One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power

by Smith, Douglas V.

  On 2 May, Vinson introduced a bill calling for increasing Navy aircraft from 3,000 to 10,000 air frames and pilots from 2,602 to 16,000 along with the required training facilities as well as a further 11 percent increase in hulls, which included an additional carrier.27 In early June, he ramrodded the bill through Congress (known as the 3rd Vinson Act).28 Events moved swiftly as German Wehrmacht panzers charged across a hapless France; the new Navy authorization became law on 14 June, the day following the fall of Paris.29

  After the success of the June bill, the new CNO, Admiral Harold Stark, testified before Vinson’s committee that the Navy required a 70 percent increase in fleet assets to meet the two-ocean challenge. In dramatic but understated fashion, the chairman asked the CNO: “In view of world conditions, you regard this expansion as necessary?” Stark responded directly and crisply: “I do, Sir, emphatically.”30 Vinson upped the ante with an increase of a previous proposal for a $1.2 billion authorization to an over $4 billion bill to meet the 70 percent expansion goal. Although it bore the name of Senator David I. Walsh (D-MA), Chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, the key instigator of what came to be called the Vinson-Walsh Act or Two-Ocean Naval Expansion Act was the Georgia congressman. Recognizing that the threat lay in two seaward directions, the bill proposed a massive naval building program that allowed the United States to fight a two-ocean maritime struggle against Germany and Italy in the Atlantic and Japan in the Pacific. Admiral Mahan had argued for a concentration of forces. The Two-Ocean Navy Act sought to create such an overwhelming force that the U.S. Navy could bring to bear Mahan’s concept of decisive concentration in both theaters simultaneously—a bold move. Admiral Stark, at an executive session of the Naval Affairs Committee, argued for 439,000 tons of new construction, but Representative Vinson pushed the amount further to 1,250,000 tons. The proposed bill grew larger by the hour. The committee added a further 75,000 tons for additional aircraft carriers, patrol boats, shipbuilding facilities, and improvements to the factories and foundries that manufactured armor plate and naval artillery. The committee unanimously approved the bill and it moved quickly to the House floor. The Vinson-Walsh Act (H.R. 10100) passed with only two hours of debate in the House of Representatives on 22 June and an hour in the Senate on 11 July without a single “nay” vote.31 On 22 June, the government of France signed an armistice amounting to a complete capitulation to Hitler’s Germany, underscoring the dramatic change in U.S. security needs.

  H.R. 10100 provided for 385,000 tons in new battleship construction, but only 200,000 tons in aircraft carriers. But, in the post–Pearl Harbor environment, as it became obvious that the maritime struggle in the Pacific would be an airman’s war, the battleship appropriation over time transferred to carrier construction. A single-line memorandum from Navy Budget Officer Captain E. G. Allen, of 20 July 1940 to all Navy bureaus and offices, the Navy Department, and Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, announced in dry and understated comment the most overarching and dramatic expansion of the United States Navy in history. Captain Allen simply stated that “Bill H.R. 10100 (the 70 percent Naval Expansion Bill) was approved by the President on 19 July 1940.”32 The impact of that statement on the Navy, the United States, and the world’s future would be dramatic. On the 30th, Admiral Stark advised the Secretary of the Navy that based on a meeting on the evening of 25 July with the president, negotiations for contracts for two battleships, six large-gun heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers, and three fleet carriers of the Essex class could begin. Interestingly, the remaining five battleships included in the 70 percent bill were “not cleared and no contracts are to be negotiated for them.”33 The statement could be interpreted as indicating that as early as a year and a half prior to Pearl Harbor, the Navy realized that the carrier had arrived as the primary fleet capital ship. However, despite the advancements in aviation and carrier technology as pioneered in the interwar period, most senior officers in 1940 still viewed the airplane as an adjunct to the battleship. Pearl Harbor would change all of that.

  PART III—THE NEW VINSON NAVY

  Based on the legislation from early June (11 percent expansion) and H.R. 9822, which streamlined the contracting process, the Navy proceeded without hesitation to order new construction at the beginning of July. Within two hours of the president signing the legislation, the Navy Department let contracts for forty-five warships.34 Pursuant to the Two-Ocean Navy Act, the Navy contracted for seven additional carriers, all of which eventually reached the fleet for war service in the Pacific.35 Construction numbers starkly illustrate the power of the naval appropriations legislation. By early September 1940, American shipyards had 201 naval vessels under construction.36 In January 1941, multiple shipyards had under construction 17 battleships, 12 carriers, 54 cruisers, 80 submarines, and 205 destroyers.37 Despite this rapid increase in shipbuilding activity, Navy leaders worried that the potential Axis threat could not be met based on the established two-ocean timetable. Then Commander of the Atlantic Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, in a 30 July 1941 letter to the Navy Board chairman pointed out that while Hornet was due to be completed by the end of 1941, follow-on CVs would not be commissioned until early 1944 based on the thirty-six-month construction cycle. King further and forcefully advised that the “current scheduled rate [of construction] is wholly inadequate and requires to be expedited . . . [and] considering the accelerating importance of air power, the conversion of suitable and available ships to carriers should be undertaken at once.”38 Not only did American shipyards respond with an expedited schedule, but accelerated hull conversion programs spurred further acquisition of two critically important carrier types, the Independence-class light carriers and multiple escort carrier classes.

  Carrier construction contracts went out to major shipyards, including Bethlehem Steel’s Quincy, Massachusetts, shipyard, Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, and the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York. For example, on 1 October 1940, Bethlehem Steel accepted the contract offered by the Navy on 9 September 1940 for carriers CV-16, CV-17, CV-18, and CV-19 (USS Lexington, USS Bunker Hill, USS Wasp, and USS Hancock)—all to be built at the company’s Fore River Yard in Quincy, Massachusetts, for a price of $191,200,000, or $47,800,000 per ship. All four carriers eventually saw Pacific service. USS Lexington, the first of the group when launched in September 1942, saw action beginning with the Gilbert Islands Campaign that initiated the Central Pacific thrust of the overall multipronged strategy against Japan (other prongs included the Southwest Pacific (SOWPAC) thrust under General Douglas MacArthur, the South Pacific (SOPAC) prong under Admiral Chester Nimitz, the B-29 strategic bombing campaign, the unrestricted submarine maritime interdiction campaign, and the China-Burma-India (CBI) Campaign under Lord Louis Mountbatten with U.S. forces in a supporting role). USS Hancock, launched in January 1944, reached Pacific Fleet in time for the Philippines and Iwo Jima campaigns.39

  In 1940 the American shipbuilding industry, buffeted by a decade of economic depression, stood ready, able, and willing to ramp up on a massive scale. As a further inducement to speed construction, Congress suspended the profit-limiting provisions of the Vinson-Trammell Act in legislative action on 8 October 1940, a feature that had roiled relations between the Roosevelt administration and the manufacturers to the point that no company would agree to begin construction or manufacture of ships or aircraft until the restriction had been modified.40 In the contract acceptance letter from Bethlehem Steel, Vice President A. B. Homer pointed out to the Secretary of the Navy that “execution of the contracts in question will be postponed until that Act [profit limitations clause included in the 1934 Vinson-Trammel Act] shall have been repealed.”41 Additionally, the issue of new plant facilities required by Bethlehem Steel to accommodate not only the four new carriers, but the additional cruisers included in the contract, became a source of contention. The company required over $10 million to construct these facilities within the specified time frame; without these upgrades at Fore River, the ships could not be started. A ne
w welding building; transportation equipment; cranes; sheet metal, paint, and machine shops as well as an additional wet basin and so forth all had to be constructed to accommodate the rapid shipyard expansion. For accelerated wartime construction, the normal amortization and depreciation of new facilities and plant expansion over an extended period could not be relied upon. Clearly, Congress needed to grant protection to manufacturers from rapid postwar drawdowns and other costs that would not be part of the normal, peacetime business cycle. Indeed, Admiral Towers had been able to let only a single contract with the Stearman Company for training biplanes, such was the reticence of companies to accept contracts without financial protections. With German forces occupying Paris and Great Britain under air siege in autumn 1940, no one in Congress, the Roosevelt administration, or the Navy desired any delays. An old saying in naval aviation goes, “maximum speed, minimum drag, speed is life.” Clearly, Congress understood this imperative with war imminent and responded accordingly with the Internal Revenue Act of 1940, passed on 8 October, that repealed the profit ceilings on ships and aircraft, established a five-year plant amortization schedule, and set up a tax structure to guarantee sufficient manufacturer profits.42

  The contract for the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Newport News, Virginia, went out from the Secretary of the Navy on 11 September. Similar to that awarded to Bethlehem Steel, the contract called for the construction of CVs 12–15 (USS Hornet [originally Kearsarge, but renamed Hornet after the loss in action of the original Hornet (CV-8) at the Battle of Santa Cruz on 27 October 1942], USS Franklin, USS Ticonderoga, and USS Randolph). The contract award also specified that each ship had to “conform substantially to the contract plans and specifications to be furnished by the Navy Department for Aircraft carrier CV-9.” Since USS Essex (CV-9, launched in July 1942) and USS Yorktown (launched January 1943 and originally USS Bon Homme Richard, but renamed Yorktown following the loss of the original Yorktown (CV-5) at Midway in June 1942) were then under construction at Newport News, the shipyard stood ready from a technical viewpoint to construct the new class of carriers. In fact, Newport News had constructed the earlier Yorktown and Enterprise, both launched in 1936 and Hornet, which would be launched in December of that year. Thus, their expertise in large-carrier construction stood at a pinnacle by late 1940. It is interesting to note that the cost per unit for the Newport News carriers came in at $42,090,060, a substantial reduction compared to the Bethlehem Steel price. However, considering that the cost of living in 1940 in Hampton Roads/Tidewater, Virginia, compared to that in the Boston, Massachusetts, area probably was considerably less, the relative costs per ship seem reasonable. Additionally, the more heavily unionized Boston area might also explain a higher per unit cost. Keeping in accordance with the need for rapid delivery, the Navy offered the shipyard an incentive bonus of $3,000 per day under the contractual time of delivery. The Navy also allowed $7 million for acquisition of additional plant facilities required to upgrade the Quincy yard. From a cost and budgetary viewpoint, clearly the carriers built in Virginia made better economic sense. However, the need to build as rapidly as possible to the 70 percent fleet expansion as called for in the Two-Ocean legislation meant that the Navy could not rely upon a single company or yard. Bethlehem Steel did have considerable large-hull construction capability and experience. For example, that yard had built the carrier USS Lexington (CV-2) in the 1920s, USS Wasp (CV-7) launched in April 1939, and also the battleship USS Massachusetts (BB-59) laid down in July 1939. The same dynamic justified the higher costs of building ships in New York at the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn or New York Shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey, which constructed the USS Saratoga (CV-3) and eventually all nine of the Independence-class light carriers (CVL 22–30). The New York Naval Shipyard, better known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard, constructed the later Essex-class carriers Bennington (CV-20), Bon Homme Richard (CV-31), Kearsarge (CV-33), Oriskany (CV-34), and the late-war USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42) of the Midway class launched in April 1945.

  Wartime exigency thus played a vital role in carrier construction. With the loss of the battleships USS Arizona (BB-39) and USS Oklahoma (BB-37) at Pearl Harbor, with the time required to repair and refit the remaining damaged dreadnoughts, and with the attrition of the prewar carriers in combat through 1942, the Navy needed the new capital ships as rapidly as possible. While the older carriers, cruisers, and destroyers of the Pacific Fleet had been able to blunt the Japanese Pacific advance through the various naval engagements in 1942—including the battles of the Coral Sea in May, Midway in June, Eastern Solomons in September, Santa Cruz in October, and the multiple actions in the Solomon Islands in support of the Guadalcanal Campaign—by early 1943, the Pacific Fleet had been reduced to two operational carriers: USS Enterprise (CV-6) and USS Saratoga (CV-3). Any hope of initiating the Central Pacific prong, which reflected the long-standing War Plan Orange calling for a rollback offensive in the Central Pacific leading to a decisive, Mahanian-style great battle fleet engagement against the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the Philippine Sea followed by maritime interdiction and bombardment of the Japanese home islands, depended on the arrival of the new Vinson Navy. By March 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff contemplated the strategic plans for the war against Japan. MacArthur argued for the SOWPAC campaign aimed at retaking the Philippine Islands. Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, as supported ably by his new chief of staff, Admiral Raymond Spruance, the hero of Midway, argued for the Central Pacific advance. In a compromise solution in June 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed upon a dual-pronged advance with the Navy–Marine Corps leading through the Central Pacific island archipelagoes and the Army and Army Air Force with Navy support thrust through the Southwest Pacific (primarily the northern New Guinea coast) toward Rabaul and eventually the Philippines. But a potential problem loomed. The SOPAC campaign had moved along briskly and by early 1943 Guadalcanal had been secured as American forces advanced rapidly up the Solomons chain. In the SOWPAC, MacArthur had initiated operations in New Guinea with Operation Cartwheel in June. So long as the Central Pacific thrust remained a strategy in waiting, the Japanese ability to outflank American and Allied forces from the north, even to the point of cutting off the communications route to Hawaii and the United States, remained an issue. With a robust campaign aimed at the center, Japan would have to defend on many fronts and in many spots to maintain its defensive perimeter, which would of necessity prevent enough concentration of forces so as to threaten the SOWPAC and SOPAC theaters. In other words, the sooner the Vinson Navy could be on station, operational, and ready to fight with new carriers and improved combat aircraft, the better.

  American industry answered the call. For example, the contract with Newport News required completion of USS Lexington within fifty-seven months of contract award. For the fourth carrier, USS Randolph, the contract stipulated seventy months from award to delivery. The date of the contract award letter from the Secretary of the Navy to Newport News was 11 September. Lexington was launched on 30 August 1943 and commissioned on 29 November 1943, merely thirty-seven months rather than the contractually required fifty-seven. Similarly, Randolph’s time to delivery was only forty-eight months rather than the mandated seventy (commissioned 9 October 1944). In like manner, contract deliveries for the Bethlehem Steel Quincy Yard for Lexington from time of contract award to delivery took only twenty-nine rather than the prescribed forty-three months, and Hancock’s delivery in only forty-three months beat the contractual time by twenty-three months.43 Armed with the new construction ships and airplanes, a testament to the incredible industrial capacity of American industry and the productivity of American workers, the Navy initiated the Central Pacific thrust against the Gilbert Islands with the amphibious assault against Tarawa Atoll on 20 November 1943, an operation that could not have been even contemplated had not the shipbuilders delivered the new carriers and other ships funded by the Two-Ocean legislation well ahead of schedule.
Few archives so vividly illustrate the scope of this economic and industrial power than the 1 January 1943 message to the Commander in Chief (COMINCH), Navy from Captain Donald B. Duncan, USN, Commanding Officer, succinctly stating that “USS ESSEX, CV-9, PLACED IN FULL COMMISSION AT 1700 THIS DATE.” Only thirteen months after the destruction of the Pacific Fleet battleships at Pearl Harbor, the first of the new class of aircraft carriers intended for the destruction of the Japanese Empire, became operational.44

  USS Essex (CV-9), circa 1945.

  An additional issue complicated the construction plan. Did the Navy require carriers quicker or a newer, more robust design? The Bureau of Construction and Repair and the Bureau of Engineering (merged in 1940 into Bureau of Ships or BuShips) pointed out in early July, after passage of the legislation, but prior to the president’s signature, that to build CVs of the newer design would require additional months compared to using the current Hornet-class design. If the first four newly appropriated ships, starting with CV-9, were built to the Yorktown/Hornet design, then the estimated time to delivery would be thirty months versus the newer design requiring forty-four months. Total tonnage did not present a problem with either class design. To build five at 19,800 tons each would bring the program well under the budgeted tonnage. To build four Yorktown/Hornet designs and one new design of 26,500 tons came to 105,700 tons or just under the limit.45 Such were the design decisions facing the Navy as Vinson pushed through ever-greater naval legislation. However, the events of 1940 in Europe had the effect of removing qualms about building the best carrier design available in the most expeditious manner. Accordingly, the Navy decided on the new design beginning with USS Essex.