of the summer concentration period of 1928, and now with the two big
carriers _Lexington_ and _Saratoga_ anchored off Long Beach, ninety
miles to the north, their squadrons trained ashore at North Island
under the direct command of Admiral Reeves. Scuttlebutt rumor had
it that the next fleet problem would take place off Panama early
the coming year, and this directed all staff efforts toward sound
preparation for the big show. In all this we felt a certain sense of
urgency; now was the time to show the battle wagons what we could do,
and thus “sell aviation to the fleet.” Underneath the daily routine
we somehow sensed that we were dealing with high destiny, though our
course was never completely clear. What ultimately developed was
not the direct result of anyone’s far-sighted vision; it just came
naturally out of the conflict of forces and events.
At that period, the Navy had settled down into a certain organization
and procedure that had evolved out of years of experience. The
fundamental concept of the fleet setup had been derived from
a somewhat shallow reading of Mahan and somewhat superficial
instruction at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Mahan,
in the evolution of his thesis on sea power, had made a painstaking
analysis of history, and especially of naval history. Since he
studiously excluded theory and opinion, drawing his conclusions from
the record, he was able to present convincing evidence in support of
his thesis that victory in war and prosperity in peace have always
resided with that nation which controls communication by sea. The
foundation of sea power is maritime commerce.
The United States Naval War College at Newport held classes in
naval tactics and worked out tactical problems on the maneuvering
board. For their precepts they naturally looked to Mahan’s classic
studies and thus became imbued with the tactics of the battle line
as employed by Nelson, the great English admiral. From a continued
emphasis on the battle line and a general understanding of the role
of sea power in history, it was easy to conclude that sea power
and the navy were synonymous. The modern counterpart of this loose
doctrine is the prevalent belief that strategic bombardment is air
power.
The administrative organization of the Battle Fleet revolved around
the battleships—the so-called “backbone of sea power.” The big-gun
carriers based at Long Beach behind the breakwater where they found
nearby plenty of sea room. The destroyer squadrons, then called
DESRONS, the submarine divisions, or SUBDIVS, and the aircraft
squadrons, or AIRONS, based on San Diego, ninety miles further south.
For purposes of administration and elementary training, each of these
units operated separately under the supervision of the commander
in chief. Once each month, the fleet as a whole conducted combined
tactical exercises off the coast. Yet even here the forces operated
largely under the command of their administrative staffs. The idea
of breaking up the several administrative units and reassembling
them as task organizations so constituted as to bring to bear such
a concentration of heavy guns, long-range torpedoes, and mobile
aircraft as appeared necessary to the accomplishment of a particular
mission had not as yet evolved. It was to grow out of the peculiar
conditions that prevailed in the aircraft squadrons: the big carriers
could find suitable anchorages and deep-water operating areas only at
Long Beach; their aircraft could find adequate training and repair
facilities only at the Naval Air Station, San Diego.
It was customary to change personnel just before the concentration,
sending about half of them to “shore” or other duty, and receiving
a new batch of students from Pensacola to be trained “at sea.” Half
of the squadron officers changed at this time as well, a fact that
dictated a fresh start on fundamental tactics each year. In view of
this fact I determined upon a revolutionary procedure. Instead of
accepting the ordinary run-of-the-mine officers sent to us by the
Bureau of Navigation for duty in certain specified units, we would
jump the gun and insist upon the right to select our own squadron
commanders and assign other officers to such squadrons as seemed
appropriate to us. When we suggested this selective process to
Admiral Reeves, he smiled tolerantly and invited us to go ahead,
intimating that we would be wasting our time. For the Bureau of
Navigation usually selected its officers and made its assignments
with little or no regard for their aptitude for the jobs in mind.
Someone had long ago worked out a system designed to expose every
officer to an equal amount of duty in every line, so as to afford him
an equal opportunity to advance in rank, whether or not he possessed
qualities of leadership.
But if the factor of leadership had fallen into low estate in
Washington, it still rated high in the aircraft squadrons. Frank
Wagner and I had observed the vast differences in character displayed
by ships and organizations, and had noted that each had seemed to
take on some of the personality and character of the man or men who
had founded it, and to retain that personality and character no
matter who had succeeded to command. If the U.S.S. _Taddlyadlie_
started out as a “smart ship,” she would always be a smart ship; and
if the U.S.S. _Tiddlywinks_ started as a “madhouse,” her career would
become a series of variations of that theme. With that idea in mind,
we determined to give the aircraft squadrons a propitious start and
began some tall wangling to gain our ends. For this we brought two
powerful arguments to bear: the lives of pilots depended upon the
quality of the leaders; if we were to be held responsible, we must
have authority over our leadership selections. In our tough battle
against this leveling system we won every skirmish but one—a squadron
that suffered our only breakdown in morale.
While focusing attention on the quality of leadership of our
subordinates, we did a little soul searching of our own. The rapid
development of gadgetry in the Navy had tended to create a special
group of staff-officer specialists who had become “plank owners”
on various staffs. Thus the intricacies of steam engineering, or
gunnery, or radio communications, or what have you, had become so
mysterious to the average line officer that the specialists had
taken over a lot of authorities without accepting the corresponding
responsibilities. An admiral, for instance, might sign out a
long-winded technical document without being able to pronounce
the words, or he might let his radio officer sign the paper “by
direction.” The addressee would turn the masterpiece over to
his radio officer for reply, and thus accept responsibility for
fundamental decisions fogged up by technical jargon. Even Admiral
Reeves had tended to shift the administrative authorities to me and
the operations to Frank Wagner. But Frank and I determined to have
none of that; we directed these matters right back to the admiral.
Contrary to naval custom we sought to build up the admiral and play
ourselves down. For instance, after having prepared an order for
the Old Man’s signature, we would urge him to call a conference
of squadron commanders to indoctrinate them in his plan. A fine
speaker, one possessed of unusual knowledge of military history, of
policy, strategy, and tactics, he often held us spellbound by his
entertaining and instructive discourses spiced by keen wit. Wagner
and I would grasp every favorable occasion to suggest a commendatory
signal to a subordinate who had distinguished himself; similarly we
saw to it that the admiral got word of any complimentary comment
from his subordinates. In other words, we made it our first order of
business to develop loyalty both ways—up and down. The time soon came
when a squadron commander remarked, “If Bull Reeves told us to fly
into the side of a mountain, we’d fly—and likely come out safe on the
other side!”
We also gave critical attention to our own performance of staff
functions stressing especially our communications procedures and
techniques. On the matériel side we took extreme pains to train our
“mechs” and to emphasize the importance of preventive engineering.
Under this doctrine, it became the task of the maintenance crews to
discover incipient failures and correct them before they could induce
forced landings or other accident. Having good, sound, new equipment
to start with, we were able to reduce mechanical failures almost
to the vanishing point and to abolish them entirely from over-water
operations.
On the important morale side, Frank Wagner was the key to success.
Intimately acquainted with the younger pilots as he was, and an
active participant in their social affairs, Frank could watch their
reactions and recommend actions designed to keep them all at a
high pitch of enthusiasm. One day, after we had been pressing hard
toward perfection, Frank came to me with a long face; he feared the
kids were getting stale. He thought we should secure all flying for
several days and actually order the pilots off the station and away
from their jobs. When we went in to see the admiral, concealing our
misgivings as to this revolutionary idea, the Old Man threw back his
head and parted his beard in a laugh that must have carried clear
down to the _Langley_ dock.
“Go to it!” he shouted. “And Wagner,” he added, “a little visit
across the Mexican border to Tijauna might help you get a smile back
on your own face.”
As the summer developed, two special projects helped bring our new
outfits to a high degree of precision: the city of San Diego planned
to dedicate Lindbergh Field, and the city of Los Angeles would be
host to the national air races in dedication of Mines Field. This
gave the staff an opportunity to keep the squadrons practicing their
close formations, a drill that tended to bore them; they preferred
the dive-and-zoom of practical combat exercises. But now, returning
from the many operating areas Frank had established in the back
country, they passed in review before the admiral’s critical eye,
flying wing-and-tail in tight parade formations. Tommy Tomlinson,
with the first section of his squadron, began practicing section
acrobatics, putting on a rhythmic show of breathtaking formation
loops, rolls, and dives.
At the dedication of Lindbergh Field, the overcast lay so close to
the surface that, save for fine air discipline, we should have had to
call off our participation. Instead, we flew some four hundred fleet
aircraft in a thrilling fly past, at low altitude, with the tails of
the formations lost in the clouds. Later at the National Air Races
in Los Angeles, Tommy’s Three Sea Hawks stopped the show with their
precision acrobatics. The Army responded with their Three Musketeers.
When one of their team was unfortunately killed in an accident,
Charles Lindbergh, stepping into the lead position, gave the crowd a
sample, not alone of his own flying, but also of the quality of his
teamwork and personal leadership.
It was in the National Air Races, too, that the air-cooled engine
finally triumphed completely over liquid-cooled. A year earlier,
Claire Egtvedt had come down from Seattle to get our ideas on the
specifications for a new plane to replace his current production F3B.
Primed by me, the admiral had given him the requirements for what
had since become the first experimental single-seat fighter bomber,
the XF4B. Flown by Tom Jeter in the free-for-all pursuit race,
this airplane won handily, running away from the special souped-up
liquid-cooled entries. Later in a special event promoted by Bill
Boeing, a race to altitude from a standing start, Mort Seligman,
in the XF4B, executed a triumphant loop over the T4M station ship
cruising at 10,000 feet above the thronged grandstand, and dived
back onto the field before the nearest competitor could climb to the
target. Jim Fechet, Chief of the Army Air Service, followed Bill onto
the field to get the Army’s first order in ahead of the Navy. In
subsequent years this basic airplane served both Army and Navy, the
one as P-12, the other as F4B, with variations to suit the special
requirements of each.
Returning to San Diego, we spent the autumn of 1928 at gunnery
training, interspersed by monthly tactical exercises with the fleet.
All three carriers and their squadrons operated in conjunction with
cruisers, destroyers, and submarines against a simulated enemy battle
line and in support of our own “backbone.” Yet even as we developed
intricate joint attacks under this time-honored doctrine, we in
COMAIRONS began to flirt with a revolutionary concept: maybe our
task force could defeat the battle line singlehanded! From here to
the fantastic proposal to use battle wagons in support of aircraft
carriers was a terrific mental leap. When the detailed plans for the
winter exercises became available, we drew a long breath and took it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Maneuver for Position
When the commander in chief released the preliminary statement of
the 1929 fleet problem, we in COMAIRONS staff wore broad smiles of
satisfaction. For while the exercises contemplated a conventional
assault on the defenses of the Panama Canal, the problem was so
stated as to convince us that the high command was beginning at last
to recognize the role of the carrier in warfare at sea. A “red”
fleet, comprising the modern battleships then based in the Pacific
with its accompanying submarines, destroyers, and train, moving into
the Gulf of Panama with the object of attacking the Canal, would be
opposed by a friendly “blue” fleet which had just transited the Canal
and moved out into the Gulf to defend it. The blue fleet comprised
the vessels of the scouting fleet, then based in the Atlantic but
reinforced by the _Lexington_ and _Langley_ from the “battle fleet”
of the Pacific. This gave the defenders an air force comprising all
the Army and Navy shore-based aircraft in the Panama Canal Zone, the
aircraft of the scouting fleet then based on my old seaplane tender,
the _Wright_, and the planes of the _Langley_ and _Lexington_; it
left to the attackers the _Saratoga_ and her planes, under the
command of Admiral Reeves.
In the past, these Panama maneuvers had been stereotyped battle-line
tactics with the battle wagons steaming majestically behind a
destroyer-laid smoke screen while bombarding the Canal with their
turret guns at maximum range. After the fleet had fired a few
blank charges or “primers” to simulate long-range attack and its
airplanes had been “shot down” by the local defenders, the vessels
would proceed to their anchorage in the Bay of Panama and all hands
would go ashore for a big bust at the Union Club. Later there would
be a “critique” in which the high rankers would stand up before a
congregation of Army-Navy officers and alibi their failures, or try
to impress their personalities upon the assembly. Following this,
the social whirl would begin and fleet grand tactics would be put
aside until another year.
This time we proposed to spring something new. Instead of tying _Big
Sara_ to the apron strings of the battle wagons, we would propose
that she be detached from the slow elements and sent on a wide
southerly detour past the Galápagos Islands, along the north coast
of South America, into the Gulf of Panama, through the screen of
defending vessels, and up to a point where we might launch a predawn
sneak attack on the Canal locks. The single drawback to our plan
was the fact that the only vessel with enough high-speed cruising
endurance to accompany _Big Sara_ was the light cruiser _Omaha_,
flagship of Adm. Thomas J. Senn, Commander, Destroyer Squadrons.
However, Admiral Reeves and Admiral Senn were warm personal friends.
Capt. Harold R. Stark, Admiral Senn’s chief of staff, and I were on
terms of warm regard. We decided to chance submitting the fantastic
proposal that a senior unit commander be deprived of his flagship to
plane-guard _Big Sara_.
Meanwhile, storm clouds had begun to darken our political horizon.
With the close of the concentration period, we had come face to face
with the moot question as to the relationships of carrier squadrons
to their carriers. Based on our experience we prepared a letter
recommending such changes in the Navy Regulations as would permit
the commanding officers of carriers to exercise administrative
control over their squadrons, yet still preserve their freedom for
assignment by the admiral to task forces and give to him the tactical
command. By this time, Capt. E. J. King had assumed command of the
_Lexington_, and Capt. Harry E. Yarnell of the _Saratoga_. Both were
extremely able men but with quite different temperaments. Captain
King had positive ideas for which he fought with determination;
Captain Yarnell, while equally clear in his opinions, approached
the problem with judicious moderation. In both the _Lexington_
and the _Saratoga_, the positive convictions that the squadrons
should be treated like gun divisions as an integral part of the
ship rested largely with the old-line aviators running the air
departments. And so we had a major difference of opinion in which
senior naval aviators battled to keep the squadrons subservient
to the carriers while we line officers, basing our convictions on
practical experience, battled to keep the aircraft squadrons free.
On the staff, we argued that the carriers existed for the squadrons;
on the ships, they seemed to think it was the other way around. This
conflict came at a time when our Washington fences were none too
secure.
The fact that Admiral Moffett would complete his second full term as
a bureau chief early in the coming year had intensified the efforts
of his enemies to deny him reappointment. Their candidate for his
relief was Admiral Reeves, and as a palliative they suggested that
Admiral Moffett take over command of the Aircraft Squadrons, Battle
Fleet. To us on the staff, the whole thing looked like a tempest
in a teapot and we, of course, took no position. Admiral Reeves
busied himself with preparations for the fleet problem and expressed
amusement over Washington politics. Then came the news that some of
the boys in the Bureau now had a foot out for me, and had represented
me to Admiral Moffett as a turncoat—a former Moffett man now gone
full out for Bull Reeves. Aside from the impact of this conflict upon
our personal fortunes, there was the question as to what position
BUAERO would take in the matter of the relationships of squadrons to
carriers. But more important still, such a warm front of political
turbulence afforded a poor climate in which to make our big play for
recognition of naval aviation in the forthcoming fleet problem.
Now at the height of our concern for the future, we got a wallop
in the solar plexus that all but sent us down for the count. When
the commander in chief finally issued his own estimate of the fleet
problem and his operation orders for it, there was no reference
whatever to our proposal for a sneak attack with the _Saratoga_.
The battle wagons would do their time-honored square dance behind
a destroyer smoke screen; they would fire a few gun primers and
exercise their fire control; then they would proceed to the anchorage
and hit the beach for a big party at the Union Club. When Frank
Wagner brought the news to me and we both dropped into the admiral’s
office, he lifted his beard from his paper work to stare at us with
amazement.
“Whatever it is,” he boomed, “it can’t be as bad as you men look.”
After Frank had briefed him on the disappointing situation, Admiral
Reeves reached for a message blank and drafted a dispatch to the
commander in chief at San Pedro, asking for a conference for himself
and staff on the subject of the fleet problem.
Next morning COMAIRONS and staff took off for San Pedro in a flight
of three Loening amphibians, the admiral riding as my passenger. As
we mounted the flagship’s side ladder to her quarterdeck, we were met
at the rail by the ship’s captain, none other than Claude C. Bloch,
the man who had counseled my wife to get me out of the side shows and
back under the main tent.
Admiral Pratt, his blouse unbuttoned to reveal an old-fashioned
stiff-bosomed white shirt, received us in his cabin. Seated behind
the usual billiard-cloth-covered table, he inquired courteously
in his State-of-Maine accent to what he owed this visit from so
distinguished a group. To Admiral Reeves’s inquiry whether Admiral
Pratt had read our estimate of the situation for the fleet problem,
the commander in chief replied in the negative; he had left the
matter in the hands of his assistant chief of staff. His earlier
rejection of our big idea had been doubly disappointing because we
respected him as a sailorman of the old school and a man highly
regarded as a strategist and tactician. With the news that he had not
known of our proposal, our hopes began to revive.
Admiral Reeves swept in his outline with deft strokes: The _Saratoga_
would launch her aircraft two hours before dawn from a point some
150 miles away from the Canal. To reach that point where she would
rendezvous with Admiral Pratt’s battleships, the _Saratoga_ would
steam all night at 30 knots, accompanied only by the _Omaha_, her
plane guard. In the 10 hours of darkness between sunset and the
launching time, the _Saratoga_ would cover 300 miles. This, added to
the 150-mile launching range, would put her 450 miles from Panama the
night before the attack. During the previous day she would have run
360 miles more, and these distances were such that the enemy could
hardly scout the possible areas of approach with any certainty of
discovering the _Saratoga_. There was an excellent chance that we
might get in undetected.
Admiral Pratt listened carefully and then put his finger on the one
weak spot. He feared that if we launched aircraft that far at sea
and lost even a single pilot, the reaction of public opinion at home
might be most unfavorable.
Admiral Reeves replied that when he had offered the same objection I
had produced the surprising record of the year’s operations. Using
the new equipment provided by BUAERO we had gone through a full year
without mechanical failure over the sea. Since we were drilling
constantly to avoid cockpit failures it was reasonable to expect that
we would have a similarly clean record off Panama.
Satisfied by the logic of this, Admiral Pratt began to warm to the
whole idea. He suggested that, while it was now too late to change
the orders all ready issued, this very fact might be converted to our
advantage. The problem could be made a better exercise if we kept
the new plan a secret among ourselves while he arranged later to
spring a sudden change of orders on his fleet. He proposed to stop
the formation somewhere along the west coast of Mexico, send out new
orders by guard boat, release the _Saratoga_ for her wide southerly
detour, and, incidentally, profit by the element of surprise inherent
in radio silence.
When COMAIRONS and his staff departed the flagship, we walked on air.
The fleet sailed on schedule, maneuvering down along the Mexican
coast, with the _Saratoga_ rehearsing her part with predawn take-offs
and rendezvous. At the time we had no night-flying equipment and had
done little night flying; but we had discipline, which was better
than any equipment. Then one day the fleet flag made a signal for
the fleet to stop and send boats for mail. When we opened our orders
we found that Admiral Pratt had assigned the _Omaha_ to us as
_Saratoga’s_ plane guard, but instead of transferring the DESRONS
flag to a destroyer, had left Admiral Senn, Harold Stark, and all the
staff on board.
As the _Omaha_, lifting in the swell, ranged up alongside the
_Saratoga_, Admiral Senn, although Admiral Reeves’s senior, hailed
the _Big Sara_ from his bridge by megaphone. “What do you want me to
do, Bull?” he inquired.