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9 - Air Power at Sea(Part 1)
Naval Aviation and the "Big E"
The first recorded use of an aerial device from aboard a ship occurred in 1806, when the Royal Navy's Lord Thomas
Cochrane flew kites from the 32-gun frigate HMS Pallas to spread propaganda leaflets over the French coast. More
than 100 years later, on November 14, 1910, civilian pilot Eugene Ely took off in a Curtiss Pusher airplane from an 83-
foot platform built on the fore-deck of the cruiser USS Birmingham. This was the birth of the aircraft carrier.
During World War I, Great Britain began to introduce airplanes into the Royal Navy. First, existing ships were converted
to carry seaplanes, which were used primarily for aerial observation. Gradually, the admirals of most major navies
realized that aircraft at sea could also be used as offensive weapons. This in turn led to the development of flat deck
carriers designed to launch and recover conventional fighter and bomber aircraft. Two of the most famous ocean-going
ships named Enterprise were descendants of these early vessels which combined naval sea and air power.
At the time of the outbreak of World War II, the United States had a total of six aircraft carriers. The USS
Enterprise (CV-6) was the newest of these carriers. Known by her crew as the "Big E", she was the second Yorktown-
class aircraft carrier. She was commissioned on May 12, 1938 under command of Captain N.H. White and had a nominal
aircraft compliment of 96 aircraft -- 18 fighters, 36 torpedo bombers, 37 dive bombers, and 5 general-purpose aircraft.
She was almost 810 feet in length and had a crew of about 2,900 seamen and pilots.
One of the first aircraft units assigned to the Enterprise was Fighting Squadron Six, which joined the "Big E"
while she was with the Atlantic fleet. During her shakedown cruise, the Enterprise made a visit to Rio de
Janeiro. Vice Admiral Fitzhugh Lee, at the time a young naval aviator, later remembered that:
The Enterprise was a new ship and one of the first built from the ground up as a carrier. We were all thrilled with it. I recall that my squadron . . . led the ship into port with a flying display and flew up the entire length of the Avenida Rio Branco, which is the principal street in Rio, some of us below the level of the buildings on each side, and flathatted on every beach in Rio scattering the swimmers by thousands. The Brazilians thought it was wonderful. "Bravo" was the word. One doesn't do that anymore.... I had about seven or eight months on the Enterprise. Admiral Halsey was our admiral on board. We had many interesting times in the West Indies.40
In June 1939, as relations between the United States and Japan grew more and more tense, the Enterprise and her
sister ship the USS Yorktown were suddenly reassigned to the Pacific fleet. After a passage through the Panama
Canal, they headed for Pearl Harbor, where the Enterprise's Scouting Squadron Six and its Grumman F3F biplanes
were stationed at Luke Field. The Army Air Corps was moving out of Luke and as the squadron arrived, the last Army
trucks were pulling away. In the words of Admiral Charles Griffin, another young naval aviator at the time, "I think
this I'll never forget ... I watched this last truck and there attached to it were some toilet seats. They even took
the toilet seats off the toilets in the hangar to move to this brand new wonderful establishment at Hickham Field."41 After finally settling in at Luke Field, supposedly with new toilet seats, Scouting Squadron
Six settled down to business, which meant lots of flying from the "Big E."
At that time the Japanese Fleet was operating in almost continual fleet operations. The situation was getting quite tense out in the Western Pacific, Southeastern Asia area. The Japanese were showing nothing but expansion signs, and at one time the Hawaiian detachment was sent out -- carriers, cruisers, destroyers -- and we operated to the west of Midway Island because the Japanese Fleet had not been accounted for for some little while. We were put into a buffer position, so to speak, just in case. And we ran long searches out from the carrier with aircraft to see if we could spot the Japanese Fleet some place because our people had no idea where it was.... We were operating continually and getting quite a bit of flight time. We were averaging around ninety-five hours a month in flight time, which is pretty good for operating from a carrier.42
A Day of Infamy
On November 24, 1941, a task force consisting of the Enterprise and the cruisers Chester,
Northampton, and Salt Lake City, left Pearl Harbor to deliver 12 fighter planes and their Marine pilots
to Wake Island. After the planes were launched on December 4, the task force began its return to Pearl. Their expected
arrival time was 8:00 a.m. on December 7, 1941; but heavy seas and the need to refuel some of her escorting destroyers
delayed the Enterprise. She was still 200 miles from Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attack began.
Oblivious to what was happening, the Enterprise launched her aircraft to fly ahead to their base on Ford Island.
The unlucky pilots flew into the middle of the battle and, in the confusion, several were shot down by friendly fire.
The few ships that were able to escape the Japanese attack rendezvoused with the returning task force. Rear Admiral
Joseph Worthington, then Commanding Officer of the escorting destroyer USS Benham, recalled that:
We were able to assemble some of the ships and then we entered on the 8th, and that was a horrible sight, steaming through the channel with the Nevada beached to keep her from sinking right beside the channel, and then steaming past the battleships. The destroyer Shaw was still burning at the destroyer dock. The battleship Arizona still had a tremendous column of smoke pouring out. It was just a horrible sight, the harbor. But we went on in to the fuel docks and one of the worst mistakes the Japanese ever made -- the fuel docks were intact. We fueled all the destroyers and went out to buoys in the harbor until the Enterprise was ready to sail. By dawn the next day we were on our way again.43
Three days later, the "Big E" scored her first kill by sinking the Japanese submarine I-70.
On December 14, the Enterprise was off to support the Marines on Wake Island against an impending Japanese
invasion. However, because of problems refueling at sea, the task force did not arrive in time. The last message
received from the Marines on Wake before they were forced to surrender on December 23 was, "Issue in doubt,"44 indicating their uncertainty about their ability to repel the Japanese invaders.
The Enterprise again sailed from Hawaii on January 11, 1942, to protect convoys sent to reinforce Samoa. On
February 1, she made the first American carrier air strike of the war, sinking three Japanese ships and damaging seven
others during raids on Kwajelein in the Marshall Islands. Six aircraft were lost and the "Big E" suffered minor damage.
On February 24, Admiral Halsey led the Enterprise task force in an attack on Japanese bases on Wake Island. A
few days later, on March 4, she struck Japanese bases on Marcus Island, 800 miles from Wake. One Enterprise
aircraft was lost in each of these attacks.
The Doolittle Raid
On April 2, 1942, the newest Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet, left San Francisco and headed west.
Six days later, the Enterprise task force, under the overall command of Admiral William Halsey, left Pearl Harbor
and also headed west. On April 13, the two carriers, with their support ships, rendezvoused at 180 degrees West and
38 degrees North to become Task Force 16. On the flight deck of the Hornet was an unusual squadron of aircraft:
not the small, nimble fighters usually associated with aircraft carriers of the time, but large, ungainly B-25 bombers.
The carriers' mission was to approach within 500 miles of Japan, and then launch the Army Air Corps bombers, led by Lt.
Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, on a raid against Tokyo.
However, on April 18, while the task force was still about 700 miles from Japan, it was sighted by Japanese picket boats,
which were equipped to radio information about American naval activities back to their base. The Enterprise
immediately launched her planes, which sank two of the pickets and damaged two others. A fifth picket boat was captured
by the cruiser USS Nashville. Fearing that the pickets had the opportunity to alert the Japanese fleet of the
presence of the task force, Admiral Halsey made the decision to immediately launch the 16 B-25 bombers, although the
seas were heavy and the ships were at the absolute maximum range of the planes.
Shortly after 7:00 a.m., the first B-25, piloted by Doolittle himself, took off from the pitching deck of the
Hornet. Skimming the tops of the waves to avoid detection, the majority of the bombers set their sights on Tokyo,
while others targeted Nagoya and Kobe. All 16 aircraft successfully cleared Japanese airspace and flew on to mainland
China, where they were forced to crash land after running out of fuel. Most of the 82 courageous crewmembers who
volunteered for this mission survived, but eight were taken prisoner by the Japanese. Of these, three were executed,
one died in imprisonment, and the remaining four were repatriated after the War.
The "Doolittle Raid" was not militarily significant, but it was important in providing a morale boost for the homefront
by striking back at the Japanese for their attack on Pearl Harbor and by making the Japanese wary enough of future
attacks to keep some of their airpower close to the Japanese home islands. Although the Hornet and the planes
of Doolittle's squadron were the heroes of the raid, the Enterprise and her pilots also played an important
support role.
During the early months of the Pacific war, the Japanese had reigned virtually supreme. Although the American carriers,
including the Enterprise, were able to inflict some damage, Japanese conquest of the Pacific islands progressed.
By May 1942, they were ready to isolate Australia by capturing Port Moresby on New Guinea and Tulagi in the Solomon
Islands. However, the United States had cracked the Japanese codes and was prepared. The carriers Lexington
and Yorktown were dispatched from their Pacific patrols to the Coral Sea to oppose the Japanese invasion fleet.
Although they were also sent from Pearl Harbor, the Enterprise and Hornet were not able to arrive in time
to participate in the action.
In the ensuing battle, planes from the American carriers managed to sink the small Japanese carrier Shoho and
heavily damage the larger carrier Shokaku. However, the Lexington was mortally damaged and later sank,
while the Yorktown also received heavy damage. Despite the loss of the Lexington, the Battle of the Coral
Sea was a strategic victory because the Japanese invasion of New Guinea was repulsed. The next time the two opposing
fleets met, the outcome would be completely different.
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| Copyright ©
1996-2008 Arnold E.
van Beverhoudt, Jr.
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