One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power (8 page)

  
13
.
  
Ibid., pp. 158–59.

  
14
.
  
Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, pp. 4–8; and Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 160–61.

  
15
.
  
Winthrop to R. M. Watt, 12 October 1910, “Letters Sent Concerning the Navy's Early Use of Aircraft,” National Archives, Record Group 24; and Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, p. 160.

  
16
.
  
Washington Irving Chambers, “Aviation and Aeroplanes,”
U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings
37 (March 1911), pp. 162–208; and Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 160–63.

  
17
.
  
Chambers to the Secretary of the Navy, 23 November 1910, Library of Congress Manuscript Division (LCMD), Chambers Papers, Box 4; Meyer to Ely, 17 November 1910, LCMD, Chambers Papers, Box 15; and George van Deurs,
Wings for the Fleet
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1966), p. 25.

  
18
.
  
Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 162–63; Hallion,
Taking Flight
, p. 305; and Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, pp. 12–13.

  
19
.
  
Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, pp. 13–14.

  
20
.
  
For more on Ellyson see George van Deurs,
Anchors in the Sky: Spuds Ellyson, the First Naval Aviator
(San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978).

  
21
.
  
For more on Towers see Clark G. Reynolds,
Admiral John H. Towers: The Struggle of Naval Air Supremacy
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991).

  
22
.
  
Ibid., pp. 28–30.

  
23
.
  
Hallion,
Taking Flight
, pp. 304, 397; and van Deurs,
Anchors in the Sky
, pp. 114–20.

  
24
.
  
Herbert A. Johnson,
Wingless Eagle: U.S. Army Aviation through World War I
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 104–9; Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 166–67; van Deurs,
Wings for the Fleet
, pp. 35; and Crouch,
Wings
, p. 145.

  
25
.
  
Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, p. 167.

  
26
.
  
Ibid., pp. 164–66.

  
27
.
  
Ibid., pp. 161, 165–66; Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, p. 15; and van Deurs,
Wings for the Fleet
, p. 38.

  
28
.
  
Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 166–67; and Reynolds,
Admiral John H. Towers
, p. 49.

  
29
.
  
Hallion,
Taking Flight
, p. 299; and Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 170–72.

  
30
.
  
Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 164–65; Crouch,
Wings
, pp. 134–35; and Gross, “George Owen Squire,” pp. 287–88.

  
31
.
  
Reynolds,
Admiral John H. Towers
, pp. 55–62; and Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 171–75.

  
32
.
  
Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 171–72; and Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, pp. 19, 23.

  
33
.
  
House of Representatives, Hearings, Committee on Naval Affairs, 9 January 1913, p. 543; Chambers to the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, 22 May 1912; Chambers to Senator Benjamin Tillman, 23 April 1913; and Chambers to George Perkins (Chair of the House Naval Affairs Committee), 24 May 1912, all in Chambers Papers, LCMD, Boxes 5 and 6; and Melhorn,
Two-Block Fox
, p. 12.

  
34
.
  
Bradley A. Fiske,
From Midshipman to Rear Admiral
(New York: Century, 1919), pp. 531–32.

  
35
.
  
Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 182–87.

  
36
.
  
Fiske,
Midshipman to Rear Admiral
, p. 538; Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 184–90; and van Deurs,
Wings for the Fleet
, pp. 9, 123.

  
37
.
  
House Naval Affairs Committee, 53rd Congress (1914), Hearings, 1794–1803; Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, pp. 33–34; Alex Roland,
Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915–1958
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1985), pp. 6–20; and Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 190–91.

  
38
.
  
Crouch,
Wings
, p. 132.

  
39
.
  
Van Deurs,
Anchors in the Sky
, pp. 117–24; Reynolds,
Admiral John H. Towers
, pp. 49, 55; and Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 181–84.

  
40
.
  
Hallion,
Taking Flight
, pp. xvii, 189–90; Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 168–70; and van Deurs,
Wings for the Fleet
, p. 47.

  
41
.
  
Hallion,
Taking Flight
, pp. 245, 391; and Reynolds,
Admiral John H. Towers
, p. 54.

  
42
.
  
Hallion,
Taking Flight
, pp. 261–62, 317, 323–25.

  
43
.
  
Ibid., pp. 301–3, 326–27.

  
44
.
  
Roland,
Model Research
, pp. 5–6; Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 178–79, 189; William F. Trimble,
Jerome C. Hunsaker and the Rise of American Aeronautics
(Washington, DC, and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003), pp. 26–27; and Hallion,
Taking Flight
, pp. 391–92.

  
45
.
  
Reynolds,
Admiral John H. Towers
, pp. 77–80; and van Deurs,
Wings for the Fleet
, pp. 109–10.

  
46
.
  
Reynolds,
Admiral John H. Towers
, p. 84; John Fass Morton,
Mustin: A Naval Family of the Twentieth Century
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003), pp. 97–98; and Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, pp. 43–44.

  
47
.
  
Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, pp. 49, 53; and van Deurs,
Wings for the Fleet
, pp. 134–35

  
48
.
  
William R. Braisted, “Mark Lambert Bristol: Naval Diplomat Extraordinary of the Battleship Age,” in James C. Bradford (ed.),
Admirals of the New Steel Navy: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1880–1930
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990), p. 336; Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, pp. 50–51; Reynolds,
Admiral John H. Towers
, p. 92.

  
49
.
  
Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, p. 46–47.

  
50
.
  
Ibid., p. 55

  
51
.
  
Braisted, “Mark Lambert Bristol,” p. 336; Hallion,
Taking Flight
, p. 388; and Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, p. 41.

  
52
.
  
Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, p. 60; and van Deurs,
Wings for the Fleet
, pp. 137–39.

  
53
.
  
Morton,
Mustin
, p. 99.

  
54
.
  
Reynolds,
Admiral John H. Towers
, pp. 73–74; van Deurs,
Wings for the Fleet
, pp. 147–53; and Morton,
Mustin
, pp. 105–6, 108–9.

  
55
.
  
Braisted, “Mark Lambert Bristol,” p. 339.

  
56
.
  
Turnbull and Lord,
History of United States Naval Aviation
, pp. 52–53, 63–64, 67.

  
57
.
  
Crouch,
Wings
, pp. 145–48; Herbert A. Johnson,
Wingless Eagle: U.S. Army Aviation through World War I
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 2–10; Hallion,
Taking Flight
, pp. 289, 383–84; Andrew Krepinevich,
Transforming to Victory: The U.S. Navy, Carrier Aviation, and Preparing for War in the Pacific
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, 2000); Melhorn,
Two-Block Fox;
William F. Trimble,
Admiral William F. Moffett: Architect of Naval Aviation
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1994), p. 71.

  
58
.
  
Johnson,
Wingless Eagle
, pp. 23–28, 87–89, 173–75; and Stein,
Torpedoes to Aviation
, pp. 206–8.

  
59
.
  
Chambers, “Airships and Naval Policy,” unpublished manuscript, Chambers Papers, Box 12.

  
60
.
  
Robert Seager, “Ten Years before Mahan: The Unofficial Case for the New Navy, 1880–1890.”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
40 (1953), pp. 491–512.

CHAPTER 3

Eyes of the Fleet: How Flying Boats Transformed War Plan Orange

Edward S. Miller

B
etween 1906 and 1941 the U.S. Navy developed War Plan Orange, an offensive strategy to defeat Japan in an all-out war. It was one of history's most successful war plans, belying the adage that no plan survives the opening guns. It was successfully deployed in its grand themes and many details in World War II. Planners believed carrier aviation would play a key role when war came. This essay, however, will focus on a critical period of the 1930s when Plan Orange was salvaged from doubt and defeatism by arrival of the most successful aircraft type of the era, the long-range, multi-engine flying boat.
¹

The Captains and Admirals who adapted Plan Orange to air power were among the brightest of the Service. Plucked from seagoing careers, they served two years in a small War Plans Division (WPD), also known as Op-12, under the Chief of Naval Operations. Earlier planners at the Naval War College and on the staff of the General Board had outlined the fundamental strategic themes. Japan's desire to dominate China would be frustrated by the American Open Door policy to protect China's integrity and its open markets. Someday Japan would pounce, seize the Philippines and Guam, and eliminate U.S. interference from its ocean flanks. Blue planners, noting the huge disparity in warmaking strength, adopted a goal of completely subjugating Japan (although “unconditional surrender” was not named until World War II). Aware that Japan's vigorous army had defeated Imperial Russia, planners projected victory through capital-intensive sea power, and eventually air power.

Their strategic dilemma was the geography of the Pacific. Vast distances separated the belligerents. There were no developed harbors in the five thousand miles between Hawaii and Manila. Therefore the planners envisioned a three-phase war.
In Phase I Japan would swiftly seize America's Western Pacific islands. In Phase II, the longest of the war, the U.S. Navy with support from the Army would counterattack across the ocean to capture island bases in the Western Pacific. The two fleets would clash in a titanic battle that Blue's superior numbers would win decisively. Thereafter the enemy would be subdued by a Phase III siege of blockade and bombardment by sea and air forces operating from bases on Japan's doorstep.

For thirty years the planning staffs divided into two schools of thought about the Phase II offensive. The “thrusters,” as I have named them, were elders steeped in an ethos of offensive audacity, disciples of two Admirals, Alfred Thayer Mahan and George Dewey. They demanded instantaneous mobilization and a naval dash to the Philippines, known as “The Through Ticket to Manila,” to rescue the beleaguered Blue garrison and challenge the Imperial Japanese Navy before Japan could fortify its conquests. The impossibly long cruise from the East Coast to the Philippines, 20,000 miles via Cape Horn, was shortened by the Panama Canal in 1914 and relocation of the fleet to California in 1919. Development of Pearl Harbor, to which the fleet moved in 1940, cut the journey to a still burdensome 5,000 miles. Concerned that the American people would weary of a long war, their plan offered hope of a quick and cheap victory. Its fatal flaw was to risk the entire Navy on one roll of the dice against a potent enemy near its home waters. To reduce the risk, thrusters lobbied to build a grand western base, at Luzon or later at Guam, until the Washington Conference of 1922 forbade bases west of Hawaii. Undaunted, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet (CinCUS) Robert L. Coontz projected a cavalry-like charge of a 551-ship convoy nonstop to Luzon, harassed by the Japanese all the way, to an impromptu base vulnerable to air attack from Formosa (Taiwan). At the end of the decade chief war planner Frank M. Schofield conceded the air threat by adapting a slightly saner policy of steaming to southern Mindanao, to improvise a base screened by narrow straits and Army airfields in the central Philippines. Nevertheless by 1934 the menace of Orange aviation was rising while Blue naval power languished below treaty limits during the Depression, which led Army war planner Brigadier General Stanley D. Embick to call the thrusting strategy “literally an act of madness.”