Chapter 5 World War II 1940–1945 he fleet faced the supreme test of war only 30 years victory. American armed forces drove the Axis from after acquiring its first airplane and just 19 years strategically located bases, cut off its raw materials, after commissioning its first aircraft carrier. Naval and placed the Allies in position to launch the final air Taviation carried the fight to the enemy and forged ahead to and amphibious offensives. These late efforts would be become the backbone of fleet striking power. rendered unnecessary by the destructive power of the In one swift, skillfully executed stroke at Pearl Harbor, atom unleashed upon the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Japanese carrier planes temporarily crippled the Navy’s Nagasaki, but the fleet’s liberation of Japanese-held islands battle line. The handful of carriers in the Pacific filled in the Central Pacific made the atomic attacks possible. the ensuing void and demonstrated the potency of naval For the first time in naval history the opponents airpower when they struck a retaliatory blow against the engaged each other entirely in the air without sighting Japanese home islands in 1942. enemy ships. Radar pierced the night, giving the fleet Although the geographic position of the United States new eyes, as technological progress improved the defense provided the strategic advantage of the ability to move and added power to the offense. Scientists contributed ships between the Atlantic and Pacific fleets via the Panama to the war effort by developing specialized equipment Canal, it also placed the nation squarely between two wars and applying scientific principles to operational tactics. with few commonalities. Logistics assumed new importance, and advances in Air operations in the Atlantic consisted of a blockade replenishment at sea increased naval mobility. and campaign to protect convoys of ships that delivered In the course of the war, Navy and Marine pilots raw materials, munitions, and reinforcements to the Allies. claimed the destruction of more than 15,000 enemy aircraft The convoys’ safe arrivals enabled a series of amphibious in the air and on the ground; sank 174 Japanese warships, operations that liberated the European continent from including 13 submarines totaling 746,000 tons; destroyed Axis hegemony. 447 Japanese merchant ships totaling 1,600,000 tons; and In the Pacific, Allied strategy focused first on stopping sank 63 U-boats in the Atlantic. In combination with other Japan’s alarmingly rapid advance, and then on the bitterly agents, Navy and Marine air forces helped sink another contested task of driving the enemy forces back over a 157,000 tons of warships and 200,000 tons of merchant broad expanse. ships, and another 6 Japanese and 20 German submarines. The United States entered World War II unprepared Although World War II contributed significantly to the to execute either Allied strategy—Atlantic or Pacific. development of aviation, experience proved some prewar The Navy and Marine Corps air arms mustered only one theories on the role of airpower to naval operations to be small and seven large commissioned aircraft carriers, five misconceived. The bombing tests of the 1920s had persuaded patrol wings, and two Marine aircraft wings, about 5,900 some airpower proponents of the obsolescence of navies, but pilots and 21,678 enlisted men, 5,233 aircraft of all types, carrier task force operations in the war gave little credence to including trainers, and a few advanced air bases. such conclusions. Those who questioned the importance of Distance from the enemy and tremendous airplanes to navies were equally off the mark. Advocates of industrial power, however, enabled the United States independent airpower had also doubted the possibility and to build the ships, planes, and equipment necessary for usefulness of close air support for troops; battle experience PB | <recto> World War II | 135 1940 validated such support as indispensable. The disappointment 19 MARCH • The Navy authorized fleet activities to of naval officers who visualized decisive fleet engagements apply additional national star insignia on the sides of the in the tradition of Trafalgar and Jutland matched that of fuselages or hulls of Neutrality Patrol aircraft to assist in their airpower theorists who saw their predictions go awry. By identification. the test of war it became exceedingly clear that neither armies nor navies could achieve objectives in war without 22 MARCH • The Navy initiated guided missile first achieving air superiority, and that neither could exert as development at the Naval Aircraft Factory, Philadelphia, much force alone as with the aid of air striking power. Pa., with the establishment of a project for adapting radio controls to a torpedo-carrying TG-2 airplane. 1940 APRIL • Fleet Problem XXI, consisting of two phases 4 JANUARY • The establishment of Project Baker in Patrol and lasting into May, involved coordination of commands, Wing 1 expanded experiments with blind landing equipment. protection of a convoy, and seizure of advanced bases around the Hawaiian Islands and eastern Pacific. Observers noted the 15 FEBRUARY • Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, tendency of commanders to overlook carrier limitations and noting that reports on air operations in the European war assign them excessive tasks, the need for reliefs for flight and stressed the problem of aircraft vulnerability, recommended carrier crews under simulated war conditions, the success of equipping naval aircraft with leak-proof or self-sealing fuel high-altitude tracking by patrol aircraft, and the ineffectiveness tanks, and pilots and observers with armor. The Bureaus of of low-level horizontal bombing attacks. The war compelled Aeronautics and Ordnance had investigated these forms of the cancellation of Fleet Problem XXII in 1941. protection for two years, but this formal statement of need accelerated procurement and installation of both. 23 APRIL • Cmdr. Donald Royce was designated to represent the Navy on an Army Air Corps evaluation 24 FEBRUARY • The Bureau of Aeronautics issued a board for rotary-wing aircraft. The board was incidental contract for television equipment, including a camera, to legislation directing the War Department to undertake transmitter, and receiver capable of airborne operation. rotary-wing aircraft development. Researchers used this equipment to transmit instrument readings obtained from radio-controlled structural flight 25 APRIL • Wasp (CV 7) was commissioned at Boston, tests and to provide target and guidance information for the Mass., Capt. John W. Reeves Jr. commanding. conversion of radio-controlled aircraft to offensive weapons. 7 MAY • President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered fleet 27 FEBRUARY • The Navy awarded a contract to Vought- ships to remain in Hawaiian waters indefinitely as a signal of Sikorsky Aircraft for the design of a full-scale flying model American resolve to deter Japanese aggression. Subsequently, (as distinguished from a military prototype) of a “Flying Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet Adm. James O. Richardson Flapjack” fighter, designated VS-173, with an almost circular asserted that the facilities at Pearl Harbor were inadequate wing. This design, which produced a potential high speed to support the fleet and protect against attack. Richardson’s of nearly 500 mph combined with a very low takeoff speed, stance contributed to his relief on 1 February 1941 by Adm. originated in the research of former National Advisory Husband E. Kimmel. Committee for Aeronautics engineer Charles H. Zimmerman. 16 MAY • President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested a 29 FEBRUARY • The Bureau of Aeronautics initiated action congressional appropriation of $1.18 billion to strengthen that led to a contract with University of Iowa professor H. O. national defense, including $250 million for the Navy and Croft to investigate the possibilities of a turbojet propulsion Marine Corps. unit for aircraft. 27 MAY • Secretary of the Navy Charles Edison directed the equipment of six DD-445–class destroyers with planes, 136 | World War II World War II | 137 1940 continued catapults, and plane handling gear. Halford (DD 480), 27 JUNE • President Franklin D. Roosevelt established Hutchins (DD 476), Leutze (DD 481), Pringle (DD 477), a National Defense Research Committee to correlate and Stanly (DD 478), and Stevens (DD 479) were subsequently support scientific research on the mechanisms and devices selected. On 23 December 1942 Pringle received the first of war. Among its members were officers of the War and aircraft, an OS2U-3 Kingfisher, BuNo 5870. Just before Navy departments appointed by the respective secretaries. the new year, BuNo 01505, an OS2N-1, was assigned to Although the committee’s functions specifically excluded Hutchins. Before these two ships and Stanly joined the fleet in research on the problems of flight, the organization made early 1943, however, shortcomings in the plane hoisting gear substantial contributions in various fields important to naval led to removal of the aviation equipment. Halford and Stevens aviation, including airborne radar. performed limited aircraft operations, but in October 1943, the Navy ordered the equipment removed from both ships 14 JULY • Scientists E. L. Bowles, Ralph Bowen, Alfred L. and cancelled its installation on Leutze. Loomis, and Hugh H. Willis attended the initial meeting of what became the National Defense Research Committee’s 14 JUNE • The Naval Expansion Act of 1940 was signed Division 14, or Radar Division. During this and subsequent into law. The measure authorized an 11 percent increase in meetings with other researchers, the group defined its the size of the fleet, approved a 79,500-ton augmentation mission: “to obtain the most effective military application of of aircraft carrier tonnage over the limits set by the 1938 microwaves in minimum time.” In carrying out this mission, expansion act, and sought to increase the number of naval Division 14 developed airborne radar the Navy used for aircraft by instituting a cap of 48 airships and 4,500 planes. aircraft interception, airborne early warning, and other The next day, President Franklin D.