Replacing Battleships with Aircraft Carriers in the Pacific in World War II (I)

This is a case study of operational and tactical innovation in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Its purpose is to erase a myth—the myth that Navy tactical and operational doctrine existing at the time of Pearl Harbor facilitated a straightforward substitution of carriers for the battleship force that had been severely damaged by Japanese carrier aviation on 7 December 1941. That is not what happened. What did happen is much more interesting than a simple substitution
of one weapon for another. As Trent Hone put it in 2009, “By early 1943, a new and more effective fleet organization had become available.” This more effective fleet, “built around carrier task forces,” took the operational initiative away from the Japanese and spearheaded the maritime assault against Japan. [1]
This was clearly innovation—something new. But it was not an outright rejection of the past. Instead, it was a mixture of innovation and adaptation, drawing on existing doctrine where that made sense and creating new doctrine where that was called for. The end result was the foundation of the U.S. Navy that is familiar to us today. [2]

PRE–WORLD WAR II CARRIER CONCEPTS

In the fall of 1937, then-captain Richmond K. Turner, a member of the faculty of the Naval War College, presented a lecture entitled “The Strategic Employment of the Fleet.” His argument was straightforward: “The chief strategic function of the fleet is the creation of situations
that will bring about decisive battle, and under conditions that will ensure the defeat of the enemy.” [3]

Aircraft carriers had an important role to play, especially by raiding enemy forces and bases. As Turner pointed out, raids could “inflict serious damage” on an enemy and “gain important information.” At the same time, carrier raids could “carry the threat of permanency or future  repetition.” Turner argued that raids were “a distinct type of operation” and that raiding “occupies a tremendously important place in naval warfare.” [4]

In his 1937 pamphlet “The Employment of Aviation in Naval Warfare,” Turner recognized that the performance of carrier planes had improved and was still improving, which meant that “nothing behind the enemy front is entirely secure from observation and attack.” Improved performance also implied that carrier aircraft could put air bases on land out of commission and achieve “command of the air” in a region. War games and exercises that set one carrier against another were misleading. “For us to attain command of the air around a hostile fleet in
its own home waters we must not only destroy its carrier decks, but also all the airdromes or land-based aviation in its vicinity.” [5]

What aviation had brought to naval warfare, according to Turner, was not only the ability to strike enemy ships and bases from the sea but, especially, the ability to gain information about the enemy while preventing the enemy from doing the same with regard to friendly forces. But gaining control of the air would not be possible if a fleet’s air units were dispersed or spread among too many missions. As he put it, “We should, as with other means of action, be sure to employ a concentration of enough airplanes to produce the desired effect.” [6]

But how was that concentration to be achieved? Turner admitted that there “seems to be no one best place to locate our carriers to prevent the enemy from destroying them,” and he acknowledged that exercises had demonstrated that carriers were most valuable as offensive weapons. [7] The fleet problems had shown that the side that found and attacked the other side’s carrier or carriers had a great advantage thereafter. [8]

But how could carriers best be protected? How could they be supported logistically? It was well understood by combat aviators that more fighter aircraft did not necessarily translate into an automatic advantage in air-to-air combat. Numbers had to be translated into combat power through the use of proper scouting, bombing, and air-to-air combat tactics. The same notion
applied to carriers. There were simply not enough carriers before World War II to know how best to maneuver and employ clusters of them. [9]

Despite the unknowns associated with aircraft carrier operations, U.S. carrier doctrine was relatively advanced by April 1939, when Vice Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander Aircraft, Battle Force, issued the guidance document “Operations with Carriers.” For example, it defined the primary mission of carrier aircraft as gaining and maintaining “control of the air in the theatre of naval operations. Missions of a defensive nature militate against the accomplishment of this mission.” If the limited number of carriers went off to conduct a major raid, the battleship force would have to accept the risk. [10]
“Operations with Carriers,” which drew its inferences from the evidence provided by the Navy’s fleet problems, also noted that successful carrier raids against land bases and targets were “practicable.” However, experience in exercises had shown that carriers operating in close support of an amphibious operation “are usually considered important objectives by the enemy and are usually destroyed before the completion of the operations. This follows largely from a lack of strategical mobility” of the carriers. [11] In addition, there was no certain way to know
how to position carriers once they were conducting flight operations. To handle aircraft, carriers had to steam into the wind and maintain a constant course until all were launched or taken aboard. That might make them particularly vulnerable to attack by enemy aircraft, submarines, or even surface ships.

Despite the unknowns attached to carrier operations, several things were clear from the prewar fleet problems. First, it was essential for any carrier to get in the first strike against an enemy. That was because carriers under concerted air attack were almost impossible to defend. [12] Second, therefore, it was critical to conduct effective scouting in order to find the enemy’s carriers first. Third, carriers did not belong in night surface engagements. As Fleet Tactical Publication 143 (War Instructions) of 1934 put it, “Aircraft carriers should endeavor to avoid night action with all types of enemy vessels and should employ every means, speed, guns, and
smoke, to assist them in this endeavor.” [13] This meant that carriers would have to operate separate from battleships at night if there were any possibility of a night surface engagement. But how were the movements of these separate forces to be coordinated? Fourth, tying the carriers to an amphibious operation involved very high risk. Carriers were safest and most effective if they were allowed to roam and to attack—to take, and then stay on, the offensive.

U.S. CARRIER OPERATIONS IN 1942
In 1942, U.S. carriers in the Pacific performed the missions foreseen before the
war:

• Raids. Strikes were flown on the Marshalls and Gilberts in February and then attacks on Wake and Marcus Islands. Lae and Salamaua were struck on 10 March, and Task Force (TF) 16 carried Army twin-engine bombers to within striking range of Tokyo on 18 April.
• Ambushes. The battle of the Coral Sea (4–8 May) was an attempted U.S. Navy carrier ambush of a Japanese carrier force covering an amphibious operation. Midway (3–6 June) was also an American ambush, but of the main Japanese carrier force.[14]
• Covering invasion forces. Around Guadalcanal, at the battles of the Eastern Solomons (23–25 August) and Santa Cruz (26–27 October), U.S. and Japanese carrier forces fought with one another and with land-based air units to gain and hold air superiority. U.S. forces sought to hold Henderson Field; the Japanese land and sea forces struggled to take it or permanently close it. Both sides used carrier aviation to cover amphibious operations and raid the enemy’s carriers.

There was nothing doctrinally new in these critical battles. As the late Clark Reynolds demonstrated in 1994, Admiral King’s strategy in the Pacific was to maintain an aggressive and active “fleet in being” in order to hinder and harass the Japanese. [15] King’s direction to Admiral Chester Nimitz to take calculated risks meant that Nimitz and his subordinates would use carrier task forces at the operational level of war to raid critical Japanese targets and then retreat. For their part, to forestall future raids, the more numerous Japanese carriers would
attempt to destroy the U.S. carriers. That could (and did) set the stage for U.S. ambushes. The battles of the Coral Sea and Midway were tactical ambushes that  attained Admiral Nimitz’s operational-level goals. “By the middle of July 1942,  Admirals King and Nimitz therefore had four carriers . . . with which to defend Hawaii and Australia against Japan’s two surviving heavies and three light carriers. The odds were even.” [16]

However, defending the U.S. force that had invaded Guadalcanal placed American carrier commanders in the vulnerable position of staying near enough to the amphibious assault to defend it. That was not what the 1939 “Operations with Carriers” had recommended. It was essential for U.S. forces on Guadalcanal to get land-based aviation up and running from Henderson Field so that carriers could roam and raid. The Japanese knew that and therefore used their forces to try to prevent it. So long as Guadalcanal was being contested, U.S. carriers would have to stay near enough to the island to shield it from Japanese attacks; they would have one foot nailed to Guadalcanal, while their opponents could maneuver freely. As a consequence, the U.S. Navy lost two carriers and saw Enterprise put out of action for over three months.

Thinking about carrier operations continued even as the battles raged. As John Lundstrom has discovered, Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher put together a concept of optimal carrier tactics in September 1942, and Nimitz passed Fletcher’s assessment on to Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, the area commander, who apparently “concurred with most of Fletcher’s positions.” [17] Nimitz took Fletcher’s comments, Halsey’s reaction, “and extracts from action reports of the 26 October Santa Cruz battle” and sent them “to all Pacific Fleet aviation type commanders, task force commanders, carrier captains, and others . . . who led carriers in battle.” [18] Nimitz invited comments, and he got them.

At about the same time, Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman, who had captained Lexington at Coral Sea and was now Halsey’s subordinate, developed a paper entitled “Principles of  Handling Carriers.” When he took command of Task  Force 16—built around carrier Enterprise—on 24 November 1942, he gave his subordinates copies of this paper “with elaboration.” [19] By 1 December, according to Sherman, he had a rough draft of a means of using fighters to defend carriers.  [20]

On 16 December, Sherman learned that he would also get command of the newly repaired Saratoga; he wrote, “Now is my chance to operate a two-carrier task force which I have been advocating since the war started over a year ago.” [21] On the 18th he noted that it was necessary “for two carrier task forces operating together to shake down if they are to do it efficiently,” and on 28 December he told his diary, “Have been drawing up a plan for operating a five-carrier task force. It looks feasible and fine for defense. It is the only way the air groups of 5 carriers can be conducted. I hope to get a chance to try it out.” [22] Sherman would have an uphill struggle. Opinion about the optimal size of carrier task forces was divided among the senior carrier and carrier task force commanders. As the staff history of the fast carrier task force prepared in 1945 by the office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air) would point out, Vice Admiral Fletcher disagreed with his subordinate, Captain Arthur C. Davis, who had commanded Enterprise in the Eastern Solomons battle. Davis argued that “the joint operation of more than two carrier task forces is too unwieldy.

This applies to both the inherent lags in visual communications and the lags and complications in tactical handling.” Davis did not think that changes in doctrine  and training could eliminate these problems. [23] Fletcher replied, “Our recent experience indicate[s] that three carrier task forces can be handled almost as easily as two; and I feel certain that four could be operated together without too much difficulty.” [24]

But Captain Davis, not so optimistic, was particularly concerned about keeping carriers separate when they were being attacked by enemy aircraft. As he said, “it should unquestionably be the exception rather than the rule that carrier task forces operating jointly be less than ten miles apart, and this distance should be of the order of fifteen or twenty miles when action is thought to be imminent.” Fletcher countered, “To an attacking air group, it makes little difference whether the carriers are separated by 5 or 20 miles but to the defenders it makes a great deal. By keeping the carriers separated 15–20 miles there is always the danger that the full fighter force may not be brought to bear decisively against the enemy attack
as happened at Midway.” [25]

After the battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, the still-unresolved debate carried on. Rear Admiral George D. Murray, who had lost Hornet, his flagship, to Japanese  bomb and torpedo attacks, argued that two-carrier task forces were too slow to take the offensive when that was imperative. Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid,  who had commanded the Enterprise task force, did not agree. His position was that “by having two carriers together one carrier can take care of all routine flying while the other maintains her full striking group spotted and ready to launch on  short notice.” [26] As Lundstrom finds, there was no consensus among the carrier and task force commanders, “with opinion almost equally divided between concentration and dispersion.” [27]

1943: THINGS CHANGE
A number of ideas, technologies, and significant people came together in the spring of 1943 in a way that would begin to change dramatically first carrier task forces and eventually the Navy.
The people first. Admiral Nimitz was still looking for an assessment of carrier doctrine and tactics based on the experiences of the previous year. Vice Admiral John Towers, the Navy’s senior aviator, was committed to giving it to him. But Towers was not the only senior aviator reviewing what had been learned during carrier operations in 1942. In his diary entry for 20 January 1943, Rear Admiral  Sherman had noted that he and Vice Admiral Halsey “agreed perfectly” on carrier  tactics. By 15 March 1943, however, Sherman—the champion of maneuvering  multiple carriers together in coherent task forces—had received a letter from
Halsey “reversing himself on separation of carriers to receive attack.” Sherman regarded Halsey’s revised views as “unsound.” [28] The disagreement between them shows how uncertain the matter was.

As historian Lundstrom notes, “The key problem was coordinating simultaneous flight operations from different carriers.” Sherman and his chief of staff, Captain Herbert S. Duckworth, working with Commander Robert Dixon, Enterprise’s air operations officer, organized exercises to show that this could be done—that carriers steaming together could launch and recover aircraft without  their air groups interfering with one another. [29] Sherman’s goal was clear—“to create a standardized doctrine so that different carriers could swiftly integrate into a powerful task force.” [30]

What Sherman and Duckworth had to modify were the “Standard Cruising Instructions for Carrier Task Forces” of 1 January 1943. Those instructions assumed that there would usually be no more than two carriers in a task force. With two carriers, one could send up inner air patrols, scouting flights, and—when required—a combat air patrol, while the other carrier’s air group stood ready to launch strikes. The two carriers could rotate between being the “duty carrier” and the strike carrier. The ships in the task force would exercise with the carriers
until they could “turn with the duty carrier without signal.” The duty carrier, to limit the time it deviated from the task force’s base course owing to turns into the wind, would “adjust her position . . . in order to reduce separation [from the rest of the task force] to a minimum.” [31]

The instructions also required multiple carriers in a task force to separate “during air attacks or immediately prior thereto,” each carrier taking with it “those cruisers and destroyers that can form screens in the shortest possible time.” [32] This was prewar doctrine, with the addition of lessons learned during the carrier operations of 1942—that is, adaptation. It was repeated in Rear Admiral DeWitt C. Ramsey’s “Maneuvering and Fire Doctrine for Carrier Task Forces” of
22 April 1943: “In the event of a threatened attack on a disposition containing two or more carriers it is imperative that carriers separate, each carrier being accompanied by its own screen of ships previously assigned.” Moreover, “each carrier group shall control its own air operations and fighter direction. . . . Distances between carrier groups shall be maintained between five and ten miles insofar as practicable.” [33]

But change—innovation—was coming. Events were forcing it. On 1 March 1943, Admiral King’s headquarters issued the second classified “Battle Experience” bulletin, Solomon Islands Actions, August and September 1942. It was critical of how screening destroyers assigned to protect carriers from submarine attacks were maneuvering. Once the carrier they were escorting had launched or recovered aircraft, the escorts had been experiencing difficulty taking up the optimal  positions for protecting the carrier from submarine torpedo attack, allowing  Japanese submarines to penetrate the destroyer screen. [34]

Two weeks later, on 15 March 1943, Admiral King’s staff issued Battle Experience Bulletin No. 3, Solomon Islands Actions, October 1942. This classified analysis, with its focus on the battle near the Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942, did not resolve the issue of how to best use the capabilities of multiple carriers in  battle. Vice Admiral Halsey, the senior carrier commander, believed that carriers Enterprise and Hornet had been “too far apart for mutual cooperation and not far enough apart for deception.” [35] As Halsey observed, “due to the wide separation of
the carriers communications collapsed and fighter directing failed.” [36] But Towers, by 1943 the type commander for aircraft in the Pacific, argued that “the files of the War College, the [Navy] Department, and the Fleet contain many thousands of pages of discussion of the merits of separation of carriers vs their concentration.  . . . I do not believe that an attempt to rehash this controversy can serve any useful purpose here.” Towers favored the accepted tactic—keeping two carriers together until the approach of an air attack and then dispersing them, bringing them back together once the attack was over. [37]

Rear Admiral George Murray, who had commanded TF 17 (Hornet and its escorts), supported Vice Admiral Towers: “It is too much to expect that a combat air patrol of one task force can be controlled and coordinated with the same degree of efficiency by the fighter direction officer of another task force. The teamwork between the fighter direction officer and his own combat air patrol is such an intimate one, because of constantly working together, much of the efficiency
of this combination is lost when the fighter direction is taken over by an  entirely separate organization.” [38]

However, Osborne B. Hardison, the captain of Enterprise, took a different view, insisting that “what is urgently needed is a sound doctrine.” At Santa Cruz, on 26 October, the fighter direction team on Enterprise had done what they had been trained to do, but their best effort had been overcome by events: “With some 38 of our fighters in the air, and with enemy planes in large numbers coming in from various directions and altitudes, and with friendly planes complicating the situation, then the system breaks down.” [39]

Ssomething had to be done to resolve this months-long debate. The “something”  was an idea developed before World War II—“extensive trials and experiments.”  Rear Admiral Sherman and Captain Duckworth arrived at Pearl Harbor with Enterprise and found the new large carrier Essex (CV 9) there, soon to be followed by sister ships Yorktown (CV 10) and Lexington (CV 16). At about the same time, three new Independence-class light carriers reached Pearl Harbor.

Sherman and Duckworth, watched by Towers, at last had enough ships and planes to run experiments. The ships themselves had some new technology: four-channel very-high-frequency (VHF) radios for the fighter-direction teams, position-plan-indicator radar scopes for the new SK (air search) radars, a methodology for using the newly developed combat information centers (CICs), and an understanding of how to use the SG (surface search) radar to facilitate safe maneuvering at night and in thick weather. There was also the new fighter, the
F6F Hellcat, and information: friend or foe (IFF) transponders for all aircraft. [40]

The results of their experiments were fed into a team of three officers that had been created by Admiral Nimitz on 13 April 1943 to rewrite the “Standard Cruising Instructions for Carrier Task Forces.” One of the three was Captain Apollo Soucek, who had been executive officer of Hornet at Santa Cruz. With his colleagues, Soucek decided that they would—as their letter of 18 May to
Admiral Nimitz put it—exceed their “instructions to the extent that all existing Pacific Fleet Tactical Bulletins and numerous Fleet confidential letters” needed to be overhauled. The result of their labors was Pacific Fleet Tactical Orders and Doctrine, known as PAC-10.[41]

PAC-10 was a dramatic innovation. It combined existing tactical publications, tactical bulletins, task force instructions, and battle organization doctrine into one doctrinal publication that  applied to the whole fleet. Its goal was to make it  “possible for forces composed of diverse types, and indoctrinated under different  task force commanders, to join at sea on short notice for concerted action against the enemy without interchanging a mass of special instructions.” [42] PAC-10’s instructions covered one-carrier and multicarrier task forces, and escort- or
light-carrier support operations of amphibious assaults. It established the basic  framework for the four-carrier task forces—with two Essex-class ships and two of the Independence class—that would form the primary mobile striking arm of the Pacific Fleet. [43] However, it did this within the structure of a combined naval force, a force composed of surface ships—including battleships and carriers. [44]

PAC-10 dealt with the issue of whether to concentrate or separate carriers under air attack by redefining the problem: “Whether a task force containing two or more carriers should separate into distinct groups . . . or remain tactically concentrated . . . may be largely dependent on circumstances peculiar to the immediate situation. No single rule can be formulated to fit all contingencies.” [45] That is,   it basically said that the problem was not to develop hard and fast doctrine that would cover all situations but to create guidance that could be tailored to the
situation at hand. PAC-10 also took advantage of the fact that fighter-direction technology and techniques had matured. It was now possible for a fighter director to maintain a continuous plot of all detected aircraft, evaluate plots and warn friendly ships of “impending air attack,” control “the number and disposition of combat patrols,” take best advantage of the radar technology then being installed on all the large carriers, and direct “the interception of enemy aircraft.” All new air units were to be trained for participation in air defense of a carrier under the direction of fighter directors. As PAC-10 put it, “with the composition of Task Forces rapidly changing, it is essential that a new air unit be able to join a force  and assume its duties without receiving a mass of new instructions which are inconsistent with prescribed practice.” [46]

PAC-10 solved two problems. First, “the creation of a single, common doctrine allowed ships to be interchanged between task groups.” Second, “shifting the development of small-unit tactical doctrine to the fleet level and out of the hands of individual commanders increased the effectiveness of all units, particularly the fast-moving carrier task forces.” [47] Put another way, PAC-10 was what Admiral Nimitz had wanted for almost a year. It allowed him to hand to Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance a force that the latter could wield as he wished—with “lightning
speed,” speed that he could use to take the Japanese by surprise and keep them off balance operationally as well as tactically. [48]

1943: PUTTING THE CHANGE TO WORK
The title of Battle Experience Bulletin No. 13, the description and analysis of the attack on Wake Island on 5–6 October 1943, gives the game away: Dress Rehearsal for Future Operations. [49] That was it—the initiation in combat of the new combined (and carrier-led) task force based on PAC-10. The new force had been given its first test in the 31 August 1943 raid on Marcus Island, when Essex, Yorktown, and light carrier Independence combined their air groups, but the
sustained attack on Wake was proof that the transformed force could take the  offensive against Japanese land-based naval aviation and its torpedo-carrying night-attack aircraft.
Why Marcus and Wake? Neither raid would telegraph the coming amphibious operation against the Gilberts, and Marcus was far enough away from the Marianas to give the new carriers the chance to strike and withdraw to assess their “lessons learned” without having a major Japanese carrier force to contend with. The surviving planning documents give great credit to the ability of Japanese sea-based and land-based aviation to initiate and respond to attack. Wake was therefore the critical test, because it was in range of Japanese land-based naval
aviation. Wake was only 537 miles from Eniwetok, 594 miles from Kwajalein, and  640 miles from Wotje, all of which were thought to hold major land-based (and long-range) air components. Wake was also just over two thousand miles from Pearl Harbor. Once committed to attack Wake, the U.S. carrier force could not easily or quickly withdraw to safer waters.
The carrier commander for the Wake raid was Rear Admiral Alfred E. Montgomery.

There were three carrier elements of his task group: one built around Essex and Yorktown, a second based on Lexington and light carrier Cowpens, and a third based on light carriers Independence and Belleau Wood. There were also two bombardment groups, composed of cruisers and destroyers, and a task unit composed of fleet oilers. Montgomery had at his disposal a combined force of surface, aviation, and logistics task units, as well as the support of patrol planes based on Midway Island. [50] The aircraft from the carriers began their air assault  by gaining air superiority over Wake. As Rear Admiral Montgomery put it in his report, “Well before noon 27 fighters had been shot down and all air opposition appeared to be ended.” [51] Moreover, the fighters flying from Independence and Belleau Wood successfully protected both the carriers and the surface ships bombarding Wake from long-range bomber attacks. The patrols from these carriers were so successful that Montgomery could claim that “no ship of this force was ever attacked by enemy air.” [52]

Though the raid was a complete success, not everything worked well. Charts of the area around Wake were not adequate, for example. The VHF circuits became saturated because of inadequate radio discipline, and there were problems coordinating the movement of surface ships and the stationing of fighters to protect them. But carrier night fighters had turned out to be a success, as had the use of flight deck catapults on all the carriers. [53] The utility of PAC-10 was affirmed. So was the value of having combat information centers on all ships, including surface ships covered by patrolling aircraft. [54]

Note:

1 Trent Hone, “U.S. Navy Surface Battle Doctrine and Victory in the Pacific,” Naval War College Review 62, no. 1 (Winter 2009), p. 67. It was this article that prompted the author to write his own.
2. In a letter (2 July 2011) to the author, Frank Uhlig, Jr., points out that the present article says little about submarines, especially their contribution as scouts in major carrier battles in the Pacific in World War II and the need for submarine officers to rethink their offensive doctrine. It is an excellent point. If any arm of the Navy went through a transformation in World War II, it was the submarine force.
3. Capt. R. K. Turner, “The Strategic Employment  of the Fleet,” staff presentation, Naval War College, 28 October 1937, p. 6, box 5, Record Group [hereafter RG] 14, Naval War College Naval Historical Collection, Newport, R.I.
4. Ibid., p. 19.
5. Capt. R. K. Turner, “The Employment of Aviation in Naval Warfare,” September 1937, pp. 6, 12, box 5, RG 14, Naval War College Naval Historical Collection.
6. Ibid., p. 41.
7. Ibid., p. 42.
8. Albert A. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War: The  U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923–1940 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 2010).
9. See Thomas C. Hone, Norman Friedman, and Mark D. Mandeles, American & British Aircraft Carrier Development, 1919–1941 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1999).
10. Commander Aircraft, Battle Force, “Operations with Carriers,” April 1939, p. 3, box 110, entry 337, “USN and Related Operational, Tactical and Instructional Publications,” RG 38, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
11. Ibid., p. 11.
12. See Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., Fleet Tactics (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1986), chap. 4.
13. U.S. Navy Dept., War Instructions, U.S. Navy, FTP 143 (Washington, D.C.: repr. 1942), p. 42, box 46, entry 336-A, “USN Technical Publications,” RG 38, National Archives [emphasis original].
14. The Battle of the Coral Sea, Strategical and Tactical Analysis, NAVPERS 91050 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College, 1947); The Battle of Midway, including the Aleutian Phase, Strategical
and Tactical Analysis, NAVPERS 91067 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College, 1948). As the Coral Sea analysis noted, “the basis of the Allied plan was a pure raiding operation.” The Midway analysis noted that the experience of both prewar exercises and wartime operations had shown the value of getting in  the first attack.
15. Clark G. Reynolds, “The U.S. Fleet-in-Being Strategy of 1942,” Journal of Military History 58, no. 1 (January 1994).

16. Ibid.
17. John B. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway,
and Guadalcanal (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2006), p. 497.
18. Ibid.
19. Vice Adm. Frederick C. Sherman, “World War II Diary,” p. 7, Command File, World War II,
Individual Personnel, box 98, Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C. [hereafter NHHC].
20. Ibid., p. 9.
21. Ibid., p. 12.
22. Ibid., p. 15.
23. Lt. Andrew R. Hilen, Jr., USNR, “Remarks on the Development of the Fast Carrier Task Force,” part 1 of Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air) Historical Unit, Essays in the History of Naval Air Operations, vol. 1, Carrier Warfare (Washington, D.C.: October 1945), p. 7. The quotation by Captain Davis is from Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, Secret Information Bulletin No. 2, p. 12-27; both Navy Department Library, NHHC.
24. Hilen, “Remarks on the Development of the Fast Carrier Task Force,” p. 8.
25. Ibid., p. 9.
26. Ibid.
27. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, p. 498.
28. Sherman, “World War II Diary,” pp. 21, 29.
29. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, p. 498.
30. Ibid.
31. Pacific Fleet Confidential Letter 1CL-43, “Standard Cruising Instructions for Carrier Task Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet,” p. 4, CincPac File, Pac-13-cfm, A2-11/A16-3 (P), box 4679, entry 107, “CINCPACFLT Confidential and Secret Correspondence Files,” RG 313, National Archives [emphasis original].
32. Ibid., p. 8.
33. Commander Task Force Fourteen, letter to Commander-in-Chief, United States Pacific Fleet, subject “Maneuvering and Fire Doctrine for Carrier Task Forces,” 22 April 1943, p. 4, A16-3, box 99, serial 051, RG 38, National Archives.
34. United States Fleet, Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, Solomon Islands Actions, August and September 1942, Battle Experience Bulletin No. 2, 1 March 1943, p. 13-22, Navy Department Library, NHHC.
35. United States Fleet, Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, Solomon Islands Actions,
October 1942, Battle Experience Bulletin No. 3, 15 March 1943, p. 21-6.
36. Ibid., p. 21-10.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., p. 21-12.
39. Ibid., pp. 21-38, 21-39 [emphasis original].
40. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, p.
498. Also see Clark G. Reynolds, The Fast Carriers (New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 54–55. For more details on the new technology, see Hilen, “Remarks on the Development of the Fast Carrier Task Force,” p. 15. For the beginnings of the CIC, see  Commanding Officer, report to the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, via the Commander, South Pacific Force and the Commander in Chief, subject “Use of Type  SG Radar during Night Action,” 19 November 1942, p. 1, in World War Two Action and  Operational Reports, U.S.S. Fletcher, box 984, serial (S)-2, RG 38, National Archives.
41. Pacific Fleet Board, letter to Commander  in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet, subject “Revision of Pacific Fleet Cruising Instructions,” 18 May 1943, A16-3/P/A17, World War 2 Plans, Orders and Related Documents, box 22, RG 38, National Archives.
42. Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Current Tactical Orders and Doctrine U.S. Pacific
Fleet, PAC-10 (n.p.: June 1943), change 3, p. v, box 22, RG 38, National Archives.
43. Ibid., p. I-3.
44. Ibid., p. IV-3 (part IV contained the “Fighting Instructions”).
45. Ibid., p. IV-5.
46. Ibid., p. VI-4.
47. Hone, “U.S. Navy Surface Battle Doctrine and Victory in the Pacific,” p. 76.
48. Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1987), p. 201.
49. United States Fleet, Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, Bombardment of Wake
Island, 5 & 6 October 1943, Battle Experience Bulletin No. 13, 28 March 1944.
50. Ibid., pp. 63-6 through 63-9.
51. Ibid., p. 63-16.
52. Ibid., p. 63-17.
53. Ibid., pp. 63-34, 63-39, 63-42.
54. Ibid., p. 63-91.

Autore: Thomas C. Hone

Fonte: Naval War College Review.(2013) – Vol. 66: No. 1, Article 6.