McBride W.M. Technological change and the United States Navy, 1865-1945

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tion presumptive anomaly but had not ended the battleship technological

paradigm. When the remarkable battleship salvage operations began at

Pearl Harbor, the two “1937” battleships, Washington and South Dakota,

were ready to enter the ﬂeet and would soon sink two Japanese capital ships

in night battles during the 1942–43 Solomon Islands campaign.

Speed became the criterion for battleship employment in the Paciﬁc.

The Solomons operations involved regular surface actions, usually at night

when air operations were limited. Deployment of the limited number of

battleships depended on the type of battleship available and the expected

action.

The Central and Southwest Paciﬁc offensive strikes involved car-

riers in consort with fast battleships or cruisers. As Wayne Hughes pointed

out, the dilemma facing U.S. commanders before fast battleships arrived

in the Central Paciﬁc in 1943 was whether to pursue a Japanese force after

dark with aircraft carriers and risk running into Japanese battleships or

cruisers. By 1944, fast battleships were operating with the carriers and the

question was then whether to keep the battleships with the fast carriers for

mutual, day and night defense, or to let the battleships operate on the

offensive independently.

The small number of aviation admirals meant that nonaviators com-

manded the carrier task forces early in the war. This became a source of

complaint for senior aviators, who chafed at the continued control of naval

operations by adherents of what they considered a passé technological par-

adigm.

Vice Admiral John H. Towers, former chief of the Bureau of Aero-

nautics and commander, Air Force, Paciﬁc Fleet, led the assault at Nimitz’s

headquarters in Pearl Harbor. The Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942,

fought with carrier aircraft, was the ﬁrst naval engagement in which the

ships of the opposing ﬂeets never sighted one another. Towers thought it

signiﬁcant that the only carrier sunk (Lexington) was under the tactical

command of a nonaviator.

The following month, three American carriers, operating under the

command of two battleship admirals, Frank Fletcher and Raymond Spru-

ance, inﬂicted a stinging strategic and tactical defeat on the Imperial Japan-

ese Navy near Midway. Despite this, senior naval aviators in the Paciﬁc,

such as Admiral Towers, criticized Nimitz for not turning the carrier war

over to naval aviators. Towers complained of a lack of aggressiveness and

proper use of aircraft carriers, and even argued unsuccessfully that non-

aviator command over aircraft carrier task forces violated the post–Morrow

Technological Change and the United States Navy

204

Board legislation, which restricted command of aircraft carriers to avia-

tors.

By 1943, Towers was disparaging nonaviators with terms such as “battle-

ship gang” and “black shoe sons of bitches” to his staff and subordinate avi-

ators. Towers even referred to Nimitz’s nonaviator planning ofﬁcer, Cap-

tain Bob Steele, as “Boob Steele.” The aviators in Towers’s quarters referred

to the black shoe admirals as “buffalo hunters” reﬂecting their “outdated”

war-ﬁghting mentality. Nimitz was referred to as “Uncle Sink,” a play on

the acronym for his position as commander-in-chief, Paciﬁc (CinCPac).

Aviator complaints became pointed during the planning for Operation

Galvanic, the seizure of the Gilbert Islands in the summer and fall of 1943.

Towers spearheaded the aviation admirals’ criticism of Spruance’s planned

use of carriers as part of the defensive screen to protect amphibious opera-

tions. The catastrophic loss of the escort carrier Liscome Bay off Makin to

a Japanese submarine-launched torpedo killed 644 of her crew and un-

derscored the vulnerability of carriers, especially the smaller ones. Towers’s

views were representative of other senior aviation ofﬁcers in the Yarnell

Report.

On 6 November 1943, on the heels of the Gilbert Islands operations, re-

tired Admiral Harry E. Yarnell submitted his “Report on Aviation” to the

secretary of the navy. An aviator, Yarnell had been recalled to active duty

in 1943, and the vice chief of naval operations, Vice Admiral Frederick

Horne, authorized him to conduct a poll of naval aviators’ feelings about

their role in the war. The general tenor of the responses expressed anger

over their perceptions of the continued suppression of naval aviation by

nonaviators. Rear Admiral Fred Sherman had argued for a complete para-

digmatic shift, lecturing Nimitz that “surface ships must be integrated and

coordinated with naval air forces, rather than the reverse. . . . Naval avia-

tors, as ofﬁcers trained and experienced in naval aviation, should have the

dominant voice in determining all naval policy and not just naval aviation

policy.” Sherman called for an aviator monopoly of the positions of com-

mander-in-chief, U.S. Fleet, chief of naval operations, and commanders of

all major ﬂeets among other key positions.

Yarnell’s report to the secretary of the navy on the “means by which avi-

ation may be made a more efﬁcient arm of the ﬂeet” was based on 127 let-

ters responding to his survey.

Yarnell reported that naval aviators “have

been steadfast in their loyalty to the Navy, and in their belief that aviation

War and a Shifting Technological Paradigm

205

is an integral part of the Navy and an arm of the Fleet.” In a statement

largely true of regular ofﬁcers in 1943, but one that would ring hollow in

the postwar navy, Yarnell opined that “naval aviator’s [sic] are seamen as

well as airmen and have always prided themselves on that fact.” Aircraft had

“extraordinary powers of offense” and complex limitations imposed by “ra-

dius of action, wind, weather, and availability of landing areas.” Because of

this, Yarnell maintained that for operations “in which air predominates, the

commander should be an aviator, or should have an aviator as Chief of

Staff.”

Yarnell also argued for a restructuring of the naval profession by ending

the distinction between regular and reserve commissions. At the time of his

report, there were 3,275 regular and 19,686 reserve aviation ofﬁcers in the

navy. Some reserve ofﬁcers would choose to remain in the service beyond

the war, and Yarnell warned of the need to set up a method to retain only

the best. In a statement reminiscent of the line’s fear of engineering cont-

amination in 1882, Yarnell worried about the effect of too many reservists

in the postwar naval ofﬁcer corps. The number of regular aviation ofﬁcers

in the ranks of ensign and lieutenant (junior grade) was small—892 regu-

lars versus 17,459 reserve ofﬁcers. Yarnell wanted to maintain the purity of

aviation ofﬁcer corps and wanted Naval Academy graduates sent immedi-

ately to Pensacola for ﬂight training so they would be competitive for pro-

motion, having had “aviation battle experience before the war is over.”

100

Yarnell’s recommendations proposed a recasting of the naval profession.

If it proved impossible to have the commander-in-chief, Paciﬁc, be an avi-

ator, Yarnell proposed that he and all ﬂeet and force commanders have

“aviators of adequate rank” on their staffs. Yarnell also suggested establish-

ment of an “effective air indoctrination school” for nonaviator regular of-

ﬁcers. Undersecretary of the Navy James Forrestal, a former reserve naval

aviator and supporter of aviation in general and Towers in particular, took

an interest in Yarnell’s report. To forestall Forrestal’s intrusion into the high

command structure, King and Nimitz agreed to the aviator/nonaviator

command mix and moved Towers over to the new position of deputy com-

mander-in-chief, Paciﬁc. Towers’s appointment placed him in line to re-

place Nimitz after the defeat of Japan. As Clark Reynolds observed, Tow-

ers’s appointment meant that “naval aviation would at last gain control of

the navy.”

101

One of Yarnell’s most interesting proposals undermined the “every ofﬁ-

cer a seaman” concept. Instead of command of a large ship as a prerequi-

Technological Change and the United States Navy

206

site for promotion to rear admiral, Yarnell offered command of a ﬂeet air

wing or service as chief of staff to an “area commander.”

102

This new mea-

sure of professional competence was an important attempt to redeﬁne the

profession and, eventually, the U.S. Navy’s technological paradigm. If en-

acted, Yarnell’s recommendation might have saved the navy from subse-

quent collisions and groundings involving aircraft carriers commanded by

nonseamen aviators.

103

The aviator chief of naval operations and commander-in-chief, U.S.

Fleet, Admiral Ernest J. King, dismissed most of Yarnell’s recommenda-

tions. King thought aviators’ special claims to senior commands improper:

“All line ofﬁcers, whether qualiﬁed as aviators or not, must be ﬁtted for high

command by being given instruction and experience in all arms.” King

A viable naval aviation presumptive anomaly required an effective dive bomber. The

Douglas SBD Dauntless, seen attacking Wake Island in December 1943, ﬁlled the

role and entered squadron service in December 1940. (U.S. Navy Photo by Charles

Kerlee, courtesy of the National Museum of Naval Aviation)

Image not available.

agreed that the principle stated by Yarnell that “naval operations must be

carried out under one command by ofﬁcers trained in the use of all arms”

was the “basis of naval organization . . . it has been proven abundantly in

the current war that in seagoing operations, all craft—including aircraft—

must be integrated into a team. This principle holds true from the small-

est unit to the largest ﬂeet [original emphasis].”

104

The war brought the

question of who should be running the team to the fore.

King stood ﬁrmly against any move to replace Nimitz with an aviator:

“The question of air representation on the Paciﬁc Fleet staff has been left

to Admiral Nimitz’s discretion. An ofﬁcer who bears the responsibilities

which he does should not be circumscribed in selecting the members of

his staff.”

105

King also pointed out that no “rigid rule” concerning “capital

ship command at sea” existed as a requirement for ﬂag rank. King, the

“triple threat” pilot, submariner, and surface ship ofﬁcer, observed that “of-

ﬁcers of wide experience are those best qualiﬁed for high rank and, conse-

quently, ofﬁcers are given such opportunities as can be provided to diver-

sify their duties, particularly in command.”

106

According to Thomas Buell, King received concurrent advice from Vice

Admiral John S. McCain, the new deputy chief of naval operations for air.

Although King considered McCain “not very much in brains,” he was

prophetic, telling King: “Steam marked the passing of the profession of sail,

and wiped out a profession. I do not share your apprehension that air marks

the passing of the trained and experienced non-aviator, nor does it deny

him adequate command outlets for his professional qualiﬁcations . . . [sur-

face ships] are now, except the submarine, the auxiliaries of air. This is a

patent fact, and like all facts, should be freely acknowledged.”

107

The dominance of naval aviation within the Paciﬁc and its blunting of

the German submarine threat in the Atlantic cleared the way for the rise

of aviation admirals and the establishment of a naval aviation technologi-

cal paradigm. One wartime expression of this shift was King’s extreme

break with naval tradition. He stipulated that the aviation admiral com-

manding a task force, even if junior to the commander of the surface forces

operating with him, would be the ofﬁcer in tactical command. Perhaps the

most telling move away from a battleship-ofﬁcer naval hierarchy was the

promotion of aviators to ﬂag rank. King expended a great deal of effort to

limit the number of admirals in the navy, regardless of specialty. However,

of the forty ofﬁcers promoted to rear admiral between November 1942 and

August 1943, twenty-six were aviators—almost a two-to-one advantage.

108

Technological Change and the United States Navy

208

The postwar command dominance of the naval aviation thought col-

lective was clear when James Forrestal, now secretary of the navy, told the

New York Times in December 1945 that the “Navy is becoming an air Navy.”

The war had drawn King beyond retirement age. Forrestal preferred an avi-

ator as the next CNO, and fought hard to keep Nimitz from the job. For-

restal eventually accepted Nimitz, but held him to a two-year term. Spru-

ance replaced Nimitz as Paciﬁc Fleet commander, but soon went to the

presidency of the Naval War College, at his own request, to serve until re-

tirement. Towers replaced Spruance as ﬂeet commander in the Paciﬁc in

February 1946. Aviator Admiral Marc Mitscher moved up to command the

Atlantic Fleet. The reorganization of the ofﬁce of chief of naval operations,

tied to King’s retirement, absorbed the position of commander-in-chief,

U.S. Fleet. In the CNO’s ofﬁce, the vice CNO and two of the ﬁve admi-

rals serving as his deputies were aviators. The special position of deputy

chief of naval operations (DCNO) for air underscored aviation’s su-

premacy. No comparable DCNOs for submarines or surface ships existed

until 1971. The Naval Academy, so important to the profession, received its

ﬁrst aviator superintendent, Vice Admiral Aubrey Fitch in August 1945.

109

The defeat of Japan left the United States with no maritime rival. The

dominance of the aircraft carrier in Admiral William Fullam’s “three-

plane” warfare was something to which the battleship could only pretend.

Survival of the navy in the immediate postwar atomic world would be dif-

ﬁcult. However, survival would be easier for a navy based on the aircraft

carrier with its offensive strike range of over 200 miles than on the battle-

ship with its 20-mile reach.

In early 1946, CNO Admiral Nimitz reafﬁrmed the battleship’s reduced

status, making its mission, along with the rest of the surface combatants, to

“support the amphibious forces and carrier forces and to furnish gunﬁre sup-

port for amphibious landings.”

110

Yet a year later—in an echo of Sims’s and

his colleagues’ dismissal of the submarine after World War I—Naval War

College students were assured that no battleship “having a dual purpose sec-

ondary battery [for antiaircraft defense] was sunk by aerial attack.”

111

Conclusion

By the late 1930s, naval aviation was on the verge of becoming a viable

presumptive anomaly to the battleship technological paradigm. Its capa-

War and a Shifting Technological Paradigm

209

bilities had increased markedly since 1924, although assessments of naval

aviation’s ability were varied. Prior to the outbreak of World War II in 1939,

the only measurements for the sufﬁciency of an anomaly were the ﬂeet and

tactical exercises. The ofﬁcers who commanded the ﬂeet set the bound-

aries for the exercises, posing the hypotheses and setting the experimental

limits. Senior umpires were typically members of the battleship thought

collective, and their rulings, and periodic prejudices, often worked against

any weakening of the battleship technological paradigm.

War removed any prejudicial interpretations, being, in the broadest

sense, impartial. As with the mercenary condottieri in Machiavelli’s Italy,

technological superiority was a signiﬁcant factor in military success. The

war during 1939–41 largely reafﬁrmed the existing battleship technological

paradigm. However, the superiority of the aircraft carrier became more

clear as the war progressed. The April 1945 sinking of Yamato, the largest

battleship in the world, by carrier aircraft obviated the need for battleships.

Their future became tied increasingly to missions such as amphibious war-

fare that were being characterized as superﬂuous by the air power advo-

cates of the atomic age. By 1958, the last of the U.S. fast battleships had been

taken out of commission and placed in mothballs.

112

World War II provided an unbiased crucible to evaluate the competing

naval technological paradigms. The battleship’s dominance declined, and

the effective German submarine campaign could not stand up to escort

carriers and land-based aircraft, signals intelligence, and Allied technolog-

ical advances. By mid-1945, the aircraft carrier was the dominant technol-

ogy at sea. The operators of this superior technology in turn controlled the

American naval profession, although Nimitz’s successor as CNO was the

nonaviator, Louis Denfeld. However, even Denfeld had become “air-

minded” and made the ultimate professional sacriﬁce. He was ﬁred in 1949

when he fought the political establishment in defense of the canceled

atomic-capable supercarrier United States, the exemplar of the U.S. Navy’s

new aviation technological paradigm.

113

Technological Change and the United States Navy

210

Castles of Steel

Technological Change and the Modern Navy

n 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded the Italian peninsula to pursue

his claim to Naples. The mobile cannon he brought quickly reduced a

castle in eight hours that had previously withstood a siege of seven years.

Charles’s actions threatened the foundation of contemporary warrior soci-

ety and marked a nascent shift in the European way of war. European lead-

ers were not about to abandon castles constructed at great cost to defend

cities, towns, and strategic areas. The solution lay in modifying fortiﬁcation

design to preserve the castle from the cannon. Military architects added

earthen redoubts outside masonry walls to absorb shot, developed the trace

italienne, and generally extended exterior defensive rings to prevent in-

vesting artillery from coming within range.

Four hundred years after Charles, the steel battleship was the measure

of naval power.

When the self-propelled Whitehead torpedo—carried on

small, fast torpedo boats—threatened the established order, naval hierar-

chies pursued ways to preserve the battleship’s preeminence. Naval archi-

tects modiﬁed battleship hulls to absorb torpedo hits. Naval tacticians

countered the torpedo by expanding the defensive ring around battleships

using torpedo boat destroyers. The same ideas of defense in depth, com-

bined with technical improvements, governed later attempts to protect the

battleship from submarines and aircraft.

After World War II, the navy created a technological hierarchy to pro-

tect the aircraft carrier just as it had with the battleship. Components of the

aviation technological paradigm—even small ones like the ULQ-6 I en-

countered as a junior naval ofﬁcer—contributed to preserving the new sta-

chapter 9

tus quo and attempted to relegate counterweapons, and presumptive tech-

nological anomalies, to the periphery. As we begin a new century, there are

strong indications that new presumptive anomalies threaten the aviation

technological paradigm.

Despite its subsequent viliﬁcation by pundits, the battleship was not ob-

solete in December 1941. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor—ig-

noring the ﬂeet’s oil storage and repair facilities and missing the aircraft car-

riers (all were at sea)—they only managed to destroy older battleships

already slated for replacement. The navy’s perceived future lay in the sev-

enteen battleships on order and beginning to enter service, especially the

six Iowas and ﬁve Montanas. Aviation-oriented historical assessments of the

fast battleships minimize their relevance to the Paciﬁc War and confuse

their strategic mission with the obvious tactical use to which they were

most often put: bolstering the antiaircraft defenses of joint battleship-

aircraft carrier task forces.

During the Paciﬁc War, the fast battleship and aircraft carrier became

the exemplars of two, competing technological paradigms. The eventual

ascendancy of carrier-based aviation was a near-run thing. Slightly earlier

developments in sensor and gun technologies might have relegated aircraft

to their 1924 status when towed aerial targets were being hit 75 percent of

the time by ship-mounted guns during live-ﬁre exercises. The earlier addi-

tion of radar-augmented defensive air patrols from ﬂeet carriers would have

blunted the effectiveness of attacking aircraft—in essence what happened

by war’s end when search radars, radar-directed guns, and the proximity

fuze combined to enhance ﬂeet defense. Even so, the navy suffered

tremendous losses at the hands of Japanese kamikazes—essentially anti-

ship missiles—off Okinawa in 1945.

By war’s end, the U.S. Navy had fulﬁlled Secretary of the Navy James

Forrestal’s wish and had become an air navy. The aircraft carrier had

proven its ability to dominate Admiral Fullam’s “three-plane” war at sea.

Naval aviation could concentrate incredible destructive power against sea

and shore targets at ranges over 200 miles. After Japan’s surrender, no en-

emy battleships existed to challenge American carriers at night or during

bad weather, and the battleship became difﬁcult to justify both inside and

outside the navy. The battleship soon became irrelevant in a navy desper-

ately struggling to establish its own importance in the confusing early

atomic era.

Supporters of the aviation technological paradigm had two, immediate,

Technological Change and the United States Navy

212

postwar missions. First, they had to elucidate a new naval strategic para-

digm that moved beyond guerre d’escadre. They needed to justify a navy

in terms of a national maritime strategy that ﬁt into the new atomic strate-

gies accepted by senior civilian policymakers. For the long term, this in-

volved elucidating a politically accepted strategy for sea control. In the near

term, the navy had to gain some responsibility for a part of atomic warfare.

The second mission involved reﬁning the rationale of the aviation techno-

logical paradigm built around the aircraft carrier. To do that, the navy

denigrated the possibility of large-scale nuclear warfare and advocated a

strategy of “strike-at-source” using carrier aviation to destroy the Soviet navy

before it reached the open oceans and interfered with allied maritime op-

erations.

With no enemy battleships left to ﬁght in August 1945, the necessity for fast battle-

ships such as Missouri (left) and Iowa receded. (Naval Historical Center, NH 96781)

Image not available.