Years later when I read of Gerry Bogan’s fantastic exploits in the Pacific, and especially Bill Halsey’s estimate of his courage, I recalled this laconic yet complete answer—as well as the way it had parted Bull Reeves’s whiskers in an appreciative grin.
At Pearl Harbor, one day, we got news of the arrival in San Francisco of the long-awaited Lexington. She planned to proceed at once to Honolulu on a trial run at thirty knots. Day by day we watched her phenomenal performance, and we admired her from afar as she anchored in triumph off Waikiki with Diamond Head as a fitting backdrop. There her captain, Frank D. Berrien, welcomed us warmly as we transferred aboard.
Whereas on the Langley COMAIRONS staff had perched under the flight-deck ramp in temporary cubby holes hung as an afterthought out over the stern, on the “Big Lex” the chief of staff rated a living room, bedroom, and bath, a sumptuous suite in which I rattled around like a single die in a wardroom dice box. Messing as we did with the admiral in his big cabin, we luxuriated all the way back to San Diego. There, anchored in the Roads, we found big “Sister Sara” under the able command of Capt. John Halligan. Bull Reeves’s two-starred flag floated over the world’s most powerful carrier force, a smart outfit that already gave signs of great esprit in the making.
Meanwhile a number of new aircraft and new pilots had been assembling for the “summer concentration.” Our job now was to whip the force into shape for the next fleet operation less than a year away. Captain Towers turned over command of the Langley to Capt. Arthur B. Cook, another good skipper, and now returned to BUAERO to become Admiral Moffett’s Assistant Chief. We hoped that the stresses and strains of the winter might not complicate our affairs, for we already had a tough problem to solve in the relationship between the carriers and their squadrons. The admiral held that the squadrons should base under him at San Diego and should operate under his command in the monthly fleet tactical exercises; some of the carrier officers, and singularly enough it was the naval aviators now acting as ship’s officers, and not the line officers at all, insisted that the squadrons should function with respect to the carriers just as a turret crew works on a battleship. Aside from the fact that it was impractical to base squadrons on carriers and train them there without keeping the carriers continuously at sea, the introduction of carrier skippers into the chain of command tended to slow down air operations.
This was a conflict that raged even more bitterly as time went on and especially after Capt. E. J. King took over command of the Lexington. It was complicated by the Langley incident and worse still by a political situation even then developing back in Washington. Some of the high brass had gone gunning for Admiral Moffett’s scalp—his term of office would expire in a year—and their candidate, as yet unbeknownst to Bull Reeves, was Rear Adm. Joseph M. Reeves.
As the net of complications began to tighten about us, I chafed under them. To me it seemed that grown men ought to learn to bury their pet prejudices and to move ahead on the big ideas in an orderly and cooperative fashion. To Bull Reeves, an older, wiser, and always more philosophical man, these conflicts all seemed part of a plan that somehow produced the right answers where the apparently more orderly processes finally created planned disorder.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Creation of Strategic Concept
The return of FLEET AIR to San Diego coincided with the commencement 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.