Transforming to Victory: The U.S. Navy, Carrier Aviation, and Preparing for War in the Pacific
Andrew Krepinevich
Published 2000 Published By The Olin Institute
In the closing days of World War I, navies measured strength by the striking power of their battleships. After the war, the United States planned to remain a great sea power by increasing the number of these powerful ships in its battle fleet. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the American Navy entered the Second World War as a “battleship” force—albeit supplemented with eight aircraft carriers carrying a few hundred planes. During the course of the conflict, however, the United States relied almost exclusively on a new form of sea power—the carrier battle group, combining the fighting power of carriers, hundreds of ships, thousands of airplanes, and a revolutionary logistical system that effectively spanned immense distances of ocean. khe United States ended the war as the world’s premier naval power with 41,000 planes, 28 large carriers and 71 smaller types, but less than a dozen battleships. How did the U.S. Navy master such a remarkable transformation?
Military Transformation
Understanding the Navy’s success in evolving from a battleship fleet to a carrier force requires an appreciation for the difficult issues militaries face in preparing for the future, and the complex dynamics at work during periods of rapid strategic and technological change. The revolution at sea presents a classic case study in military transformation, exemplifying innovation on a scale sufficient to effect a military revolution—a fundamental shift in the character of military competition.1 Military revolutions witness the introduction of new capabilities, which, when combined with innovative operational concepts and force structure, produce a discontinuous leap in effectiveness, typically on the order of a magnitude or greater. In the midst of a military revolution, past performance is no assurance of continued success. Revolutions compel military organizations—even dominant ones—to restructure, often radically, or risk catastrophic failure. The measures of merit associated with military power also change in major, and perhaps even fundamental ways. To remain competitive, organizations must transform themselves in order to adapt to different circumstances. Typically, this has meant exploiting rapidly emerging technologies to create new capabilities embodied in new military systems. Once acquired in significant numbers, new capabilities enable different kinds of operations that can yield remarkable increases in effectiveness within a relatively short period of time.
Recognizing necessity of change is perhaps the first step along the path toward a transformed military. But acknowledging the need for transformation is one thing, successfully reconfiguring an armed force is quite another. Indeed, there are a number of issues that must be considered to account for an organization’s success or failure. Historical analysis suggests the basic building blocks comprise the following:2
A vision that has the potential to inspire dramatic change;
Means to link the vision to a problem that must be solved or an opportunity that can be exploited at the operational or strategic level of war;
Ability of the organizational leadership to institutionalize the vision;
A transformation process which includes methods to validate the vision and reduce uncertainty, rethink attitudes toward new system procurement, and revise the measures of effectiveness used to determine optimum doctrine and force design; and
Availability of sufficient human and material resources to support the transformation.
All of these factors must be present to sustain the momentum of change within a military organization.
At some point once this transformation begins, a military will reach a crossover—or break point—where investments in new capabilities begin to have a dominant influence on military affairs. At a minimum, for a break point to occur, the emerging capability must be executable at the operational level, affecting major forces during the conduct of a campaign. This happens only when change influences several key dynamics within the force. Transformation involves a combination of having sufficient resources to invest in new technology and conduct warfare at the operational level, as well as creating new organizations and doctrine to inform force restructuring and methods of employment. There does not appear to be a predetermined sequence for implementing transformation initiatives. Mental change (new operational practices) can precede or follow physical transformation (capital investment in new equipment and organizations), or the two can work in tandem. Achieving a break point, however, requires a substantial shift in both mental and physical capabilities.
Understanding how effectively militaries assemble the building blocks of transformation and approach the break point raises the following research questions:
To what extent is transformation linked to a very different vision of future warfare? Is it a case of resource/technology “push” or strategic “pull,” or both?
Is it possible to have a transformation strategy that is designed to do more than bring about a leap in military capability, but which also leverages the transformation to better support overall policy-strategy objectives?
Is hedging part of a successful transformational strategy? If so, does hedging involve caution in developing new capabilities, or preserving existing systems that may remain important if the transformation fails, or both?
How is defense “capital stock” (i.e. major military systems) managed during this period? To what extent is it controlled by the military, or by exogenous factors (e.g., the commercial sector, governments, international treaties)?
What is the role of the commercial sector? Is industry a barrier to transformation or an engine of change?
How quickly and effectively does the society meet new manpower requirements to support transformation?
What are the “drag” factors, the principal barriers to change?
How does a nation’s strategic culture, its own predilections for approaching issues of war and international relations, shape military developments?
What about allies? What role do they play in transformational dynamics?
Is the military organization conscious that a transformation point has been crossed? How is this validated?
Answering these questions leads to the development of a transformation profile, detailing the conscious choices, unintended consequences, and luck, for better or worse, that guide militaries through the process of dramatic change.
The large body of scholarship concerning the evolution of the American carrier force offers a solid basis for illustrating the transformation profile of one of the truly significant military revolution in modern times. Recent research has illuminated how the Navy’s vision emerged in reflection of the experiences of World War I, the enablers and barriers that shaped the service’s path towards the future, and finally, the key developments in the inter war years that comprised the transformational process.
The Seeds of Transformation
Great Britain’s Royal Navy, the pre-eminent naval power at the turn of the century and America’s World War I ally, marked the way for the U.S. Navy’s transformation path. During the First World War, the Royal Navy aggressively explored the potential of aviation technology. Britain’s admiralty deployed a number of seaborne platforms for launching aircraft, culminating in 1918 with the deployment of Argus, a prototype for future carriers. The Argus demonstrated that the Royal Navy had largely solved two of the three basic challenges of carrier aviation—launching and recovering aircraft. The United States, inspired by the Royal Navy’s wartime experience, directed its own transformation effort toward solving the third challenge—undertaking large-scale sustained air operations at sea.3
The scope of future naval air operations proved a subject of intense debate among American naval officers. A distinct minority envisioned a revolutionary new mission for aircraft—conducting powerful air strikes at extended ranges that could threaten the entire enemy fleet. Visionaries considered several transformation paths for the future of naval air power, through zeppelins, seaplanes and long-range, land-based aircraft, as well as planes carried on existing surface combatants, launched from submarines or deployed on carriers. Admiral William S. Sims, who had commanded U.S. naval forces in Europe, made a strong case for the carrier. He declared that “a small, high-speed carrier alone can destroy or disable a battleship . . . . [A] fleet whose carriers give it command of the air over the enemy fleet can defeat the latter.”4 Fast carriers, Sims argued, would be the battleships of the next war.
The “traditionalists,” headed by Chief of Naval Operations William S. Benson, the Navy’s most senior uniformed leader, viewed Sims and other air enthusiasts with deep skepticism. He remarked, “The Navy doesn’t need airplanes. Aviation is just a lot of noise.”5 Benson conceded that seaborne aviation could prove useful for scouting and naval gunfire spotting. Fighter aircraft would also be needed to screen hostile scout planes away from the fleet, and to neutralize enemy air spotters. Nevertheless, in the minds of many senior naval officers, while aviation might assume greater importance than it had in the past, the battleship would still remain the fleet’s main striking force.
Sims’s vision, Benson believed, outstripped technology. Naval aircraft were small, fragile, capable only of short-range flight, and unable to communicate effectively with ships at extended distances. Planes could deliver only meager bomb loads with little accuracy. Benson opposed Sims’s recommendation that battleships be equipped with aircraft, and in 1919 initiated a reorganization plan to abolish the naval aviation office, burying its functions under the Naval Operations’ Planning and Material Divisions. In addition, a special postwar committee convened by Benson recommended that a decision on constructing the Navy’s first carrier be postponed.6
Despite Benson’s recalcitrance, several factors worked to undermine his position.
The first was the “competition”—the Royal Navy held a commanding lead in carrier technology. For the US Navy, which sought parity with, if not superiority over, its wartime ally, there was a strong incentive to be competitive in all emerging areas of naval warfare.
The second factor was the Navy’s own embryonic aviation testing. In March 1919, the battleship Texas conducted a main-battery gun exercise employing air spotting. Plane spotters greatly enhanced gunnery accuracy and the ability to control the air over both friendly and enemy battle fleets.7 Highly impressed with the results, the captain of the Texas, N.C. Twining, stated flatly that any naval force “that neglects aviation development will be at an enormous disadvantage in an engagement with a modern enemy fleet . . . .”8 In June 1919, the Navy’s General Board declared that “to enable the United States to meet on at least equal terms any possible enemy . . . fleet aviation must be developed to the fullest extent. Aircraft have become an essential arm of the fleet. A Naval air service must be established, capable of accompanying and operating with the fleet in all waters of the globe.”9 In addition, further testing of air power’s impact on the surface fleet seemed warranted.
In November 1920, the Navy conducted a classified bombing test against the obsolete battleship Indiana with far-reaching, albeit unintended, consequences. Photographs of the stricken Indiana appeared in The Illustrated London News. Army Air Corps General William “Billy” Mitchell, an extremely vocal air power advocate, promptly declared to Congress: “We can tell you definitively now that we can either destroy or sink any ship in existence today.”10 Mitchell’s exploitation of the Indiana test results exposed the threat to naval aviation in unmistakable terms. Not only was Mitchell laying claim to the Navy’s traditional function as the nation’s first line of defense, he also proposed that an independent air service be put in charge of aircraft carriers.11
The Navy began closing ranks against a common peril—the United States Army. As Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske commented in 1920, “For the sake of the USN and the US America—let’s get a Bureau of Aeronautics—pdq [pretty damned quick]. . . . If we don’t get that Bureau next session, Gen’l Mitchell and a whole horde of politicians will get an ‘Air Ministry’ established, and the US Navy will find itself lying in the street . . . . and the procession marching over it . . . .”12 As the battle lines between the Navy and Mitchell were drawn, Congress’ role proved critical. Representative Fred C. Hicks, of the House Naval Affairs Committee, became an ardent supporter of an independent naval aviation arm, as did Senator William Borah, helping fight Mitchell’s bid to subsume naval aviation under the Army. In February 1921, Benson agreed to establish the Bureau of Aeronautics, with Rear Admiral William A. Moffett as its chief. Finally the Navy had an organization to implement a vision that could compete with Mitchell’s Army Air Corps.
The bureau’s establishment proved timely. In July 1921, Mitchell directed a highly publicized Army bomber demonstration, sinking the former German battleship Ostfriesland. Though the ship was at anchor and offered no defense, hardly a test of tactical air power, Mitchell reaped another public relations victory with both the American public and Congress. In response, Moffett and the Navy began to make the case for naval air power.
In addition to vision and organization, the Navy also needed a sense of the operational challenges it would face in future wars to inform them as to how an air arm should be developed. The Americans focused attention principally on the Imperial Japanese Navy, their most likely opponent. In such a war, the Japanese would likely threaten US possessions in the Western Pacific, the Philippine Islands in particular. Defeating Japan, it was believed, would require the US fleet to steam across the Pacific Ocean from its bases on the US west coast, to seek a decisive engagement with the Japanese fleet in its home waters. There, US naval forces would have to overwhelm the enemy’s combined fleet and shore-based air forces. Owing to the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean and the absence of US forward bases in the region, it was believed that the American fleet would have to bring its own air power with it. Thus, given the Japanese navy’s size and growing aviation potential, the US Navy would likely require large numbers of aircraft and carriers.13
Enablers and Obstacles
Advocates of a revolution in naval warfare required ways to determine whether the rapid advances in aviation would enable them to realize their vision. They also needed a means for developing the industrial and human resources necessary to sustain future operational concepts. The answer to this challenge was found in the interrelationship between the Naval War College, the newly created Bureau of Aeronautics and fleet exercises—the “‘Naval Trinity.”
Wargaming undertaken at the Naval War College represented the first critical element in the trinity. In 1919, Sims, now the college’s president, established procedures designed to facilitate a systematic and rigorous examination of how air power might influence war at sea, providing important insights for theorists, planners and practitioners. The games and simulations exerted strong influence on Navy decisions. Most important, they inspired efforts to enhance naval air power by maximizing the number of aircraft on carriers and compressing the cycle for launching and recovering planes.14
At the Bureau of Aeronautics, the trinity’s second pillar, Moffett proved a superb bureaucrat and consummate public relations chief. Within the bureau, Moffett developed a cadre of officers who effectively presented the case for naval aviation to Congress. Moffett established himself, so well that when the Chief of Naval Operations tried to block Moffett’s third consecutive term, President Hoover personally overrode the chief, ensuring that the bureau would continue to have a determined, vocal advocate.15
The third element of the trinity consisted of experiments and exercises in the form of a series of Fleet Problems. These sea maneuvers offered the most visible, and thus perhaps most persuasive, indication of naval aviation’s potential.16 Working in combination with Sims’ wargames and Moffet’s lobbying efforts, the Fleet Problems created an increasing momentum for transformation.
Though the Navy had three worthy enablers to propel change forward there were still good reasons for many to doubt whether aviation would reach its full potential, especially given the technological uncertainties involved. Extensive experimentation was one way to reduce incertitude. However, the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and tight budgets limited the number of carriers and aircraft available for testing (see figure 1). Designers in the Navy’s Bureau of Construction and Repair did benefit from access to the Royal Navy’s carrier plans, enabling the Americans to begin with a state-of-the-art design for its first big carriers, Saratoga and Lexington. Nevertheless, limited assets and long construction lead times made it problematic to synchronize developments with experimentation results, creating considerable lag between technological and operational advances. The Navy conducted Fleet Problems for seven years before commissioning the Saratoga and Lexington. The Ranger was designed before the carriers achieved a true breakthrough in the Service’s Fleet Problems, and both the Yorktown and Enterprise were designed before the Ranger was commissioned.
The Great Depression slowed carrier construction even further. At the height of the depression, Moffett, who was pressing for more carriers to support experimentation, was only able to get the Ranger approved. Even then, the nation’s deepening financial crisis delayed the ship’s construction. In fact, many in Congress favored decommissioning some battleships and carriers as an economy measure. While the Navy did not lose any carriers, new developments slowed considerably. The first carrier whose design was actually based on extensive fleet exercise experience, the Essex Class, did not emerge until a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Navy faced similar challenges in developing planes for its carriers, where, with few resources, the Service had to promote the growth of an entirely new industrial arm. During the 1920s and 1930s, aviation technology was, if not in its infancy, still very much in its adolescence, marked by rapid change and not a few surprises. The Navy had virtually no experience in designing aircraft. In effecting its transformation to a carrier-based fleet, the Navy’s aviation visionaries needed an industrial base that would provide the ability to experiment with aircraft in sufficient quantity and variety so as to identify paths that would confirm or refute their vision, while avoiding transformational “dead ends.” The Service also required the industrial capacity to scale up production to meet the needs of the future fleet.
In 1916, Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels suggested that the service construct its own aircraft factory to develop prototypes for experimentation. The plant was built a year later at the Philadelphia Naval Yard.17 At the same time, the Navy also tentatively drew on advances in civilian technology. Although naval aircraft developments benefited little in its early years from the emergence of civil aviation, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) did, over time, promote what today is referred to as “dual-use technology,” innovations appropriate to both military and civilian purposes. Breakthroughs such as aerodynamic streamlining, supercharged piston engines for high altitude flying, and internally pressured cabins were developed under NACA auspices with the financial and engineering support of the services.18
Despite continuing innovation, post war budget reductions left few dollars for purchasing new aircraft technology. This shortfall was ameliorated to some extent by the Navy’s recognition that the rapidly changing nature of aviation made aircraft a rapidly depreciating asset. The Service’s approach was to not over-invest scarce resources in aircraft that might rapidly become obsolete. Indeed, with the post-war drawdown, the Navy’s requirement for new aircraft dropped to just 156 planes in 1921. One downside to these reductions was that they endangered a fledgling American aircraft industry that was heavily dependent on the government for it sustenance. By not buying more planes the Navy threatened the very companies they hoped would provide the technology and industrial capacity for forge the naval air arm of the future.
Further complicating the problem, commercial firms had to face competition from the newly established Naval Aircraft Factory, which soon emerged as one of the country’s largest airplane builders. The Navy’s dominant manufacturing role troubled Moffett. A healthy civilian aviation sector could not only contribute to developing new technology, but would be needed to provide the nucleus of an industrial base for wartime expansion. In January 1922, Moffett resolved the problem by limiting the scope of the Naval Aircraft Factory’s efforts. The Navy would concentrate on research, development, test, and evaluation of experimental aircraft. In addition, the factory would continue to produce a limited number of aircraft to provide a cost baseline for comparison with commercial manufacturers.
Some aviation firms still argued that their competitive advantage in design and innovation was being diluted by the Navy’s work. In fact, the Bureau of Aeronautics’s large and talented engineering staff would remain a contentious point with private industry throughout the inter-war period. Moffett made the arrangement succeed only by securing congressional funding to keep the civilian aviation industry alive and innovating.
While technology continued to develop, the Navy’s inventory of combat aircraft fell by over 50 percent in the seven years following World War I (figure 2). Yet, despite resourcing limitations, the Service was relatively generous toward its infant aviation branch during the post-war and arms control-induced cutbacks of the 1920s. Between 1922 and 1925, naval aviation’s budget remained fixed at $14.5 million, while the overall Navy budget dropped by twenty-five percent. From 1923 to 1929, the naval air arm expanded by over 6,500 personnel (not counting the crews of the manpower-intensive Saratoga and Lexington), while overall Navy end strength declined by over 1,000.19
Meanwhile, Moffett continued to lobby hard for his aircraft program. In 1926, Congress authorized a 1,000 aircraft naval aviation program that the Navy completed in only four years.20 Construction plans emphasized building the planes required for battleship support—gunfire spotters and fighters. Nevertheless given the relatively high number of aircraft authorized, the Navy was free to build a range of specialized aircraft types that Moffett and his subordinates at the Bureau of Aeronautics wanted for experimentation.
The Navy’s rapid naval aviation expansion program proved short-lived. Procurement of aircraft also suffered during the Great Depression. For example, the aviation budget for fiscal year 1934, submitted in April 1932, called for $29.8 million, a reduction of $3 million from the previous year. By the time the Bureau of the Budget signed off, however, this budget was reduced further to less than $22 million.
Finding sufficient numbers of high-quality leaders and men to sustain the transformation proved to be an equally daunting challenge. During naval aviation’s infancy in the 1920s, the Navy was dominated by the “Gun Club,” ardent supporters of traditional battleship tactics. In turn, graduates of the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, the Navy’s premier source of commissioning new officers, filled the rank and file of the Gun Club. During this period, more than 80 percent of academy graduates first went to sea in battleships, and many returned to them during the course of their career, since battleship command was virtually a prerequisite for making admiral. Making air power palatable to the Gun Club was essential for gaining a foothold within the officer corps. The naval aviation visionaries were able to institutionalize the new “branch” of the Service in large part by convincing the Gun Club that aircraft would be necessary for the battleship’s continued tactical and operational effectiveness.21
Still, institutionalizing naval aviation from a personnel perspective remained a struggle, from the founding of the Bureau of Aeronautics right up until the eve of World War II. In 1921, Moffett declared that the “lack of trained naval aviators is now a serious consideration and one which requires immediate action if the efficiency of Naval Aviation is not to be impaired.”22 Over the next three years, the shortfall persisted. In 1924, Moffett established a board, headed by Captain Alfred W. Johnson to address the manning problem. The Johnson Board issued its findings in April 1925, declaring that the shortage of naval aviators required immediate attention.
Navy Secretary Curtis D. Wilbur approved the Johnson Board recommendations, but his decision appeared as a direct challenge to senior Navy leaders, who were concerned that officers pursuing an aviation career might become too detached from their professional development as surface naval officers. In response, Rear Admiral William R. Shoemaker, the chief of the Bureau of Navigation, put forth his own plan, arguing that naval aviators were no more specialized than other officers, and should therefore perform their share of sea duty before taking on aviation assignments.
The personnel question transcended nearly all other issues and went to the heart of the ongoing dispute within the Navy. The matter came to a head when Shoemaker advocated congressional legislation that would effectively end areas of specialization supporting the aviation program. Moffett appealed to Wilbur who again took up the cause of naval air power and opposed the bill.
While Moffett and other naval airmen continued to argue for independence within the Navy, they firmly rejected the separate air service championed by Mitchell (and adopted by the British, who placed their naval air arm under the Royal Air Force).23 The solidarity demonstrated by the aviators proved important for building trust and confidence among naval leaders, and for ensuring the close integration of fleet and air efforts. The Service’s generally unified, if sometimes strained, approach to operations proved a key element in the fleet’s successful transformation. In the end, the Navy reached a compromise solution on personnel assignments that satisfied Moffett. Unfortunately, it took a decade of bitter debate to adequately address the issue. In addition, although the Bureau of Aeronautics succeeded in developing a new career path for naval aviators and associated specialists, the shortage of pilots would continue until the eve of World War II.24
Resource limitations and the lag time in developing and fielding new systems were sources of friction in the transformation process. As a consequence, with the limited tools available, the Navy tended to focus on examining operational concepts, such as how many carriers should comprise a carrier task force. This contrasted with the option of fully exploiting the advances in technology suggested by the Fleet Problems and Naval War College gaming activities, and advocated so forcefully by Moffet and his Bureau of Aeronautics.
Mapping the Transformation Profile
Barriers, however, did not prevent the Naval Trinity from advancing the cause of transformation. The series of Fleet Problems conducted between 1923 and 1938 demonstrate how the results of the trinity worked to define the place of carrier aviation in modern naval warfare. These exercises reflected the kinds of ambiguities, opportunities and obstacles that present themselves as militaries struggle to account for the role of new technologies.
Building Momentum for Transformation
Fleet Problem I, in 1923, employed two battleships in the role of carriers. In 1925, Fleet Problem V witnessed the Navy’s first carrier, Langley, a converted collier, launch ten aircraft.25 The deployment of the Langley, even though its capabilities were modest, came at an opportune time. As the Navy examined the problems associated with a potential war against Japan, planners were not happy at the prospect of risking their battleships against what they anticipated to be strong defense batteries arrayed along the coast of Japan’s new island possessions. Moffett, sensing an opportunity, volunteered naval aviation for the task of clearing the battleships’ path. He suggested that “bombing aircraft, protected by fighting aircraft, both necessarily operating from carriers, could do the job of reducing the [enemy’s] defenses.”26 Thus, further aviation experimentation found a wedge into the traditional battleship focused fleet exercises.
Meanwhile, the Navy continued to fend off attacks by Mitchell. In September 1925, following the crash of Navy dirigible Shenandoah and the loss of a demonstration seaplane, Mitchell declared the two disasters revealed the Services’ negligence and incompetence in aviation matters. In response, President Coolidge appointed prominent lawyer Dwight W. Morrow to head the President’s Aircraft Board. Mitchell’s complaints inadvertently strengthened the cause of naval aviation. The congressional legislation that followed the board’s report established the office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Aeronautics), thereby giving naval aviators a voice in senior civilian circles. The legislation also required all aircraft carriers, seaplane tenders and naval air station commanders to be qualified aviators, opening the path to leadership positions for senior air power advocates, such as Joseph Mason Reeves and Harry E. Yarnell, and young pioneers like John H. Towers and Marc A. Mitscher.
In 1926, a critical boost to naval aviation fortunes occurred when Reeves left the Naval War College to become Commander, Aircraft Squadrons, Battleforce. Reeves began to put into practice the insights he had derived from the college’s war games. He outfitted the Langley with new equipment and adopted revolutionary operational techniques, all designed to maximize the number of planes the carrier could put in the air. These “test bed” carrier experiments convinced the Navy to adopt a number of innovations.27
While offering encouragement to naval aviation enthusiasts, the early exercises also revealed the substantial limitations of carrier-based aircraft. At the time, the only practical way for airplanes to attack surface combatants was with short-range torpedoes which were relatively slow and had to be launched close to their target. They also had a tendency to fail after being released. Worst of all, carrier aircraft simply could not lift torpedoes powerful enough to sink large warships.28
Experiments, however, continued to reveal new possibilities. In 1926 Lieutenant Frank D. Wagner led his squadron in the Navy’s first demonstration of dive bombing.The combination of a steep dive attack, employing machine gun fire and relatively light bombs, proved far more effective than torpedo plane attacks. Follow-on fleet exercises confirmed that carrier torpedo bombers would encounter heavy losses from battleship anti-aircraft batteries, while dive bombers could attack at far less risk.29 Meanwhile, aviation engine technology was also progressing, allowing for a rapid increase in bomb payloads.
In light of the Fleet Problems’ encouraging results, in 1927 the Navy convened a special board under retired Rear Admiral Montgomery M. Taylor to examine carrier aviation policy.30 The board established priorities for aircraft requirements with strike aircraft heading the list and torpedo planes last. Though the board viewed aviation’s primary purpose as providing air superiority over the battle fleet, its recommendations nevertheless ensured that the carriers would have a substantial offensive capability and that dive bombing would emerge as the carrier’s primary offensive weapon.31
Avoiding Lock In
Within its limited resources, the Navy also hedged against strategic and technological uncertainty by not prematurely settling on a single carrier size and design. Congress appropriated no funds for carriers between 1924 and 1928. This developmental gap enforced a strategic pause, during which the Navy had time to consider and debate its future requirements. Analysis of the lessons learned in the Naval War College games and early Fleet Problems suggested it was crucial to have carriers deploy as many fighting planes as possible. Moffett argued for small carriers, noting that “there is a far greater flight deck area available on a large number of small ships than a small number of large ships.”32 Small-carrier advocates also noted that many ships could patrol a larger area. Moreover, they maintained that to rely on a few large carriers ran the risk of “putting too many eggs in one basket. ” The results of Fleet Problems, studies by the Bureau of Aeronautics and the Naval War College gaming all bolstered these conclusions.
Other factors, however, proved more influential in driving the Navy’s design choices. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 forbade the construction of new fortifications or military bases in the Pacific island chains. The treaty created a major problem for the Navy, which counted on establishing major bases on Guam, the Marianas and the Philippines. Absent forward bases, the Navy would have to bring its own air power across the Pacific, and develop the capability to seize advanced bases to support extended operations. These requirements gave carrier capacity added importance, but the treaty limited each major navy’s total tonnage in aircraft carriers at 135,000 tons.33 The treaty also permitted the conversion of two battle cruisers into aircraft carriers. These factors drove the Navy to elect for the conversion of two cruisers into large carriers, Saratoga and Lexington. In effect, the treaty limitations helped to prevent the Navy from making the decision to exclusively build small carriers.
Saratoga joined the fleet in November 1927, followed by Lexington a month later. Each displaced 36,000 tons, and had speeds in excess of thirty-three knots. They were almost exactly the type of carrier that the Navy studies and experiments told Moffett he should not want. Ironically, they would prove to be almost exactly the kind of carrier the Navy would need fifteen years later. While the treaty-enduced Saratoga and Lexington seemed too large for the aircraft of the time, they would prove well suited for accommodating the rapid advances in aviation technology, producing bigger and more powerful planes which required larger carriers with longer flight decks. It also turned out that the larger carriers, with their higher sustained speeds, achieved better survivability. Finally, these ships proved more efficient at maximizing aircraft carrying capacity. Since the Navy had not actually tested their operational concepts with a large number of carriers at sea, they had no way knowing that their predilections for small carriers was misplaced. Fortunately, the Washington Naval Treaty and tight defense budgets discouraged the Navy from prematurely locking into the wrong carrier type prematurely.
Transformation Breakpoint
In the 1930s, naval aircraft were still severely limited in bomb load capacity and range. In battle, carriers would have to get quite close to the enemy ships and loiter until the aircraft were recovered. These vulnerabilities proved readily apparent during the Fleet Problems, leading to frequently ambiguous results and often contradictory conclusions about how naval air power might develop in the future. Nevertheless, despite the limitations of available technology, the sea maneuvers moved the notion of carrier attack operations from conceptual idea to operational practice.
Fleet Problem IX proved a major break point in the Navy’s transformation. During the exercise, Vice Admiral William V. Pratt (who had recently served as president of the Naval War College) authorized Reeves, commanding the Saratoga, to execute a high-speed run toward the Panama Canal. Reeves “attacked” the canal with a 70-plane strike force launched 140 miles from the target.34 On her return, the carrier was located and ruled sunk, but Pratt took a positive view of the Saratoga strike. To Pratt, the attack represented a preview of the carrier’s potential to conduct attack operations. In 1930, after Pratt became Chief of Naval Operations, he stressed using carriers on the offensive in war games and fleet exercises.
Meanwhile, the Navy’s leadership continued to debate the size of future carriers and the value of naval aviation in relation to battleships. In 1931, during Fleet Problem XII, Blue Force, comprising the big carriers Saratoga and Lexington, along with some destroyers and cruisers, was given the mission of stopping an invading Black Force, comprising battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and the smaller carrier Langley. Blue split its force into two carrier groups and, instead of going after Black’s battle line, attempted to locate and sink the transport ships carrying the landing force. Naval aviators were disappointed when Blue failed and Black effected a landing, although Reeves cautioned that the operation’s results should not be incorrectly interpreted, nor the strength of air power underestimated. Clearly, however, some damage was done to the Navy’s confidence in air power’s potential. Pratt’s support for the carrier appeared to wane. He declared the Fleet Problem reaffirmed that the “battleship is the backbone of the Fleet.”35 While the carrier task force would be exercised again, it would not be as an alternative to the traditional battle line.
Fleet Problem XII proved to be only a temporary setback in the Navy’s transformation. A year later, 152 aircraft from the Saratoga and Lexington, under Yarrell’s command, executed a surprise attack on Army air bases and facilities in Hawaii. The Army contested the effectiveness of the carrier raid and also claimed their planes had critically damaged the carriers, even though Yarnell’s aircraft had conducted two bombing runs on the Army’s planes as they sat on the runways. The ground commanders’ protests aside, the attack served as important display of the carrier’s offensive capabilities.36
Fleet Problem XIII followed Yarnell’s successful mock air attack on Pearl Harbor. The Blue Fleet deployed from Hawaii in support of an expeditionary force moving against three unfortified atolls along the US Pacific Coast. Black Fleet operated in defense of the atolls. Yarnell commanded Blue Fleet’s air component, to include the Saratoga and land-based aircraft in Hawaii. Black Fleet included the Lexington and Langley. Both Yarnell and his Black Fleet counterpart, Captain Ernest King, focused their primary efforts on neutralizing the other’s air power. King received permission from his senior, Admiral William H. Standley, to operate the Lexington independent of the battle force. Keeping the Lexington out of the Saratoga’s engagement range until just the right moment, he launched a devastating forty-nine plane raid, another successful demonstration of naval aviation’s potential as an attack weapon.
Fleet Problem XIV, in 1933, simulated a war with Japan. Black Fleet comprised the two big carriers and an escorting force. The fleet bypassed Hawaii in favor of strikes on the US West Coast. Fleet commander, Admiral Frank H. Clark, a non-aviator, split his force into three groups, with the northern group organized around the Lexington, and the southern group around the Saratoga. When aircraft from Lexington sited a Blue submarine, Clark directed his cruisers to form a battle column in anticipation of a surface engagement. In so doing, he stripped the Lexington of her screen. As she was preparing for a dawn aircraft launch, two Blue battleships emerged from the darkness, one on each side of the carrier. The Lexington was quickly ruled out of action. The Saratoga proceeded with its strikes, but was attacked and put out of commission by attacks from the Langley and other Blue Fleet aircraft. The results were a setback for the carriers, though aviation advocates argued the failure was as more a product of poor tactics than anything else.
Despite the disappointing results of Fleet Problem XIV, it was becoming difficult to ignore the emerging potential of naval air power. Improvements in aircraft capability were especially impressive. As shown in figure 3, around 1930, the range of naval attack aircraft leaped from around 400-500 miles to between 600 and 1,000 miles. By the late 1930s, the Navy’s combat aircraft boasted ranges of between 800 and 1,200 miles, representing roughly a one hundred percent increase over the span of a decade.
Bomb load carrying capacity also increased dramatically (figure 4), a result of industry’s ability by mid-decade to produce high-performance, all-metal aircraft that incorporated fuel-injected radial engines and variable pitch propellers. In a manner that brings to mind today’s advances in computing power, during this brief period the high-performance, single-seat aircraft engine horsepower rose on an impressive trajectory (figure 5). As a result, the Navy’s air strike arm more than doubled its range, and simultaneously realized an order-of-magnitude increase in lift capacity. The ability to fly great distances and attack targets with 1,000 pound bombs made dive bombers true ship killers. Moreover, dive bombers were compact enough to be carried in substantial numbers on carriers.37
As aircraft range and payloads continued to increase at a rapid rate, concerns began to mount over the fleet’s ability to provide adequate air defense. The fleet’s “picket line” of destroyers proved inadequate at providing sufficient early warning for effective counter-air operations against long range, high-flying attack aircraft. Abrogation of the Washington Naval Treaty in the mid-1930s by the Great Powers exacerbated the problem. Nations were no longer constrained in the size of the carrier force they could put at sea. As a result, naval aviation advocates argued that the best defense was to find and strike the enemy’s carrier, before its planes were launched against the fleet—and, since the fleet as a whole could not move as fast as the carrier or provide much protection, they saw little virtue in continuing the existing practice of using sea-based aircraft primarily to set the conditions for a fleet battleship engagement.
On the other hand, battleship advocates remained skeptical of the case for independent carrier operations, pointing out that the Japanese could defend against torpedo attacks by armoring or adding impact-absorbing blisters to their ship hulls. The traditionalists also argued that anti-aircraft fire would keep dive bombers at bay. Finally, they asserted, battleships had remained the centerpiece of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and hence they must remain the US Navy’s principal weapon. It would always require a battleship to defeat a battleship.
Given these considerations, it is not surprising that the mainstream Navy had yet to shift to the measures of effectiveness that would show the carrier to its best advantage in a fleet engagement. Weight of firepower was still the paramount consideration, not firepower as a function of range. As late as 1940, the Naval War College was pointing out to its students that “it takes 108 planes to carry as many large torpedoes as one squadron of destroyers and 1,200 to carry as many large bombs or large projectiles as one battleship.”38 New measures of effectiveness that incorporated naval aviation’s profound advantage in engagement range over surface combatants had yet to establish themselves as central to successful fleet engagements.
Nevertheless, by the late 1930s, Navy Fleet Problems generally began with opposing carriers placing top priority on seeking each other out, looking for an opportunity to execute a decisive first-strike. This tactic generated intense debate. Might carriers operate independently and then, if confronted by an enemy force, might the battleships be employed to protect the carriers, rather than the other way around?
During Fleet Problem XVIII in 1937, White Fleet, with the newest carrier, the 13,800-ton Ranger, defended the Hawaiian Islands against Black Fleet, which included the Saratoga, Lexington and Langley. The Fleet Problem revealed a serious disagreement over the operational use of carriers. Admiral Claude C. Bloch, the battle force commander, felt that the carriers were best employed in formation with the battle line, receiving protection from the surface combatants’ anti-aircraft guns. The aviators hotly disputed Bloch’s contention, arguing that command of the air should be achieved before the opposing fleets engaged. To accomplish this, the carriers would have to operate independent of the main body, seeking out and destroying the enemy carrier. In the exercise, however, Admiral Block restricted the carriers to flying patrols over the battleships and covering the fleet’s landing force. Consequently, the Langley was sunk, while the Saratoga and Lexington were heavily damaged by enemy air. After the exercise, when Vice Admiral Frederick J. Horne, commander of all carriers, circulated a paper calling for independent carrier operations, Admiral Bloch had him recall all copies.
On another occasion, an argument ensued when a battleship commander accused King, then a fleet air component commander, of essentially fighting a private war apart from the fleet, and not providing essential air support. King replied that until he had won the war for air superiority, he could not ensure the survival of his carriers, and that without the carriers the battle line would be bereft of air cover, scouts and gunnery support.
The Navy intended Fleet Problem XIX, conducted in 1938, to help resolve the growing dispute over the carriers’ role. The scenario divided the fleet into two opposing forces, with Black attempting to establish a coastal base following the destruction of White Fleet. The Ranger, along with some land-based aircraft, was assigned to White Fleet. The Saratoga and Lexington supported the Black Fleet. King saw the exercise as an opportunity to correct what he felt was a serious misuse of the carrier force in Fleet Problem XVIII, but was disappointed when, despite his objections, Black split its forces into two battleship groups, each accompanied by a carrier. Aircraft from the Ranger attacked the Lexington, and then a follow-on attack by White land-based patrol bombers put the big carrier out of action. The Saratoga, as King had feared, was too distant to offer support for Lexington. The ambivalent results did little to resolve the dispute over carrier doctrine.
The second phase of Fleet Problem XIX went better for King’s carrier force. In this exercise, Blue Fleet was to execute an amphibious landing against a Red Force on Hawaii. Red defenses comprised Army Air Corps planes and Navy patrol bombers. King, allowed to devise his own tactics, had both the Saratoga and Ranger at his disposal. He directed the Saratoga to maneuver northwest of Hawaii to launch a predawn attack on the island. Just before dawn on 29 March, the Saratoga launched a successful surprise attack on the Army’s Hickam and Wheeler air fields and the Pearl Harbor Naval Air Station.
The third and final phase of Fleet Problem XIX again involved two fleets. In this phase Purple Fleet prepared to launch attacks on Green Fleet’s base at San Francisco. King, with the Purple Fleet, again formed an independent carrier strike force with the Saratoga and Lexington. Breaking off from the battle force, King maneuvered the carriers to launch air strikes on Green’s base. Following the strikes, the carriers rejoined Purple Fleet’s main body, where their scouting efforts located Green Fleet. Carrier aircraft thereupon attacked the Green Fleet force of cruisers, destroyers and submarines.Although the debate was not to be conclusively resolved during the Fleet problems, in 1939 the Navy reorganized its carrier force into Carrier Division 1 with the Saratoga and Lexington and Carrier Division 2 with the Yorktown and Enterprise. Naval aviation was on the ascendancy.
On the Cusp
A major influence on the carrier’s role was the newly introduced radar technology, which became the Navy’s foremost scouting device and a critical enabler for early warning of air attack. The Navy had undertaken radar research during the 1930s, and by 1936 the US Naval Research Laboratory conducted successful shipboard demonstrations. In 1938, search radar was installed on a battleship and subjected to exhaustive testing during fleet maneuvers in the Caribbean. The tests were a success, with approaching aircraft being detected at ranges of 50 miles.39
Over the next two years, the Navy installed radar on all carriers and many surface combatants. By the end of 1939, the United States was testing shipboard radar prototypes for long-range aircraft detection, anti-aircraft fire control and surface tracking. A series of remarkable breakthroughs followed, and radar quickly became vital for defense against fighters, as well as an indispensable navigational tool.40 Supplementing the advantage of radar, the growing ability to communicate by radio at extended ranges facilitated greater command and control of air operations.
As technology matured, the carrier began to achieve capabilities that matched the naval aviation vision. Towers, now director of Bureau of Aeronautics, declared that the carriers must be allowed to operate independent of the battle line. “I am convinced that carriers must be considered, not as individual vessels, but as part of a striking force” that would comprise two carriers, four heavy cruisers and four destroyers.41 Towers also scaled back advocacy for the small carriers, arguing future carriers should be at least as big as the Yorktown and Enterprise (roughly 20,000 tons each), and with comparable speed (33 knots) and aircraft capacity (72 plane minimum). In addition, he advocated increasing the carrier’s fuel capacity to extend its cruising range.42 The Navy leadership agreed. By January 1940, the basic plans for the Essex class of carriers had been formed, displacing 27,000 tons, and emphasizing speed (33 knots) over armament, and higher aircraft numbers (up to 90) in lieu of heavy gunfire support provided by its escort ships. As a result, the Navy prepared to enter World War II committed to deploying a force of large carriers, and with it, the nucleus of capabilities needed to fight a new kind of war at sea.
Assessing the Transformation Process
Barriers slowed the transformation process; however, they also helped the Navy to avoid “locking in” to the wrong class of carriers before the rapid advances in aviation technology had begun to level off, and the character of the threat to the United States had clearly manifested itself. Measured developments, extensive experimentation and a modicum of support from Congress also ensured that when war threatened, the United States could quickly “ramp up” the production of carriers (figure 6). “Buying in” to the revolution in naval warfare at this late date also permitted the Navy to gain the maximum benefit from both technological advances, and the insights from its series of wargames and Fleet Problems. The Navy proved very effective at “time-based competition.”43 The Service had, through a combination of design—and luck—positioned itself to transform very quickly into a radically different kind of fighting force. By the late 1930s the Navy had established enough of a defense industrial base capacity to sustain a fairly rapid buildup in its carrier fleet, and in the aircraft that would operate off its decks.
It is noteworthy that the Navy did not have to build a large number of carriers to effect its transformation.. Through the end of 1942, the Navy had constructed only eight carriers. Of those eight, only four — Saratoga, Lexington, Yorktown, and Enterprise — approximated the workhorse Essex-class carriers that joined the fleet beginning in 1943. Put another way, a relatively small perturbation in the Navy’s capital ship program yielded transformational, or “revolutionary,” results.
Once the Navy had crossed the transformation threshold, it moved aggressively. The principal casualty of the Navy’s ramp up of carrier production was the battleship. The Iowa-class was terminated at four of the six planned ships, while the Montana-class was cancelled altogether. Following the termination of battleship construction, 16 fleet or fast carriers were commissioned during the war, along with 79 light and escort carriers. Between 1941 and the war’s end, the fleet carrier force quadrupled, while the escort carrier force increased from one combatant to a fleet of 71.
While the transformation from the battleship to the carrier was stark, the post-transformation Navy also had a need for “legacy” systems, combatant ships that were part of the traditional naval battle line. Between 1941 and 1945, the number of submarines and destroyers in the fleet more than doubled (figure 7), a feat almost matched by the cruiser force. The Navy’s ability to increase rapidly the production of a class of ships that might today be viewed more as experimental prototypes, while also closing off production of a “sunset” system (i.e., the battleship) and sustaining the production of useful “legacy” systems, allowed it to effect the revolution in maritime warfare that led to the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
The dynamic of tight depression era budgets had much the same salutary affect on aviation programs. If the Navy’s aircraft procurement budget was quite limited, so, too, was its ability to accumulate a large inventory of aircraft whose value would depreciate rapidly in an environment marked by rapid progress in aviation technology. This factor seemed to be appreciated by the Navy, which consciously avoided “locking in” to large numbers of aircraft while aviation technology was progressing rapidly and the threat to the United States was relatively low.
Indeed, from 1932-1938, the Navy’s inventory of combat aircraft remained essentially stagnant in terms of numbers, though it was anything but stagnant in terms of aircraft types. During this six-year period alone, the Navy introduced eleven new combat models. Rather than invest scarce resources in maintaining a large inventory of rapidly obsolescing planes, the service wisely concentrated on keeping up with technology.
In 1940, as the war in Europe took a turn for the worse and US-Japan relations became increasingly strained, the Navy was able to move quickly to increase its combat aircraft inventory. From 1940-1944, the numbers of airplanes, on average, doubled in size every year, for an overall increase of nearly 2,000 percent.44
In summary, given the uncertainties and limitations with which it was faced, the Navy achieved a kind of “hedging” strategy. It created a balanced fleet in which the option remained open to expand the battle line by ramping up construction of substantially better battleships of the Iowa and Montana class, or to move relatively quickly to increase the number of fast carriers with the Essex class.
Baptism by Fire: The Transformation Revealed—and Sustained
World War II offered the ultimate “exercise” of carrier aviation’s potential. The war came along just as technology, in the form of rapid advances in aviation, radar and radio communications, had matured to the point where the operations envisioned by the Navy’s aviators were not only possible, but necessary—though in the war’s early days, the carrier’s emerging dominance was far from clear. For example, in 1940 two German warships caught the British carrier Glorious in the open sea and sank it. Carrier-based aircraft did not figure prominently in British naval operations opposing the German invasion of Norway. Naval aviation did issue a “wake-up call” in November 1940, when the Royal Navy carrier Illustrious launched an air strike against the Italian fleet at its harbor in Taranto. Twenty-one attacking aircraft severely damaged three battleships, put one cruiser out of commission, damaged two destroyers, and sunk two supply ships. Other engagements in the European theater gave hints of what was to come. In March 1941, aircraft from the British carrier Formidable drove off the Italian naval forces at the battle of Cape Matapan, and in May 1941, the Royal Navy carrier Ark Royal played a significant role in the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck.
Still, at the time of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s surprise attack on Pear Harbor in December 1941, the definitive case for the carriers had yet to be made.45 Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, the commander-in-chief at Pearl Harbor, tended to view carriers as auxiliaries. In fact, the senior air expert on Kimmel’s forty-man staff held the modest rank of commander. In the months following the attack, however, the aircraft carrier established itself as the Navy’s dominant weapon, not so much because the Gun Club experienced any kind of epiphany, but rather, as Ron Spector has argued, “because most of the surviving American battleships were too slow and consumed too much fuel for the kind of fast moving hit-and-run warfare the US was now obliged to wage in the Pacific.”46
The Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in May and June of 1942, respectively, confirmed that a transformation in naval warfare had occurred, and that the Navy was well positioned to exploit it. The Coral Sea engagement was the first in history where the fleets did not achieve visual sight of each other. The Battle of Midway, one month later, was also dominated by carrier aircraft with opposing sides attacking aircraft seeking out the other’s carriers as their principal target. Japan’s loss of four of its carriers in the engagement confirmed the US Navy’s decisive victory.
At the time of Coral Sea and Midway, neither Japan nor the United States had established a clear lead in aircraft range. As a result, the crucial determinants of success in the carrier war proved to be scouting effectiveness and striking power. The US fleets did enjoy the advantage of radar, but it was not used efficiently enough to facilitate interceptions far enough from the fleet to avert serious damage to American carriers. Thus the advantage was with the offense, and the engagements proceeded much in the way envisioned by aviation enthusiasts during the inter-war years.
Offensive air combat, however, brought with it high attrition and threatened the ability of naval forces to sustain the carrier warfare revolution.47 To be detected and attacked was to run a high risk of being destroyed. Thus a premium was placed on stealth, deception, dispersed forces, and maximum attacking power. The dominance of offense over defense was reflected in carrier air wing composition. In 1942, roughly seventy-five percent of a US carrier’s air wing comprised attack aircraft.
For the United States, the imperative of offensive operations lessened as the Americans continued to revolutionize the composition of the fleet. As Wayne Hughes insightfully noted, having attack planes comprise three quarters of carrier wing, “was a good gamble at the beginning of 1942. As early as late 1942 it was a very bad gamble.”48 The reason for the shift in the odds was the rapidly improving measures for defending the carrier task force. This dramatically enhanced capability rested on the integration of several key technologies, including extended-range communications, radar and anti-aircraft guns. The ability to obtain early warning of an attack, and to mass and coordinate the carrier battle group’s defenses (now comprising three or four carriers), combined with the shifting of the carrier air wing mix to approximately sixty-five percent fighter aircraft, meant it was no longer critical to attack first. Moreover, with the Japanese carrier threat greatly diminished and the American island-hopping campaign proceeding apace, the US carriers found themselves increasingly in confrontation with Japan's land-based air forces. Thus, where the measure of effectiveness in 1942 had been the number of carriers sunk, it now became the number of naval aircraft destroyed. While Coral Sea and Midway were fought under an “offensive dominant” regime, the defense, thanks to additional wartime developments, recovered substantially.
Following Coral Sea and Midway, both the United States and Japan also faced the problem of replacing pilot losses, both from combat and severe fatigue. While the Japanese had a reserve of highly qualified aviators, the Americans were not only able to maintain a supply of qualified pilots, but also sent their most experienced pilots back to the United States to train new pilots. In later encounters between the carrier forces of the two fleets, both participants and historians attribute continued American success principally to the far greater skill and experience of US pilots. The United States maintained a dominant position in the new form of warfare, in large measure, due to its ability to develop human resources to match advances in technology, offensive and defensive operational concepts, and force structure—in affect combining all the elements that turn transformation into revolution.
Investing in the Revolution
If the phrase “show me your defense budget and I’ll show you your defense priorities” carries any weight, the Navy dramatically changed its priorities promptly following the transformational battles in the spring of 1942. Even after Pearl Harbor, the General Board had resisted moving toward a carrier-centered fleet. The board wanted to increase the number of carriers, but it opposed converting light cruiser hulls into small carriers, and proposed a building program that would lay down only nine additional carriers through 1944.49
In May, however, King, now Chief of Naval Operations, unilaterally modified the General Board’s recommendations, indefinitely deferring five battleships and replacing them with five carriers and ten cruisers.50 King was supported in Congress by a powerful ally, Representative Carl Vinson, who in June submitted a bill authorizing construction of 1.9 million tons of carriers, cruisers and destroyers—but no additional battleships. While to some degree the bill reflected the shortage of battleship armor plate, to an even greater degree it acknowledged that the battleship had been displaced by the carrier as the centerpiece of the fleet. In fact, King later slipped the priority for battleship production to sixth.51 The Navy’s wartime construction program proved a watershed in the ascendancy of the carrier force.
Reflections on a Revolution
In its role as the fleet’s new main fighting ship, the carrier also showed its weaknesses. Carrier aircraft became the chief naval weapon during daylight hours, but when the sun set, air power lost its grip on control of the sea, and surface combatant engagements proved the norm. In a number of maritime engagements during World War II, the battleship dominated.52 Moreover, battleships were hardly sitting ducks against carrier-based aircraft, particularly when operating as part of a carrier task force. Battleships in World War II were equipped with air defenses, perhaps some 100 times greater than those available during the attack on Pearl Harbor. For example, in the Battle of Santa Cruz in November 1942, one of the new US battleships shot down 32 Japanese planes in less than 32 minutes, while taking only one bomb hit that did little damage.53
Still, there could be no doubt as to the carrier’s new status in the fleet. This change reflected not only in budgets and naval operations, but also in the organization of the fleet. The Navy’s carrier task forces could launch “round-the-clock” offensive air operations and sustain themselves for long periods from a mobile fleet train. Battleships filled a new role, supporting carrier task force operations. The age of the carrier battle group had arrived. In the span of a few years, war at sea had been transformed.
The Navy’s transformation profile reflected all the key building blocks historically associated with military revolutions. In addition, and perhaps most important, the key lesson of the revolution at sea may be recognizing the critical requirement of achieving both mental and physical change before a break point can be crossed, and transformations mature into revolutionary new ways of war. At some point, all the force’s key dynamics—doctrine, technology, human and capital resources, and organizational design—must evolve sufficiently to allow the aspirations of vision to be realized in operational practices.
