20.Hastings, The Korean War, p. 60; Harry G. Summers Jr., On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1982), p. 192.
21.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 45–46; Truman, Memoirs, pp. 337, 358, 463–64.
22.Hastings, The Korean War, pp. 61–62.
23.Truman, Memoirs, pp. 342–43.
24.Hastings, The Korean War, p. 58; Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 44–45; Truman, Memoirs, p. 345.
25.Fehrenbach, This Kind of War, pp. 111–12; Truman, Memoirs, pp. 345, 347–48.
26.Paolo E. Coletta, The United States Navy and Defense Unification: 1947–1953 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1981), p. 247; Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. xii–xiii, 33.
27.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 40.
28.Ibid., pp. 34–35; Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 46, 62.
29.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 30; Symonds, Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, pp. 194–95; Korean Institute of Military History, The Korean War, vol. 1 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), p. 340.
30.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 40–41; Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, p. 62; Richard C. Knott, Attack from the Sky: Naval Air Operations in the Korean War (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 2004), p. 12.
31.Fehrenbach, This Kind of War, pp. 56, 59–61; Victor H. Krulak, First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984), pp. 120–23; James R. Locher III, Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), pp. 26–27.
32.Coletta, The United States Navy and Defense Unification, p. 230.
33.Ibid., pp. 64, 142–43.
34.Thomas B. Buell, Naval Leadership in Korea: The First Six Months (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 2002), p. 7; Coletta, The United States Navy and Defense Unification, p. 213; Krulak, First to Fight, p. 120.
35.Coletta, The United States Navy and Defense Unification, pp. 187, 156–57, 160–61; Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 13–18; Alwyn T. Lloyd, A Cold War Legacy: A Tribute to Strategic Air Command—1946–1992 (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1999), pp. 126–28; Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 372–73, 376–79.
36.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 20.
37.Ibid., pp. 9, 24.
38.Symonds, Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, pp. 191–92.
39.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, p. xii.
40.Coletta, The United States Navy and Defense Unification, p. 247; Fehrenbach, This Kind of War, pp. 65–71.
41.Alexander, Korea: The First War We Lost, pp. 46–52.
42.Fehrenbach, This Kind of War, pp. 108–9.
43.Alexander, Korea: The First War We Lost, p. 2.
44.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 56; Weigley, The American Way of War, pp. 384–85.
45.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 47, 62.
46.Ibid., p. 62.
47.Ibid., p. 64; Krulak, First to Fight, p. 124.
48.Peter B. Mersky, U.S. Marine Corps Aviation: 1912 to Present (Baltimore, MD: Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company, 1983, 1987, 1997), p. 130.
49.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, p. 65.
50.Ibid., pp. 63–64.
51.Ibid., p. 63; Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 51.
52.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 40–41.
53.Ibid., pp. 70–71.
54.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 69–72.
55.Ibid., p. 72.
56.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 41, 46–47.
57.Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 14.
58.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 39.
59.Ibid., pp. 38–39.
60.Ibid., p. 54.
61.Ibid., pp. 55–56; Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 45.
62.Fehrenbach, This Kind of War, pp. 119–27.
63.Alexander, Korea: The First War We Lost, p. 126; Knott, Attack from the Sky, pp. 16–17.
64.Alexander, Korea: The First War We Lost, pp. 129–31.
65.Coletta, The United States Navy and Defense Unification, p. 238; Robert Debs Heinl Jr., Victory at High Tide: The Inchon-Seoul Campaign (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1968), pp. 19–21; Krulak, First to Fight, pp. 124–26.
66.Warren Thompson, F4U Corsair Units of the Korean War (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2009), p. 51.
67.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 50–54.
68.Alexander, Korea: The First War We Lost, pp. 138–40; Fehrenbach, This Kind of War, pp. 127–34.
69.Alexander, Korea: The First War We Lost, pp. 147–48.
70.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 57.
71.MacArthur, Reminiscences, pp. 348–52.
72.Symonds, Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, p. 196.
73.Joseph H. Alexander and Merrill L. Bartlett, Sea Soldiers of the Cold War: Amphibious Warfare 1945–1991 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995), pp. 16, 20, 25; Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 57; Heinl, Victory at High Tide, pp. 32–60, 63–64.
74.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 59–60.
75.Heinl, Victory at High Tide, pp. 77–80; Knott, Attack from the Sky, pp. 18–19.
76.MacArthur, Reminiscences, p. 353.
77.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 63; Heinl, Victory at High Tide, pp. 87–90.
78.MacArthur, Reminiscences, p. 353.
79.Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 20.
80.Heinl, Victory at High Tide, pp. 92–96, 98–117.
81.Ibid., pp. 119–20; Knott, Attack from the Sky, pp. 20–21.
82.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 63–64; Heinl, Victory at High Tide, pp. 221–24.
83.Heinl, Victory at High Tide, p. 183; MacArthur, Reminiscences, p. 354.
84.Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers of the Cold War: Amphibious Warfare, 1945–1991, p. 23; Heinl, Victory at High Tide, pp. 254–55; MacArthur, Reminiscences, pp. 355–56.
85.MacArthur, Reminiscences, p. 354; Weigley, The American Way of War, pp. 386–87.
86.MacArthur, Reminiscences, p. 354.
87.Heinl, Victory at High Tide, p. 358.
88.MacArthur, Reminiscences, pp. 358–59.
89.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 68–70; Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 23.
90.Pat Meid and James M. Yingling, U.S. Marine Operations in Korea 1950–1953. Vol. 5, Operations in West Korea (Washington, DC: Historical Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1972), pp. 487–88.
91.Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 23.
92.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 67.
93.Ibid., pp. 80–85; Knott, Attack from the Sky, pp. 28–29; Meid and Yingling, U.S. Marine Operations in Korea 1950–1953, pp. 488–89.
94.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 94–95; Weigley, The American Way of War, pp. 391–93.
95.Knott, Attack from the Sky, pp. 36–37, 39.
96.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 95–96, 100–102.
97.Knott, Attack from the Sky, pp. 42–43.
98.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 94–95.
99.Ibid., p. 95; Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 129–30; Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 38.
100.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 120–22; Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 43.
101.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 102–9.
102.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 198; Knott, Attack from the Sky, pp. 33, 47–48.
103.Meid and Yingling, U.S. Marine Operations in Korea 1950–1953, pp. 493–98; Mersky, U.S. Marine Corps Aviation, pp. 142–43.
104.Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 35.
105.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 102–3, 131; Symonds, Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, p. 198.
106.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 125–26.
107.Ibid., pp. 127–29.
108.Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 51.
109.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, p. xi.
110.Knott, Attack from the Sky, p. 65.
111.Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 191–93.
112.Ibid., pp. 196–98.
113.Summers, On Strategy, p. 4.
114.U. S. Grant Sharp, Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect (San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1979), p. 269.
115.Ibid., pp. 259–71; Summers, On Strategy, pp. 104–5.
116.Summers, On Strategy, pp. 85–86.
117.Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), pp. 6–7.
118.Summers, On Strategy, pp. 88–90.
119.Philip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History: 1946–1975 (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988), pp. 289–92; Dave Richard Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1978), pp. 75–78.
120.H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 48.
121.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, p. 191.
122.Eventually, the MAAG was re-designated as Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) with expanded operational tasks. Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History: 1946–1975, pp. 293, 297, 301.
123.Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, pp. 22–26; Weigley, The American Way of War, p. 460.
124.Mersky, U.S. Marine Corps Aviation, pp. 203–9.
125.Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 292–300; Peter B. Mersky and Norman Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam (Annapolis: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1981), pp. 11–12.
126.John B. Nichols and Barrett Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1987), pp. 2–3,113–14; Tommy H. Thomason, Strike from the Sea: U.S. Navy Attack Aircraft from Skyraider to Super Hornet 1948–Present (North Branch, NM: Specialty Press, 2009), p. 132.
127.Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, pp. 28–29.
128.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 194, 234–38.
129.Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 301.
130.Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, p. 21.
131.William M. Hammond, “U.S. Intervention and the Fall of Diem,” in Ray Bonds, The Vietnam War: An Illustrated History of the Conflict in Southeast Asia (New York: Crown Publishing, 1979), pp. 12, 64–70; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 303–4; McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, p. 248.
132.Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 323–24, 327.
133.William M. Hammond, “Communist Aggression Provokes US Retaliation,” in Bonds, The Vietnam War (see note 131), pp. 74–76; Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 191–92; McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, p. 107.
134.Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, pp. 35–49; Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, pp. 13–26; Thomason, Strike from the Sea, p. 102.
135.Nichols and Tillman, On Yankee Station, p. 50.
136.Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, pp. 45–46.
137.Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 334–35.
138.Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, pp. 53–54.
139.Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 325–29; Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, pp. 46–49.
140.Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 333, 335–36; Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, p. 56.
141.Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: The Free Press, 1989), pp. 82–84; Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, pp. 18–21; Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, pp. 56–62.
142.Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, pp. 21–26; Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, pp. 59, 66–67.
143.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 238–39.
144.Weigley, The American Way of War, p. 463.
145.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 193, 234–36.
146.Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power, p. 65.
147.Nichols and Tillman, On Yankee Station, p. 16.
148.Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 339; Symonds, Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, p. 208.
149.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, p. 235; Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, p. 27; Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, pp. 63–80.
150.Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, p. 80.
151.Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power, pp. 143–45; Bernard C. Nalty, “The Air War against North Vietnam,” in Bonds, The Vietnam War (see note 131), p. 94.
152.Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, pp. 75–78.
153.Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power, pp. 144–45.
154.Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, pp. 27–29; Land Rogers, “US Navy and Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam,” in Bonds, The Vietnam War (see note 131), p. 130.
155.Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam, p. 184; Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, pp. 72–79.
156.Symonds, Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, p. 208.
157.Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 343–44.
158.Krulak, First to Fight, p. 181; McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, p. 248.
159.Mersky, U.S. Marine Corps Aviation, pp. 213–15.
160.Weigley, The American Way of War, pp. 463–64.
161.Nichols and Tillman, On Yankee Station, p. 18; Symonds, Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, p. 214.
162.Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, pp. 47–48.
163.Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, p. 140.
164.Anonymous, “From the Vietnam Front: On Coastal, Air and River Patrol, All Hands: The Bureau of Naval Personnel Career Publication” (December 1966), p. 17.
165.Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, pp. 30–34.
166.Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, p. 140.
167.Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power, p. 147.
168.R. Blake Dunnavent, Brown Water Warfare: The U.S. Navy and the Emergence of a Tactical Doctrine, 1775–1970 (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2003).
169.Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, p. 140; Symonds, Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, p. 212.
170.Nichols and Tillman, On Yankee Station, pp. 49–52.
171.Ibid., pp. 53–54.
172.Nalty, “The Air War against North Vietnam,” p. 88.
173.Nichols and Tillman, On Yankee Station, pp. 54–55.
174.Ibid., pp. 56–62.
175.Nalty, “The Air War against North Vietnam,” p. 88.
176.Nichols and Tillman, On Yankee Station, pp. 67–68.
177.Nalty, “The Air War against North Vietnam,” p. 90; Rogers, “US Navy and Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam,” p. 132.
178.Nichols and Tillman, On Yankee Station, pp. 67–68, 70.
179.Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, pp. 86–87.
180.Rogers, “US Navy and Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam,” pp. 136–38; John T. Greenwood, “B-52: Strategic Bombers in a Tactical Role,” in Bonds, The Vietnam War (see note 131), p. 202.
181.Jeffrey J. Clarke, “Vietnamization: The South Must Save Itself,” in Bonds, The Vietnam War (see note 131), pp. 172, 180; Summers, On Strategy, pp. 176–77.
182.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 326–27; Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, p. 252.
183.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, pp. 335–34; Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, pp. 252–54.
184.John T. Greenwood, “B-52: Strategic Bombers in a Tactical Role,” in Bonds, The Vietnam War (see note 131), p. 204.
185.William L. Allen, “Spring 1972: Northern Invasion Repulsed,” in Bonds, The Vietnam War (see note 131), p. 226.
186.Mersky and Polmar, The Naval Air War in Vietnam, p. 211; Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, pp. 262–63.
187.Holloway, Aircraft Carriers at War, p. 334; Sharp, Strategy for Defeat, pp. 259–65; Summers, On Strategy, pp. 113–15.
188.Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, pp. 261–62.
189.Summers, On Strategy, pp. 90–91.
190.Clod
felter, The Limits of Air Power, p. 209.
CHAPTER 14
By Land and Sea: Non-Carrier Naval Aviation
Sterling Michael Pavelec
Aircraft presented an interesting new technology to the U.S. military. At the turn of the twentieth century, both the land and sea Services—the Army and the Navy—considered how to incorporate aviation into their branches. The Navy saw great potential in aviation technology and quickly integrated it into Navy doctrine, strategy, and thinking, as well as dedicating funds for procurement of aircraft and peripheral technologies. Over time, with frequent fits and starts along the way, the Navy developed coherent doctrine and aviation assets to perform uniquely naval roles. In this chapter, I will outline some of the ideas that the Navy tried and eventually adopted, and introduce the various airframes beyond carrier aviation that the Navy has employed over the past one hundred years. At the start of the twentieth century, a new technology emerged that changed the grammar of warfare.1 The introduction of aircraft and submarines transformed naval warfare to include the third dimensions: undersea and aerial operations. New technologies translated into new strategies as planners attempted to gain strategic advantages.
The great naval theorists, Corbett and Mahan,2 were the founding fathers of naval and maritime strategy up to and including World War I (1914–1918).3 However, by the end of the Great War, technology forever altered naval warfare. Fortunately, American military planners and strategists were at the leading edge of technological adaptation and envisioned the incorporation of the third dimension into strategy. Unfortunately, they were not the only ones.
As seen elsewhere in this book, others are recounting lighter-than-air naval aviation4 and the development of carrier aviation.5 This chapter will focus specifically on land- and sea-based naval aviation, and the doctrine and development of the naval air arms that were not based on ships at sea.
As aviation technology evolved, presenting a new idea for warfighting, both the Army and Navy became interested in the possibilities.6 The Army, into and after World War I, adopted aviation as an Army branch (Signal Corps, Air Services, and by 1941 U.S. Army Air Forces) for two types of operations: support for land forces and as strategic bombers. The Navy, on the other hand, incorporated air assets to perform uniquely naval missions and to fill roles that the Army was unwilling to perform. The early Navy missions were twofold: support the fleet and a secondary mission of aerial support of naval missions aground (observation and attack). In 1913, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels commissioned a board under Captain (Navy) Washington Irving Chambers to “consider all views and prepare a comprehensive plan for the organization of a Naval Aeronautic Service.”7 The Chambers Board studied the chaotic program to that point and subsequently recommended a separate bureau—which was denied—as well as procurement. Naval aviation was relegated an office status, the Office of Naval Aeronautics, with representatives from Navigation, Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering, Ordnance, and the Marine Corps.8 Finally, the board requested fifty planes and estimated the costs at just under $1.3 million for the aircraft and support equipment and men.9 The Navy was taking a vested interest in naval aviation.
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