One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power

by Smith, Douglas V.

  It was not an easy problem, but Lieutenant [Commander] Frank Wagner, Commander of the fighter squadron, finally solved it. If the bomber could get close enough to its target, he reasoned, there would be no room for errors—yet how could this be done before the plane itself was destroyed? For months Wagner struggled with the problem, while Reeves gave encouragement and advice. At first the pilots tried gliding down on their targets, with engines idling, and later on, with full power. Then in March [1926], Wagner quietly added a little more piano wire to the rigging of his plane, placed a 100-pound bomb under each wing, and started out on what was supposed to be a routine flight. Instead, he climbed to seven thousand feet in easy spirals, opened his throttle as far as it would go, and nosed over into a vertical dive at the field below. The airport crew watched, horrified as the plane rocketed toward them, and then scattered wildly. Somehow Wagner pulled out at the last moment, brushed over a hangar, and landed; he had risked his life, but found the answer.20

  By also adopting a tactic of coming in toward the target from out of the sun, the bombers’ steep vertical dive made them almost impossible to hit as they neared their targets. Moreover, the accuracy of 311 bombs dropped in the initial testing of these tactics in October 1926 was an astounding 44.5 percent on a target only one-third the length and ten feet shy the width of a typical cruiser.21 When further refined, and with the entrance of the Dauntless dive-bomber into the fleet inventory, this combination of tactics resulted in one of the most lethal weapons systems of World War II.

  One of the major challenges that confronted Reeves was gaining insights on and formulating a plan for the most appropriate types of aircraft composing the air wings. Controversies arose regarding such things as whether a single- or two-seat fighter was most appropriate; whether a future fighter should serve the dual purpose of being able to drop bombs as well as defend the carrier(s); the proper ordnance load for a bomber; and what type of engines and landing gear would best serve the purpose of a particular type of plane. Noting that Langley was at first equipped with biplanes and that the age of monoplanes had arrived, the design tradeoffs required a lot of speculation. Yet Reeves and his officers in Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet managed to keep abreast of design advances and provide timely and useful recommendations to the Bureau of Aeronautics. This ultimately led, by the start of World War II, to the inclusion of one squadron each of F4F-3 Wildcat fighters and TBD-1 Devastator torpedo planes and two squadrons of SBD-3 Dauntless dive-bombers on U.S. carriers each of eighteen aircraft. Though the two squadrons of Dauntlesses were in reality interchangeable, one was given the “VB” designation of bomber aircraft and the other the “VS” designation of scout aircraft. Thus the men of Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet—even with primitive aircraft and a carrier of extremely limited space and capability in Langley—made a major contribution to the carrier air wing structure that proved so successful in the initial stages of the coming war.

  Reeves was equally adept at manipulating the local population and the media to best advantage. During his time in command of Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet he orchestrated a good number of “parades” of ultimately over 150 aircraft in a single formation and nurtured an aerial exhibition team of three pilots and their planes—against Navy regulations—that were unrivaled by the Army Air Corps. At almost every opportunity, particularly when a dignitary such as the Secretary of the Navy was present, Reeves unveiled his “air show” to demonstrate the capabilities of his pilots and their aircraft. Such shows usually concluded with a stellar performance by his de facto flight demonstration team and an exhibition of the dive-bombing techniques he had developed immediately overhead the observers. Similarly, Reeves employed the tactics developed by the Langley Air Wing at every opportunity to demonstrate the utility of both the carrier and its aircraft. Gradually those at the highest levels of leadership in the Navy began to take notice of the potential of the carrier and it’s Air Wing. Thus Reeves was at once a publicist for Navy aviation and its most powerful advocate.

  An example of Reeves’ acumen in driving home the utility of the carrier came in late 1928 when Vice Admiral Sir Cyril T. M. Fuller, Commander of the Royal Navy’s American and West Indies Squadron, arrived in San Diego aboard his flagship, HMS Despatch, to discuss carrier developments. Fuller was truly impressed when Reeves told him, erroneously, that Langley—now fitted with a thirty-six-foot extension to the aft of her flight deck—could operate twenty-four aircraft, significantly more than the British under current practices.22 Reeves refused Admiral Fuller’s request to walk Langley’s flight deck and view the arresting gear that had been modified to do this and purposely withheld the true number of planes Langley could operate, stating to Admiral Moffett, Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics later: “I did not tell Admiral Fuller that we operated not twenty-four, but thirty-six, and could operate forty-two and possibly forty-eight airplanes from the Langley.”23 This was made possible by an earlier push by Reeves to increase the number of aircraft onboard Langley in preparation for Fleet Problem VII by loading an almost impossible thirty-six aircraft on her deck in addition to those on her hangar deck. Again, this was a major innovation.24

  The requirement to load a large number of aircraft on Langley’s flight deck because of her small size ultimately led to the practice of “deck park,” which enabled newer and larger carriers such as USS Lexington and USS Saratoga to embark more aircraft than Japanese carriers of similar tonnage while still keeping space open on their hangar decks for aircraft maintenance functions.

  Admiral Joseph Reeves’ contributions to carrier aviation—as well as those to surface gunnery and design practices—are too numerous to chronicle here. They continued when USS Lexington and USS Saratoga were commissioned in 1927 and entered fleet service shortly thereafter.

  By the time Reeves relinquished command of Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet on 3 May 1929 the pilots and planes he had commanded on USS Langley, USS Lexington, and USS Saratoga had flown for 5,700 hours and covered 436,000 miles without incurring a single fatal injury to any of his flying personnel.25 Considering the primitive state of the aircraft flown, the small size and sizeable air wing of USS Langley, the pace of operations, and the danger inherent in experimenting with tactical innovations, this safety record was a phenomenal accomplishment. Moreover, perhaps more than any other aspect of Reeves’ demonstration of the advantages of carrier aviation, this outstanding record of safety impressed those in decision-making positions of the viability of naval aviation as a primary aspect of the Navy’s offensive lethality.

  While Admiral Reeves was pioneering carrier aviation, others were at work too. Though advocacy for the carrier in an offensive mode saw ebbs and advances through the prewar years, the Naval War College continued to establish operational methods, doctrine, and tactics for carriers and their Air Wings that emanated in large part from experience gained from the war games held there. Foremost among these were:

  1.Having two staffs for the Pacific Fleet—one of these would do the planning for the next major operation while the other was at sea executing the current operation. This shifting of staffs ensured that those executing the plan of action thoroughly understood every aspect of it.

  2.Advancing the notion that future generations of battleships and cruisers needed increased anti-aircraft capability. This was hugely important when USS North Carolina (BB-55) entered the Pacific Fleet in June 1942 because her vastly superior anti-aircraft gunnery preserved major fleet assets, including carriers, through the remainder of the war.26

  3.Settling on the characteristics of carriers to be constructed during the war. After Lexington and Saratoga were commissioned, a battle raged over the size of new carriers. Since available tonnage for new carriers was limited as a result of the Washington Naval Treaty, many advocated building smaller carriers. The result was the USS Ranger, which proved to be too small to be of any real use. Since Lexington and Saratoga weren’t ready to participate in Fleet Problems until 1929, the debate continued until empi
rical evidence could be gathered. Thus the theoretical debate was conducted mainly at the Naval War College. The result was ultimately the greatly improved fighting characteristics of the Essex-class of carrier.

  4.Operating carriers independently rather than as an integral group in battle. This doctrine, which proved to be in error, was conceived so that carriers could take advantage of weather and cloud cover during battle for concealment. Admiral Jimmy Thach, who maintained until his dying day (as chronicled in the Naval Institute Press “oral history” manuscript he provided) that USS Yorktown would not have been sunk in the Battle of Midway if she had been operating in close company with Enterprise and Hornet.

  So also were doctrine, operational procedures, and tactics advanced while conducting the twenty-one Fleet Problems and less frequent Grand Joint Exercises (GJE) during the interwar period in which the Navy tested, under real-world conditions, the theoretical doctrines and tactics generated at the War College.27 Much has already been said of how Admiral Joseph Reeves profited from ideas he tested in war games. Almost every aspect of carrier warfare was enhanced as a result of lessons learned in the Fleet Problems and Grand Joint Exercises pioneered by Commander, Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet, Admiral Joseph Mason “Bull” Reeves.

  Reeves’ impact on carrier aviation didn’t stop there. After leaving duty as Commander, Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet, Reeves was assigned to the General Board where his impact on Navy aviation continued. He was selected for this assignment specifically by Secretary of the Navy Charles F. Adams, a selection emanating from the secretary’s favorable impression of a sixteen-page position paper Reeves had written in December 1928 rejecting Congress’ fascination with the prospect of creating a single Department of Defense and a single American air arm, thus subjugating U.S. Navy aviation to another Service as had been done by the British. Though this idea died from lack of momentum in 1929, Reeves had significant impact on fleet issues in general—but particularly on Navy cruiser design requirements and aviation matters—throughout his assignment to the General Board.28

  At the completion of his tour on the General Board, Reeves was offered his choice of duty as President of the Naval War College—a position he truly wanted after stepping down as Commander, Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet—or duty at sea returning to his old job as Commander Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet. He chose the latter without hesitation and on 12 May 1930 was designated to relieve Rear Admiral Henry V. Butler as Commander Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet.29 There he further refined aviation tactics and doctrine, primarily during the continuing interwar Fleet Problems.

  On 27 June 1931, Rear Admiral Joseph Reeves’ flag was lowered aboard USS Saratoga, in his mind ending his days at sea. He was posted to the Pacific Coast Section of the Board of Inspection and Survey, a sure sign that a dreary succession of desk jobs was in his future until retirement.30 This, though, was not to be the case. Having impressed CNO William V. Pratt, Reeves was selected for an interim assignment. Only three months and a few days after Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president in March 1933, Reeves received a most unexpected letter from him designating Reeves as “Commander of the Battleships, Battle Force with additional duty as Commander Battleships, United States Fleet.” This was an expedient way for Reeves to be promoted to Vice Admiral in Admiral Pratt’s plan to subsequently assign an aviator to a position of even higher importance—the four-star rank of Commander, Battle Force.31

  That promotion and assignment commenced when Reeves became Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleet the morning of 15 June 1934—the first aviator to become Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet.32 Admiral Reeves’ flag was hauled down for the last time aboard USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) on 24 June 1936. His final posting for five months before retiring was to be again on the General Board, where he went about ensuring that the Navy’s newest battleship, USS North Carolina (BB-55)—which was to reach Pearl Harbor four days after the Battle of Midway and was to be so crucial in her anti-aircraft role protecting carriers in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and thereafter—met the Navy’s needs for impending war with Japan.33

  The end to Reeves’ career in the Navy on 30 November 1936, however, was to be short lived. So important had Admiral Reeves’ contribution been to all aspects of carrier aviation that he was recalled to active duty on 20 May 1940 and made one of two members of the Compton Board to consider “the distribution, promotion, and retirement of naval officers assigned to the Staff Corp as well as officers designated for engineering and aeronautical engineering only duty.”34 When war broke out in Europe in 1939, the Lend-Lease Act was passed on 11 March 1941. The Secretary of the Navy was responsible for all decisions on requests for naval material under its provisions. In April 1941 Secretary Frank Knox delegated his authority under the Act to Admiral Reeves, who exercised it through the remainder of the war.35 Reeves was assigned to be one of the five members—and one of only two aviators—to be part of the Roberts Commission that was charged with investigating the debacle at Pearl Harbor. Reeves was a vehement critic of both Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Major General Walter C. Short.

  Reeves received the Distinguished Service Medal for his wartime service, during which he was advanced to Vice Admiral and then Admiral on the retired list. He retired a second time on 2 April 1947 and died shortly afterward in March of the next year.

  From his earliest days at the Naval War College through the toughest days of World War II, it can honestly be said that Admiral Joseph Mason “Bull” Reeves was the mastermind behind U.S. Navy carrier aviation—the father of carrier aviation.

  NOTES

  1.Thomas C. Hone, Norman Friedman, and Mark D. Mandeles, American and British Aircraft Carrier Developments 1919–1941 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1999), pp. 20, 31.

  2.Mitchell had been returned to his permanent rank of Colonel in 1925 prior to his trial.

  3.United States v. War Department: Trial by General Courts Martial in the Case of Colonel William Mitchell, Air Service, “Opinion of the Board of Review, Taylor, Abbott and Korn, Judge Advocates,” dated 20 January 1926, pp. 9–10. Record Group (hereafter RG) 153, Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army), Box No. 9214-2, Folder 1, p. 1. National Archives of the United States of America, NA-2, College Park, MD.

  4.Admiral William Sowden Sims, USN, had been commander of all U.S. naval forces in European waters after American entry in World War I. He returned from Europe to become the sixteenth President of the U.S. Naval War College from 11 April 1919 to 14 October 1922.

  5.Chester W. Nimitz, Fleet Admiral, U.S. Navy. Letter to Vice Admiral Charles Melson, President of the United States Naval War College, dated 19 September 1965, on display in McCarty-Little Hall at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island.

  6.Register of the Alumni, Graduates and Former Naval Cadets and Midshipmen, United States Naval Academy Alumni Association. Inc., 1845–1985, 1985 edition. Published by the United States Naval Academy Alumni Association. Also The Register, manuscript listing of the U.S. Naval War College Faculty and Graduates, provided by Dr. Evelyn Cherpak, Archivist, U.S. Naval War College. Please note that all listings of graduation dates from the Naval Academy and Naval War College are drawn from these two publications.

  7.Joseph M. Reeves, class of 1924 thesis, “Tactics,” Submitted by Captain J. M. Reeves, U.S. Navy, room no. E-11, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI, 1 May 1924. United States Naval War College Archives (hereafter USNWCA), RG 13.

  8.Battle of Sable Island Manuscript, Serial No. 71, dated October–November 1923. USNWCA: RG-14/15, 128 pages including accompanying diagrams.

  9.Ibid.

  10.Gerald J. Kennedy, United States Naval War College, 1919–1941: An Institutional Response to Naval Preparedness. U.S. Naval War College Archives. Unpublished manuscript, pp. 57–59. This manuscript provides an excellent narrative of the development of and changes in the curriculum at the Naval War College during the interwar period, as well as of the imprint made by each President of
the War College during that period.

  11.Harris Laning, Captain, U.S. Navy. The Naval Battle. Tactics, Section I, June 1923. USNWCA: RG-4.

  12.Thomas Wildenberg, All the Factors of Victory: Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves and the Origins of Carrier Airpower (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2003), p. 109.

  13.Joseph M. Reeves, Captain, U.S. Navy. Comparison of Blue-Red [U.S.-British] Capital Ship Strength. 1491/9-24 XTYG 1924 160, Blue-Red Tactical Exercise I, Capital Ships Major Gunfire Only (DECL IAW DOD Memo of 3 May 1972, Subj.: DECL of WW II Records), USNWC Newport, RI, September 1924, p. 8. USNWCA: RG-13.

  14.Adolphus Andrews Jr., “Admiral with Wings: The Career of Joseph Mason Reeves.” Unpublished bachelor’s thesis, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University, 1943, U.S. Naval Academy Nimitz Library microfilm collection, p. 55.

  15.Ibid., p.58.

  16.Ibid., p. 55.

  17.Ibid, pp. 55–56.

  18.Joseph M. Reeves, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy, “Commander Aircraft Squadrons battle fleet letter dated April 7, 1926, to Aircraft Squadrons battle fleet, subject employment schedule, For Study and Practical Development of Aircraft Tactics, during Concentration Period from 12 June to 11 September 1926, serial 1199,” p. 3.

  19.Wildenberg, All the Factors of Victory, p. 142.

  20.Adolphus, “Admiral with Wings,” pp. 57–58.

  21.Wildenberg, All the Factors of Victory, pp. 142–43.

  22.Andrews, “Admiral with Wings,” pp 76–77.

  23.Ibid.

  24.For more information on Fleet Problem VII and other Fleet Problems, consult chapter 7, this volume, by Dr. Al Nofi.

  25.Wildenberg, All the Factors of Victory, p. 200.

  26.Ibid., p. 258. Admiral Reeves worked primarily on improvement of battleships while assigned to the General Board for the last five months of his first term of active service prior to his retirement. During this time his main focus was on improvements to USS Pennsylvania (BB-55).