One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power (27 page)

The fleets began feeling for each other on 20 February. Despite rough seas, both sides were able to put floatplanes in the air and began spotting each other's cruiser scouts on the 21st. Since King had instructed his airmen that
Ranger
was their primary target, they obediently refrained from attacking Black's cruisers. As a result, some Black cruisers encountered and began exchanging fire with some of the White convoy's escorts. During this exchange,
Yorktown
's Air Group, returning after failing to locate
Ranger
, arrived on the scene and all seventy-two aircraft promptly attacked and sank two of the Black cruisers, while the third was dispatched by White surface ships. Meanwhile,
Enterprise
and
Lexington
aircraft spotted other Black scouts, sinking two cruisers and damaging two more. In one afternoon Black had lost half its cruisers sunk or damaged, though White lost thirty-nine aircraft, plus damage to three heavy cruisers.

Overnight on 22–23 February, Kalbfus attempted to destroy Black's reconnaissance assets by nocturnal destroyer raids on enemy aircraft tenders at San Juan, Culebra, and St. Thomas, followed by carrier air strikes at dawn. The attacks had mixed results; two tenders were sunk, for the loss of several of the attacking destroyers. As a result, around dawn on the 23rd, reserving
Yorktown
to cover the main body, Kalbfus released King with
Lexington
and
Enterprise
and some escorts to finish the job. King took this task force eastward around Puerto Rico, to approach his objectives from the north, and on the following morning, assigned
Enterprise
to strike the Black air bases and aircraft tenders, and
Lexington
to search for
Ranger
. To improve the carriers' chances, he switched
Lexington
's scout bomber squadron with
Enterprise
's fighter squadron, thereby giving each carrier a rather specialized air group. Before the carriers could complete their missions, however, Black PBYs from Culebra spotted them and, soon joined by PBYs from San Juan and Samana Bay, began a series of attacks against
Enterprise
and
Lexington
that lasted from mid-morning into the late
afternoon. Although Black PBY commander, Captain Marc Mitscher, claimed great success, the umpires ruled that
Lexington
had taken only light damage, while his aircraft had lost heavily to anti-aircraft fire. The PBY attacks did, however, delay King's strikes on their tenders for a day. Finally, early on the 25th,
Enterprise
launched her aircraft against Black's air bases and aircraft tenders from a point about 120 miles north of San Juan, which resulted in two aircraft tenders and two oilers being sunk, as well as many aircraft destroyed. During its flight to Samana Bay,
Enterprise
's Torpedo Squadron 6 spotted the Black main body and was immediately ordered to search for
Ranger
, actually about a hundred miles to the north.
Ranger
, however, had by this time located
Enterprise
northwest of Puerto Rico by using an experimental high-frequency direction-finding system. Between 0845 and 1040
Ranger
aircraft subjected
Enterprise
to a series of bomb and torpedo attacks; lacking fighters,
Enterprise
was sunk. Shortly after this,
Ranger
was spotted by White reconnaissance aircraft, and she took some damage. By the afternoon of the 25th, Black had lost four aircraft tenders and two oilers sunk, plus at least fourteen PBYs destroyed and a further forty-seven damaged with little possibility of repair, while White had lost one carrier and seen another damaged. Late that afternoon, Black PBYs from San Juan (where the elusive fifth Black aircraft tender had just arrived) began two days of attacks against White. Part I was declared over on the 26th, a day earlier than planned due to the enormous “loss” of aircraft by both sides; Black had only forty PBYs operational, with limited facilities to repair or maintain them, plus fifty-seven aircraft on the lightly damaged
Ranger
, while White had eighty-six operational aircraft on its two remaining carriers,
Yorktown
and the damaged
Lexington
. Officially no “winner” was declared, but there was widespread opinion to the effect that White had done well.

The Fleet Problem, although short, demonstrated a high degree of sophistication in carrier operations. Both commanders had handled their air forces rather well, each concentrating his efforts at destroying his enemy's air power before attempting to go after his battle fleet, by making carriers the centerpiece of independent task forces. The problem led to many recommendations. Perhaps the most important criticism, though most neglected, was that Carrier Air Wings lacked sufficient fighters to both defend the ship and escort strike forces; the proposal would languish until well into the Pacific War, with serious consequences. The problem offered further evidence, if any was needed, that horizontal bombers were ineffective against maneuvering warships, in contrast to dive-bombers and torpedo bombers, which proved quite potent. The PBY again won praise for its effectiveness at long-endurance reconnaissance and patrol, though its use as an attack bomber received mixed reviews.

Held in the Pacific, FP XXI (April–May 1940), the last in the series, addressed various aspects of a Pacific war. Two parts were significant for carrier aviation, II and VI, in both of which commanders—even confirmed “Gun Club”
members—demonstrated considerable facility in the operation of carrier task forces and also remarkable organizational flexibility.
⁶⁹

For Part II (3–5 April), the West Coast was constructively taken to be a chain of atolls, controlled by Black (Japan) to the northeast, with a major base at San Francisco (standing in for the Marshall Islands), while White (U.S.), with its homeland off Central America, controlled Hawaii and San Diego (Guam). Black's Admiral Charles P. Snyder had to effect a rendezvous between a task force returning from a strike on Hawaii, and a covering force based at San Francisco, while White's Vice Admiral William S. Pye, coming up from San Diego, had to try to stop him. Black's raiding force, having lost a carrier during the attack on Hawaii, consisted of cruisers and destroyers, while the covering force had
Yorktown
, with some battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. White had
Lexington
and
Saratoga
, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, plus patrol bombers based at San Diego.

Beginning the problem at sea about 350 nautical miles southwest of San Diego, White's Pye decided to use his superiority in air power to defeat the Black covering force before it could rendezvous with the raiding force, and formed three task forces, one of
Lexington
and
Saratoga
with four heavy cruisers and four destroyers; the second of light cruisers and destroyers; and the third, a main body of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers.

Black's Snyder, calculating that seasonably foul weather would impede White's air operations, decided to postpone combat as long as possible, to increase the chances of joining his task forces, set their rendezvous for noon on 5 April at a point roughly seven hundred miles southwest of San Francisco, north of the direct route from Hawaii. He planned to keep
Yorktown
fifty to seventy-five miles to the north of his main body, and use her offensively, closing to launch air strikes over the battleships, and then heading back a safe distance upon recovery of her aircraft.

Snyder's plans were disrupted by a streak of bad luck. The weather turned out to be unseasonably good, and shortly after the problem began the umpires informed White that Black's code had been broken. As a result of these strokes of fortune, Vice Admiral Pye's plans unfolded more or less as expected. His reconnaissance aircraft spotted Black's covering force in mid-morning on the 4th, only about two hundred miles east-of-north of his own main body About an hour after noon,
Lexington
's aircraft began a series of attacks against Black, shortly joined by
Saratoga
's planes. Black's combat air patrol beat off the initial attacks, but from 1350 to 1458
Yorktown
suffered 40 percent damage, with her speed cut to sixteen knots, while the battleships averaged 9 percent damage, with fleet speed down to fourteen knots. White's losses in aircraft were heavy, twenty of the forty-six attackers being shot down, which led Pye to protest “unrealistically optimistic assessments of AA fire effectiveness” in his after action report. Toward the end of the air attacks, Black's raiding force came within sighting distance of the White carriers, and there was some exchange of fire
before the two groups lost track of each other due to poor visibility and high-speed maneuvering. There followed “a confused night battle” between White destroyers and the Black fleet, raising damage to Black battleships to an average of 30 percent and reducing fleet speed to just nine knots, though over 60 percent of the attacking destroyers were sunk. A bit after dawn on the 5th,
Yorktown
managed to get off her only strike of the maneuvers, but Black's bad luck held; only one
Yorktown
squadron located the White main body, and it did little harm. Later that morning, the White carriers conducted two more strikes on Black, inflicting more damage, though losing thirty-four of the nearly one hundred attacking aircraft. By then, however, Vice Admiral Snyder had managed to interpose his main body between the two Black task forces. With the weather deteriorating, CinCUS James O. Richardson, acting as Chief Umpire, declared this phase of the problem over.

For Part VI (19–23 April 1940), Vice Admiral Adolphus Andrews' Maroon (U.S.) fleet controlled Hawaii, Johnston Island, Midway, the Aleutians, and some other areas, including Balboa, in Panama; Purple (Japan), under Admiral Snyder, having captured Samoa, Guam, and Wake, was preparing to take Hawaii by landings at Lahaina Roads.
⁷⁰

Snyder formed a main body around
Saratoga
with battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, escorting a landing force, and a “Raiding Force” of
Lexington
, with a smaller number of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers plus a patrol force of twenty-four PBYs and two aircraft tenders, subordinated to Raiding Force, thus dividing the carriers and tying them the much slower battleships and violating the principle that carriers should operate in fast, autonomous task forces. Oddly, although an aviator, Maroon's Andrews made the same mistake, forming three task forces, a northern group of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers; a southern one of
Yorktown
, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers; and an “Island Force” of a light cruiser, a destroyer, submarines, and thirty-eight PBYs with three aircraft tenders, plus an oiler and mine layers, to secure French Frigate Shoals, Lahaina Roads, and other places in the Hawaiian chain.

Purple began the maneuvers widely dispersed: the main body was about 300 miles south of Midway, the Raiding Force 700 miles south-by-southwest (about 360 miles south of Johnston Island), and the aircraft tenders about 50 miles southwest of French Frigate Shoals. Snyder planned to establish a Purple PBY base at French Frigate Shoals, while using carrier air strikes to deny Maroon the use of Johnston Island for their flying boats. Maroon was also widely dispersed, the northern force nearly 450 miles north of Oahu, as if coming from Dutch Harbor, the southern force about 350 miles directly south of Oahu, and the Island Force had an aircraft tender with some patrol bombers plus several submarines at both Johnston Island and French Frigate Shoals, with the rest of its forces spread through the Hawaiian Islands.

The problem began early on the 19th, in adverse weather. Maroon patrol bombers from French Frigate Shoals and Johnston Island were able to conduct reconnaissance, but Purple's
Saratoga
was unable to put scouts up until about noon, though
Lexington
, hundreds of miles farther south, conducted routine reconnaissance. Purple's Admiral Snyder dispatched small task groups of cruisers, destroyers, and transports from his main body to attack French Frigate Shoals and Johnston Island. Both fleets probed for each other through the 19th and into the 20th. To facilitate this mission, Andrews detached
Yorktown
from his southern group and formed a scouting force with some cruisers and destroyers, demonstrating considerable organizational flexibility. Meanwhile, his patrol bombers from French Frigate Shoals spotted the Purple main body in mid-morning on the 20th, and he ordered his southern force to intercept.

Meanwhile, Johnston had already fallen to Snyder's small task force, sinking a Maroon aircraft tender and two submarines in the process, but the Purple task force assigned to capture French Frigate Shoals was beaten off with heavy losses.

On the evening of the 20th, Snyder dissolved the Purple “Raiding Force,” adding the bulk of its ships to the main body, while forming an “Advance Detachment” of
Lexington
and some cruisers and destroyers to scout to 125 miles ahead of the fleet, another demonstration of the fleet's organizational flexibility.

Purple's Advance Detachment had many contacts with Maroon submarines on 21–22 April, sinking several while suffering no harm. On the 22nd,
Lexington
's aggressive air patrols paid off when at a little over ninety minutes after sunrise they spotted Maroon's
Yorktown
Task Group.
Lexington
launched a series of large strikes, as
Saratoga
closed rapidly with the rest of the main body.
Yorktown
hit back, inflicting 26 percent damage on
Lexington
before being overwhelmed and sunk. With her flight deck ruled damaged beyond repair,
Lexington
“lost” most of her aircraft, “ditched” in the sea. By late afternoon on the 23rd, Purple's main body had come up to support the Advance Detachment, while Maroon's scouting group with
Yorktown
lost, broke off contact, retiring at high speed. Purple was by then less than three hundred miles south-southwest of Lahaina Roads, and
Saratoga
's scouts were able to hit Maroon patrol bombers at anchor in Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Hawaii. After dark on the 24th surface forces began clashing in Hawaiian waters and a major battleline action began to develop. Part VI was declared over by CinCUS James O. Richardson at 0330.