role in the evolution of carrier-based aviation. Various techniques for launching and recovering aircraft from a deck underway had been conducted by the Royal Navy during World War I; however, due to the creation of an independent air arm with the establishment of the Royal Air Force in April 1918, British navy aviation lost momentum and control of its own destiny. Thus, by the mid-1920s, the U.S. Navy surged ahead of Britain in carrier development. The modification of the collier Jupiter into the USS Langley (CV-1) by 1922 provided the platform for testing and perfecting carrier operations, including tail hooks for landing traps. Eventually, wheeled aircraft replaced floats in frontline aircraft. By the time the first operational fleet carriers arrived in 1927 (Saratoga and Lexington), technology and doctrinal changes had moved the aircraft carrier into an offensive rather than simply a fleet support mode.

  By the 1920s, Navy planners assumed that a maritime conflict with Japan in the Pacific loomed inevitable and that Navy aviation would play a great part in supporting fleet operations, both as support for the battle line (reconnaissance, scouting, and gunfire spotting) and in actual offensive operations. Fleet battle problems using carriers in an offensive role showed the potential for carrier-delivered air raid operations. In the 1930s, the Navy perfected effective dive-bombing techniques, making the airplane a potentially deadly weapons system even against maneuvering vessels. And the Navy realized that forward naval operations in the Western Pacific against Imperial Japan far from land-based stations such as the Hawaiian Islands (assuming the initial loss of the Philippine Islands) could only be conducted with robust air support; only dedicated carriers could transport, support, launch, and recover aircraft on a routine, sustained basis. Geography thus aided in the evolution of pro-aviation thinking, technology, and—gradually—war-fighting doctrine.

  Another milestone in Navy aviation development occurred in 1925 with the Morrow Report. Appointed in 1925 by President Calvin Coolidge as a study group composed of nine members drawn from Congress, the Army, the Navy, and the private aviation industry to examine both military and commercial aviation policy, the Morrow Board conducted four weeks of hearings, interviewed almost a hundred expert witnesses, including the Secretaries of War, Navy and Commerce as well as representatives of the fledgling aircraft industry. Headed by Dwight Morrow, the recommendations of the board set the standards for Navy aviation for decades and led to critical congressional legislation in 1926. Among the most far-reaching results were the creation of the Office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Aeronautics) and the requirement that all commanding officers of aircraft carriers, seaplane tenders, and naval air stations must be qualified naval aviators. While the Assistant Secretary position was eventually left vacant by the 1930s, the command requirement ensured a career track for Navy aviators that appealed to those interested in professional progression and major command opportunities.7

  The board advocated that a “strong air force was vital to national security and there must be a strong private industry and long-term continuing program of procurement which was essential to the creation of adequate engineering staffs and the acceleration of new developments.” In this regard, the board concluded that the private aircraft industry represented a vital component of national defense and that “government competition with civil industry should be eliminated.”8 In other words, the government appropriated the funds and specified the technical objectives and requirements for military aircraft, but the private sector executed the design and manufacture of military aircraft. It is important to note that a key board member was the young congressman from Georgia, Carl Vinson.

  PART II—THE LEGISLATIVE IMPERATIVE

  With the changes in the international climate by the early 1930s and the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and ardent Navy supporter, carrier aviation accelerated. The political will for naval expansion had finally returned after fifteen years in hibernation. Representative Vinson, who became Chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee with the Democrats taking the majority in 1931, immediately set about the legislative process. Vinson served in the House of Representatives for fifty years, much of which as Chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee and later Armed Services Committee. From the Service side, the new Commander in Chief, US Fleet (CinCUS) Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves, a qualified naval observer, encouraged Navy aviation, thus setting the stage for the necessary legislative, budgetary, and senior leadership support required for dramatic aviation expansion.

  Beginning in December 1931, Vinson met with various Republican and Democratic lawmakers as well as Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams, to lay the legislative foundations for accelerated naval shipbuilding.9 Funded by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA) of 1933, USS Yorktown (CV-5) and USS Enterprise (CV-6), both laid down in 1934 and commissioned in 1937 and 1938, respectively, formed the backbo
ne of carrier forces in the early months of the coming Pacific War.10 In January 1934, flush with the first funding success for fleet modernization and capital ship construction, Vinson announced that he intended to push for millions of dollars in additional public works funds in the 1935–1936 fiscal years.11 From the start of the Roosevelt administration, Vinson championed naval rearmament. While others dithered and hoped for peace in the world through disarmament, treaties, and downsizing, Vinson understood the dangers of military unpreparedness and more importantly, the effort, funding, and lead time required to ensure preparedness. Just after the 1932 election that swept the Democrats back into the White House and into the congressional majority, Vinson began his crusade for rearmament, stating, for example, that “our national defense in time of peace is allowed to decline and to grow weak, and when war comes, as unhappily it does, billions of dollars are poured out in the vain effort to build up our Navy and to create an Army to meet an emergency that we find upon us. Again and again we must be taught that soldiers cannot be made in a day and that it takes years to create ships.”12

  In conjunction with Senator Park Trammell of Massachusetts, Chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, Vinson achieved the next great legislative success in 1934—the Vinson-Trammell Act. Objections to the bill emanated from two quarters: those who saw the bill as unnecessary government spending in the midst of the Great Depression and isolationists. Vinson argued that the stimulus aided economic recovery, especially in hard-hit industrial areas such as steel and shipbuilding. Additionally, he pointed out that the United States had not even built up the Navy to the treaty limitation displacement tonnages imposed by the 1922 Washington and 1930 London naval agreements. Thus, American national security relative to the two potential maritime adversaries—Great Britain and Japan—suffered serious deficiencies.13 He won the argument. The bill passed, authorizing over $5 million for new ship construction to bring the Navy up to treaty strength with over 100 new warships and over 1,200 aircraft.14 However, the bill did not actually appropriate any specific money; rather, it authorized funding for future appropriations. Despite the political opposition, President Roosevelt signed the bill on 28 March 1934. Navy aviation, which had expanded little in the interwar years with only three operational carriers, benefited greatly from the legislation, prompting Admiral Jonas Ingram to comment that the legislation represented a seminal event “looking toward the continued operating efficiency and future expansion of naval aviation.”15 In truth, the Vinson-Trammel Act broke the logjam of dithering, complacency, and calculated inattention to Navy aviation that characterized the first decade and a half of the interwar period. As the treaty limitations expired at the end of 1936, the United States now clearly had set a new course in naval rearmament. The authorizations and appropriations of the 1930s based on Vinson’s efforts set the stage for the 1940 Two-Ocean Navy Act and the dramatic expansion of U.S. naval forces.

  By the late 1930s, events in Europe and Asia took an ominous direction. With the refusal of key nations to continue naval arms limits, even the appropriations resulting from the 1934 Act seemed inadequate for national security. New Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William D. Leahy recommended an authorization to exceed the limits of the earlier Vinson-Trammel Act.16 Congress responded positively. For example, legislation in 1935 authorized commissioning six hundred new Naval Reserve pilots.17 Thus, the foundations of the 1940 Act were laid. In the interim, however, incremental authorizations and appropriations boosted Navy shipbuilding. On 3 March 1938, the Naval Affairs Committee recommended a massive increase in the building program even beyond Roosevelt’s recommendations. The appropriation passed the House of Representatives as H.R. 9218 by a vote of 294 to 100 and on 17 May 1938, the president signed what came to be called the “2nd Vinson Act.” The result—a 20 percent expansion of the fleet beyond the projected treaty size of just two years earlier and the authorization for acquisition or construction of Navy aircraft up to three thousand airframes.18 While isolationists railed against the increased appropriations, the argument that defending the United States well out to sea versus at the shoreline won the day. Indications that Japan had almost 300,000 displacement tons of new naval vessels already under construction certainly charged the debate in favor of naval expansion. As in the heady days of U.S. naval expansion forty years earlier, the influence of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan’s admonition that national security lay in decisive battle for command of the sea through great battle fleets overwhelmed arguments for isolationism or governmental economy.19

  The 1939 naval appropriation bill included the laying down of two new battleships of the South Dakota class. Within a week of signing the 1939 appropriation, still based on the original 1934 authorization, President Roosevelt recommended constructing an additional two battleships.20 For the future of Navy aviation, the president called for two additional aircraft carriers, which would become USS Hornet (CV-8, third ship of the Yorktown class that reached the fleet in 1941), and ultimately, the main fleet carrier–class leader of the last two years of the war, USS Essex (CV-9). Eventually, twenty-six Essex-class carriers were ordered and twenty-four completed.21 Additionally, the 20 percent increase appropriated funds for 950 more aircraft. The USS Wasp (CV-7) and USS Ranger (CV-4), both launched in the 1930s and smaller designs than the Yorktown class, rounded out the carriers as war erupted in the Pacific. The need for shore air facilities drove further congressional legislation in 1939, resulting in an appropriation for naval aviation facilities at Kaneohe and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Midway Islands; Wake, Johnston, and Palmyra Islands in the Central Pacific; Kodiak and Sitka, Alaska; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Pensacola, Florida; Norfolk, Virginia; Quonset Point, Rhode Island; and Tongue Point, Oregon.22

  Disregarding objections from many prominent legislators, in March 1940, Vinson set the stage for the most critical of all the Vinson bills, the Two-Ocean Navy Act in June. He announced as early as November 1939 that he intended to propose mammoth Navy authorization legislation in 1940 calling for three additional carriers as well as other ship types and to allow for long-term, low-interest government loans to aid shipbuilders. Additionally, Vinson’s proposed legislation sought to lift the requirement that a minimum of half of all construction must occur in government yards such as the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Norfolk Navy Yard, Puget Sound Navy Yard, and so forth, and grant the Navy Department authorization to award noncompetitive bid contracts. Beginning in January 1940, Vinson’s Naval Affairs Committee conducted hearings on H.R. 8026, known as the Vinson Naval Expansion Act of 1940. Arguing that Japan had embarked on a massive carrier-building program beginning in March, he shepherded through Congress an additional appropriation for three new carriers as part of a two-year authorization program leading to an 11 percent fleet expansion.23 The bill passed the House by a striking 305 to 37 vote. With quick Senate passage, the law became effective on 14 June 1940. The carriers USS Yorktown (CV-10) (formerly Bon Homme Richard), USS Intrepid (CV-11), and USS Hornet (CV-12) (formerly USS Kearsarge) resulted from the legislation; CNO Directive of 20 May 1940 initiated the contracting process.

  Vinson had many allies in the Navy for his expansive proposals, especially for naval aviation. As BuAer Chief beginning in 1939, Rear Admiral John Towers had an immense impact on the shape of the new Vinson Navy particularly in providing the professional expertise required to shape the legislation. Vinson frequently consulted Towers on aviation matters. Towers had direct access to the president, Chief of the Army Air Corps, and the senior executives of the aircraft industry, thus he played a pivotal role in the events of March to June 1940 in terms of ship and aircraft acquisition. The Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee frequently tasked the admiral to draft the legislation for fleet expansion even though that task lay clearly beyond the scope of his authority and responsibilities at BuAer. The crucial day of deliberations between Towers, Vinson, and members of the committee, 22 May 1940, shaped the course of legislative events into June as Vinson pushed his ag
enda through Congress with great alacrity. The noted naval air historian, Clark G. Reynolds, asserts that “it is no exaggeration to say that more was done toward creating the modern air-centered wartime and postwar U.S. Navy on the twenty-second of May 1940 than had been in years of struggling by BuAer and the fleet’s aviators, Towers foremost among them.” In short, the process that led to the Two-Ocean legislation in June 1940 represented a symbiosis of professional and legislative leaders of incredible energy, expertise, and influence at a critical moment in the evolution of U.S. Navy air power.24

  Thus, on the eve of the Battle of France in May–June 1940, the various appropriations came to a total of five new aircraft carriers. But, illustrating the continued dominance of the battleship as the main capital ship type, the same legislation called for twenty-one new dreadnoughts. By 1940, however, only the two North Carolina–class battleships had been launched, with all other existing battleships rapidly nearing the end of usable service life. However, the fleet had in commission five carriers of relative youth, though of more or less capability. A far-sighted observer in spring 1940, aware of the Japanese carrier-building program, might easily conclude that the ascendancy of the aircraft carrier and power projection through the air was at hand.

  On 19 May 1940, the headline in the Washington Post announced the German capture of Antwerp, Belgium, one of Europe’s busiest ports.25 With the collapse and surrender of France and evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, it became clear that the United States’ future security relied upon an immediate and profound armed forces expansion. In a classified memorandum dated 22 May 1940, Major Matthew B. Ridgeway, future United Nations commander in Korea, analyzed in stark language the dangerous security situation facing the country: “It is not practicable to send forces to the Far East, to Europe, and to South America all at once, nor can we do so to a combination of any two of these areas without dangerous dispersion of force . . . we cannot conduct major operations either in the Far East or in Europe due . . . to a lack of means at present.” Copies of the memorandum went to the president, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Secretary of the Navy, and to the Chief of Staff of the Army who expressed his “complete agreement with every word of it,” according to an annotation added 23 May 1940 as a NOTE FOR RECORD.26 The fall of France and the realization that the United States lacked the means and resources to fight a multi-front war against the fascist powers jolted Congress and the administration into action, with Vinson leading the charge.