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.