One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power

by Smith, Douglas V.

  45.MEMORANDUM from Bureau of Construction and Repair and Bureau of Engineering (n.d.), received Navy Department 17 July 1940, NA, SECNAV, CV/L8-3(11), RG 80, 11W3/26/6/1, Box 322.

  46.Paul H. Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1965), pp. 36–48. Yorktown is a memorial/museum ship in Charleston, South Carolina, while Intrepid is berthed in New York as a floating naval air museum, a testament to the enduring legacy of these ships. Lexington served many decades as a training ship in Pensacola, Florida, for thousands of naval aviators for decades following the war.

  47.Ibid., pp. 46–64.

  48.CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM FOR MR. GATES dated 10 February 1944, NA, SECNAV, RG 80, 370/19/26, Box 1 (declassified IAW DoD DIR 5200.30 of 23 March 1983 by NARA on 17 September 2009).

  49.Letter from Chief of Naval Operations to Various Officials dated 22 July 1940, NA, SECNAV, RG 80, 370/19/14/1-2, Box 20 (declassified IAW NND813002 by NARA on 17 September 2009).

  50.Cost Trend of Principal Naval Aircraft dated 10 February 1944, NA, SECNAV, RG 80, 370/19/7/15, Box 9.

  51.Letter from Chief BuAer to Secretary of the Navy dated 6 May 1943, BuAer, RG 72, 370/19/27/3, Box 34 (declassified IAW DoD Directive 5200.30 of 23 March 1983 by NARA 17 September 2009).

  52.CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM from Captain A.W. Radford to Chief, BuAer dated 30 June 1942, NA, BuAer, RG 72, 370/19/27/3, Box 36 (declassified IAW DoD DIR 5200.30 of 23 March 1983 by NARA on 17 September 2009).

  53.The 1940 legislation eventually resulted in the following numbers:

  1,325,000 tons new construction

  New warships

  2 Iowa-class battleships

  2 Alaska-class battle cruisers

  18 Essex-class carriers

  27 Baltimore-, Atlanta-, Cleveland-class cruisers

  115 Bristol-, Fletcher-class destroyers

  43 Gato-class fleet submarines

  15,000 aircraft

  Numerous repair/tender/support ships

  54.Silverstone, U.S. Warships, pp. 36–48. Only USS Saratoga (CV-3), which had been laid down as a battle cruiser during World War I and launched in 1925 could be characterized as a non-Vinson carrier. USS Enterprise (CV-6) resulted from the 1933 National Recovery Act, but Vinson had been a major influence in that appropriation effort. Thus, sixteen of the seventeen Pacific Fleet carriers at the time of Japan’s surrender could be said to have been part of the “Vinson Navy.”

  CHAPTER 9

  U.S. Aircraft Carrier Evolution, 1911–1945

  Norman Friedman

  U.S. carrier aviation began almost a century ago in November 1910, when, under naval auspices, an intrepid aviator named Eugene Ely landed on the cruiser USS Birmingham, whose fantail had been partly covered by a temporary deck equipped with what we would now call arresting gear ropes.1 In January 1911 Ely landed on and then flew off a similar deck rigged over the bow of the cruiser Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbor. The next month Glenn Curtiss landed his “hydroplane” alongside Pennsylvania, was hoisted aboard, then hoisted out and flew off, demonstrating a form of fleet aviation that could operate with minimum impact on a surface warship. Senior U.S. officers were impressed; they understood that aircraft could change naval warfare by giving fleet commanders much wider vision. The formal characteristics (staff requirements) for the 1910 battleship (Texas class) were amended to include provision for aircraft (although nothing was done in the end). Landing-on and flying-off decks at both ends of a ship would block too much of a ship’s main battery; instead work proceeded on a catapult (designed at the Naval Gun Factory [Washington Navy Yard] in 1912) whose fixed track would cover the after guns of a large cruiser. The third catapult built was installed in 1915 on board the armored cruiser North Carolina, making the first catapult shot from a moving ship (the pilot was Captain Henry C. Mustin).2 In 1916 several other armored cruisers were so modified, carrying large seaplanes that could land alongside when they returned. They represented a much greater diversion of frontline warships to aviation than other navies then contemplated.

  About 1911 other navies were experimenting with launching aircraft from ships and also with operating aircraft from the shore. The Germans in particular became interested in reconnaissance by Zeppelins; the British were so impressed that they used an aircraft-carrying cruiser, HMS Hermes, to simulate enemy airships during their 1913 maneuvers. At the outbreak of war the British converted three Channel steamers to carry floatplanes, and in December 1914 these ships launched the first naval air attack in history, specifically to destroy the German Zeppelin force. Although the attack succeeded, the German force was never completely destroyed, and during the war the Royal Navy began placing fighters on board its battleships and cruisers (they landed either ashore or in the water), specifically to deal with Zeppelin scouts. They had good reason to do so: in August 1916 the British Grand Fleet failed to catch the Germans at sea because a Zeppelin spotted them shortly before the two fleets would have come into contact. The British also became interested in aircraft to scout for their own fleet; a British floatplane (piloted by “Rutland of Jutland”) was peripherally involved in the Battle of Jutland, but the main British carrier, HMS Campania, did not go to sea with the fleet due to a signaling failure.

  The Royal Navy also became interested in torpedo attack, an idea first popularized by U.S. Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske. Conversion of the three Channel steamers was initially motivated by a plan to attack the German fleet in harbor (the aircraft were hardly up to it, however), and in 1915 a British naval floatplane made the first aerial torpedo attack in history, on a Turkish steamer. The British became particularly interested in torpedo strikes after 1916, when it became clear that the German fleet would remain in harbor, tying down the British, preventing them from using their sea power offensively. Airplanes offered a unique way to get at the Germans despite their unwillingness to go to sea. In 1918 the British had enough carrier decks, either ready or in prospect, to plan a recognizably modern carrier raid on the German fleet in harbor. They revived the idea in the 1930s when they faced war against Italy, and they executed just such a raid against the Italian fleet base at Taranto in November 1940. It in turn may have helped inspire the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which had much the same aim. By 1918 the British also saw aerial spotting as a key to future gun battles, particularly when fog limited visibility on the sea. It was not so much that aircraft had been decisive during World War I, but that what they had done pointed to a large future role. In 1924 it was estimated that 150,000 aircraft had been built by various combatants during the war.3

  All of this mattered to the U.S. Navy because U.S. naval officers joined the British fleet after the United States entered World War I in April 1917. A U.S. battle squadron joined the Grand Fleet, which operated most British carrier aircraft; a U.S. naval staff (under Admiral William S. Sims, who was later President of the Naval War College) was set up in London, with close contact with the Admiralty; and U.S. officers and U.S.-built aircraft became involved in the huge British air anti-submarine warfare (ASW) effort (unlike land planes, in which the British and French had an enormous edge, U.S. flying boats were considered quite modern and were used by the Royal Navy).

  The U.S. officers watched the British create the world’s first carrier force, and they reported back, both during and after the war, how it worked and what it could do. The U.S. staff in London so absorbed current Admiralty thinking that in 1918 it proposed a U.S. naval building program modeled closely on contemporary British warships. The Royal Navy sent a senior naval constructor, Stanley V. Goodall (later Director of Naval Construction, equivalent to the Chief of the U.S. Bureau of Ships), to work with U.S. warship designers at the Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R, later part of the Bureau of Ships). Goodall brought with him plans of current British warships, including some of the new carriers Argus, Furious, and Hermes (as they were when he left England in 1917, for example, when Furious had only her forward flying-off deck, with a hangar below it; Goodall stated that she ha
d been further modified with a flying-on deck aft, but he had no details). Further plans, which survive in U.S. archives, were supplied as late as 1919–1920, as for a time postwar the British hoped that the United States would become an ally (this idea died when the Senate rejected the League of Nations).

  The wartime Royal Navy considered carriers so important that it chose to complete the new battleship HMS Eagle as a carrier (her sister ship was the battleship HMS Canada). The “large light cruiser” Furious received first a flying-off deck forward (in place of one of her two 18-inch guns) and then a flying-on deck aft. She was the scene of the first British carrier landing, in 1917, but the air eddying around her superstructure caused serious problems, including the death of the first carrier-landing pilot. The British also laid down a cruiser-size carrier, HMS Hermes. She was the first ship to be designed as a carrier from the outset. The Royal Navy clearly considered her important enough to divert the resources that otherwise could have gone into a heavy cruiser. British capital ships and cruisers were fitted with flying-off platforms for fighters. Among lessons of early British carrier operations was the danger of air currents brushing aside the lightweight aircraft as they tried to land. The first British aviator to land on an operational carrier (Furious) was blown over the side and drowned on his second landing. Among the British responses was to lay wires lengthwise on the deck, providing airplanes with T-shaped hooks under their wheels, the idea being that a landing airplane would catch the wires and stay on the deck. The wires were often called arresting gear, but that was not their main function. The U.S. Navy adopted this idea, retaining such wires as late as about 1928. The Royal Navy found that, once airplanes were heavy enough not to be affected fatally by gusts of wind, the lengthwise wires tended to foul; they were abandoned. This experience was one reason the Royal Navy did not adopt arresting gear until the late 1930s. One consequence of not having arresting gear was that the Royal Navy was far more concerned than the U.S. Navy to maintain smooth air flow over its flight decks and around its carriers’ islands (which had airfoil-section funnels). Adopting arresting gear and the corresponding style of landings made it much easier for the U.S. Navy to design carriers and also to adopt high-powered aircraft with high approach speeds.

  In June 1918 the Division of Naval Aviation (within OpNav) proposed characteristics for a carrier.4 Goodall provided advice. By fall 1918 carriers figured in proposed U.S. postwar building programs (they were omitted from the 1919 program, prepared in 1918, because they could not possibly be ready in time to fight during World War I).5 No such ship could enter service for some time, so in 1919 the large collier Jupiter was ordered converted into an experimental carrier, a flat deck being built above her hull. She was available because the fleet was being converted from coal to oil fuel. The converted ship was commissioned as USS Langley in 1922. She was always considered an interim experimental carrier, hence her low speed and limited hangar capacity were both acceptable.

  The U.S. Navy was well aware that not only the British but also the Japanese—considered the next most likely enemy—were interested in carriers; a May 1920 OpNav memo on the subject (written by Aviation Director, Captain T. T. Craven) mentions an Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) report to that effect. The ship was Hosho, and ONI did not know that a British naval aviation mission would soon be providing the Japanese with the fruits of wartime British experience.6 The memo argued that Langley could not by herself teach the necessary lessons. Her sister ship, Neptune, should also be converted, and one or more fast carriers obtained in order to learn the important tactical and strategic lessons of naval air power.

  As a hint of U.S. naval thinking, in July 1920 the now-familiar system of ship type symbols was introduced. Carriers were placed in the cruiser (i.e., combatant) category, rather than in an auxiliary category, with the symbol CV (C for cruiser, V for fixed-wing—Z was for airships, and much later the symbol H was introduced for helicopters). At the same time symbols were created for fighters (VF) and for torpedo bombers (VT), but not for bombers as such; dive-bombing had not yet been formally introduced, so torpedoes were the principal way in which U.S. naval aircraft could directly attack enemy warships. Symbols were, however, introduced for scouting (VS) and for observation (VO), the latter meaning spotting for heavy gunfire. At this time the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance was much intrigued by the possibility that spotting aircraft could extend battleship gunfire range even beyond the visual horizon, offering the U.S. fleet a battle-winning advantage. Carriers might or might not launch the spotters, but their fighters would make it possible for them to work unmolested. It was assumed that torpedo attack, bombing (level, not dive, which did not yet exist), and scouting functions could all be combined in one type of airplane. Only torpedoes, which had to be launched at close range, could be expected to hit and damage maneuvering ships, but a 1924 report suggested that gas, which had been used to great effect during World War I, might be a useful air weapon, because a cloud of gas did not have to be delivered very precisely. There was a real fear that, once gassed, a ship could not be decontaminated (the Royal Navy of this period seems to have had similar fears). It turned out that gas was the one weapon of this period whose further use was ruled out by deterrence.

  By 1920 public support for the expensive naval program was evaporating: if World War I had indeed been fought “to end wars” why should the U.S. Navy be preparing for another? U.S. strategists understood differently: it was unlikely that a war would break out in the near future, but it seemed entirely possible that at some point the United States and Japan would fight over Pacific dominance. Like other navies, the U.S. Navy needed to develop carrier aviation. With no prospect of a carrier in the FY21 program, C&R proposed converting one of the ten Omaha-class light cruisers then under construction. The General Board rejected the idea on the grounds that the Navy badly needed light cruisers (it had no modern ones) and that the proposed carrier would be mediocre. It much preferred a new design.7

  In November 1920, the General Board, responsible for advising the Secretary of the Navy, called not only for two ships in the FY22 program, but for more in subsequent ones, up to a total of six or seven. Congress had already authorized a massive building program in 1916: ten battleships, six huge battle cruisers, ten light cruisers, and many lesser ships, most of them suspended during the war as destroyer construction became the highest priority (to defeat the German U-boats). For a time after the war it seemed that the 1916 program would be completed and further ships laid down to give the United States its desired position as premier sea power. In that context it was perfectly reasonable to assume that Congress would approve the important new carrier.

  Looking toward the 1922 program, in the winter of 1920 the General Board drew up characteristics while C&R’s preliminary designers developed a pair of alternatives, one displacing 25,000 tons (about thirty knots) and the other 35,000 tons (about thirty-five knots). The larger ship offered a larger flight deck (800 × 100 feet), greater speed, a steadier platform (due to the greater displacement), and ample stowage space, at the cost of greater expense and building time. The board chose the larger design as the basis for characteristics it submitted in February 1921, for a 35,000-ton, 32.75-knot carrier.8 A model based on the design showed a flush-deck (island-less) carrier, her twin 6-inch guns arranged along the side of the flight deck, with smoke pipes extending to the ship’s sides. This was much the pattern the Royal Navy had just followed in its prototype carrier, HMS Argus (a converted merchant ship), and what it was pursuing in rebuilding HMS Furious as a satisfactory carrier. The U.S. Navy had plans of Argus but not of the rebuilt Furious. In July 1921, the General Board ruled on several vital design questions, based on studies conducted by C&R. It rejected flush-deck designs because wind tunnel tests had just shown that in a flush-decker, gases were drawn in against the ship’s side and across the flight deck, even with a slight crosswind. Moreover, no one had ever tried to dispose of the vast volume of gas associated with high power (for the desired high
speed) without using a conventional funnel. The same experiments suggested that a closed stern would be much safer than an open one for the ship—the hangar would therefore be buried in the hull, as in HMS Hermes. The flight deck would not be armored, because even 2 inches would add enormous topweight (about 1,800 tons, and another 1,450 for each additional inch), and it would provide little real protection. In contrast to a C&R sketch design, the fore and aft hangar spaces would not be separated, “as the greatest facility of stowage and transportation of planes seems the chief point to be considered.” On the basis of wind tunnel tests the General Board rejected earlier arrangements in which defensive guns were mounted along the ship’s side. Instead she should have six twin 6-inch mounts and twelve 5-inch anti-aircraft guns, all on the open deck. These decisions shaped the design adopted for the two U.S. battle cruiser conversions, Lexington and Saratoga, and to some extent subsequent designs.9

  In 1921, too, the U.S. Navy created a Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer), which was unique among the bureaus of the Navy in combining administration (e.g., of pilots) and technical functions. The Act that created the bureau decreed that officers commanding aviation units (except for carriers and seaplane tenders) had to be aviators. Because there were not nearly enough senior pilots, BuAer created a course that could train senior officers (typically captains) as aviation observers. Senior officers were encouraged to seek aviation training, even at advanced ages; they included Captain Ernest J. King, who commanded the U.S. Navy during World War II as Chief of Naval Operations, as well as Captain William F. Halsey. The many senior officers who therefore sought aviation training apparently educated non-aviators such as Admiral Chester Nimitz and Admiral Raymond Spruance. For that matter, officers who had already seen a great deal of the rest of the Navy presumably were better at integrating the new naval air arm into it.