Sailors Aloft

(See Cover)

Like a poker lying in a bed of coals, one of the biggest issues in U.S. defense last week slowly reached cherry-red heat. Congress, press and public all obviously had an itch to take a hand in settling the question of whether the U.S. air forces should be taken from the Army and Navy, and set up as an independent air command.

It was a technical question which many a U.S. citizen did not fully understand, but it was also so important that any citizen was justified in demanding a proper solution--particularly now that the dependent air forces are engrossed in preparations for actual war.

Never, since the days of the Army's Billy Mitchell, had the demands for air independence been so insistent -- and so near decision -- as they appeared to be last week. Before Congressional committees were bills to provide complete in dependence, compromise bills, bills to inquire into what, if anything, should be done.

Behind this agitation was a rising awareness of air power's decisive part in World War II. Had not the German Luftwaffe conquered Crete? Had not British torpedo planes nabbed the German Bismarck, laid her low for the kill? Did not another British torpedo plane last week hunt down a Nazi pocket battleship, send her limping home (see p. 44)? And did not all these facts add up to the conclusion that the U.S. ought to copy Great Britain's independent R.A.F., the Nazi Luftwaffe, and turn its air power over to independent, unfettered airmen? Most Congressmen who last week asked themselves these oversimple questions answered with an oversimple Yes. The subtly simple New York Daily News, advocating independence, even found a way to put nudity into the issue (see cut, p. 20).

Almost alone last week in believing that separation in itself would not cure the ills which the separatists wanted to cure was Congressman Melvin Maas of Minnesota, a onetime Marine flier (who still holds a colonel's reserve commission), now the ranking Republican member of the House Naval Affairs Committee. One of the ablest Congressional critics of naval and military affairs, he, too, believed that the air forces had been hampered by the general Army and Navy commands; that in some respects U.S. conceptions of air power and its use are outmoded by the lessons of World War II. But he also understood that the first lesson of that war--and particularly of Germany's successes--was that effort by all arms must be coordinated, under a single high command.

It was not the Luftwaffe alone that had conquered Crete; the Luftwaffe skillfully screened, transported, delivered land fighters who conquered with the attacking airmen. So Congressman Maas proposed first to provide the U.S. forces (Army, Navy, Marines) with a real, overall command. Then, said he, consider what to do with the land, sea and air forces under that coordinating direction.

Under Secretary of War Robert Porter Patterson heard the rumbles, sent a letter to a Senate committee opposing any change. So did Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. In fact, the Navy reacted much more strongly than the Army.

One reason: never before had the Navy seriously feared that the status quo of its air arm might be disturbed.

Another reason: if there is a good case for things-as-they-are in the U.S. air services, that case can be found in "the finest naval air service in the world," and in the chief of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, Rear Admiral John Henry Towers.

Airmen's Admiral. There are two schools of ranking naval airmen. In one are "the Pensacola Admirals"--oldtime surface officers who transferred to the air service late in their careers, eased through the naval air school at Pensacola, then took seniority and position over younger airmen. Such an officer is Admiral Ernest Joseph King, commander of the Atlantic Fleet (TIME, June 2), who used to have Jack Towers' job.

In the other school are airmen's airmen, officers who went into the air service when it was the hangdog of the Navy, and rose with it. Such a one is Rear Admiral Towers. This week, as Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, he completed 30 years of Navy flying. He learned to fly in 1911. During his long climb up the Navy ladder to a captaincy, he never pulled his punches, never ceased to fight for the air service and for at least a measure of independence for it, within the Navy.

He almost paid for his courage with his career. Once, and then again, when officers were being selected for promotion, he was passed over. In the Navy, three passes may mean out. When, in 1939, Captain Jack Towers was suddenly made Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, and promoted to Rear Admiral, the commonly accepted story was that President Roosevelt himself had a hand in it.

Naval airmen soon realized that Admiral Towers and Captain Towers were two different birds. Fighting Jack had become a diplomat. At a recent committee hearing a Congressman put a searching question to Admiral Towers, then said: "I'd like this answer from Captain Jack Towers . . . and not from Admiral Towers, who is taking orders from too many line admirals."

It was a judgment which many a disappointed naval flier shared. It was also a cruel judgment, which overlooked the realities that a Navy Chief of Aeronautics has to face. Among those realities, No. 1 is the fact that in the U.S. Navy the air service is still subordinate, existing on sufferance.

Integrated Wings. The merit of an air force that is part of the Navy with which it operates is that it is bound to cooperate with the fleet in action. The demerit of that relationship is that the development of the vital air arm may be retarded by seagoing officers who by habit think in terms of water rather than air fighting.

Bible of U.S. naval practice is the official statement of Naval Policy. No naval officer, Jack Towers included, may depart from its precepts in public speeches, Congressional testimony, Navy councils. Periodically reviewed and revised by the Navy's all-high General Board, the current statement of Naval Policy (circa 1940) decrees that the naval air service shall be "an integral part of the naval forces."

Last week Admiral Arthur Japy Hepburn, chief of the Navy press bureau, visited Manhattan to chat with newsmen and offset the agitation for a separate air force. At that conference, the question was asked: what is the Navy's air policy? The answer:

There is no specific policy for the naval air force. The naval air force is an arm of the Navy, as (for example) the destroyers are. It would be wrong to give the naval air arm a policy, because it is an arm of the Navy--in one situation, it might be an attack arm, as the destroyers are; or it might, in another situation, be a defensive arm.

Last January, when Admiral Towers was up before the House Naval Affairs Committee, he was asked: ". . . You are the head of your own department, and you make the [aircraft] program?" He answered:

"No; the program is made up by the Navy Department as a whole. The aircraft program is part of the naval expansion program as a whole."

As parts of the whole, the Bureau of Aeronautics and its Chief are of course subject to the Chief of Naval Operations (Admiral Harold Raynsford Stark, no airman). In strict theory, even the design and planned uses of naval aircraft, carriers, etc., are the province of the General Board. The Bureau of Ordnance, by regulation, designs and buys the guns and other armament for naval aircraft. As the agency in charge of all naval personnel, the Bureau of Navigation has a hand in one of Jack Towers' biggest jobs: the recruiting and training of pilots for the expanding naval air force.

Finally, the Chief of Aeronautics is not in fact the chief of the naval air service as a whole. In a sense, that service does not exist as a whole. And it has no such chief. Admiral Towers is by regulation and in practice Admiral Stark's principal adviser on all naval air matters.

The commanders of the Fleet air forces (Commander Frank D. Wagner with the Asiatic Fleet; Vice Admiral William Frederick Halsey Jr. with the Pacific Fleet; Rear Admiral Arthur Byron Cook with the Atlantic Fleet) report in turn to their respective Fleet commanders, and only one of these (Admiral King in the Atlantic) is an airman.

But Admiral Towers is far from being boxed up. In practice, Admiral Stark has the good will and good sense to take Airman Towers' advice in most air matters. The Bureau of Ordnance has at times in the past ignored the needs of the air service, but Admiral Towers now is able to get what he asks for. Similarly, the Bureau of Navigation's Rear Admiral Chester William Nimitz leaves the actual air training program pretty much to Jack Towers. Last fortnight Admirals Nimitz and Towers toured the Navy's air schools together, nearly died together when a student pilot at Jacksonville cut in front of Admiral Towers' plane and barely missed a collision.*

A new Chief of Naval Operations, other Chiefs of Bureaus, a new General Board could alter this happy picture overnight. But for the present Jack Towers is able to say that the naval air program is his program. He also says, with grave pride, that, as Admiral Stark's consultant on air policy, he bears the burden for the success or failure of the program and of the policies behind it. To him, there is no difference, no controversy between "the Navy" and the naval air service; the question is not one of planes v. ships, but of planes plus ships.

On Hand & On Order. One test of the existing system is what its exponents have been able to do under it. If the present, dependent naval air service were unable to meet the sudden, emergency demands for expansion, it certainly would require some drastic changes.

Admiral Towers recently reported to Congress that as of last Feb. 1, he had 2,457 naval planes on hand, 6,204 on order, plus 823 provided for but unordered. Scheduled for delivery in 1941 were 1,583 trainers, 2,417 combat planes. Also scheduled was a step-up in his pilot force from 3,639 (as of Jan. 1) to 5,993 by the year's end, 16,000 eventually.

These increases put a terrific strain on Jack Towers and his whole organization. For naval aviation in fiscal 1938, Congress appropriated $51,500,000; two years later, $111,459,000. Jack Towers now has the job of spending $1,578,000,000. Stacked against total naval appropriations and authorizations ($13,100,000,000), even that sum might seem small to citizens imbued with awe of the Luftwaffe. Jack Towers says that he considers it not only a fair proportion of the total, but even more than the naval air service might reasonably have expected.

There is an urgent awareness in the Navy that the fleets must have more air power, and soon. Of the planes on order last February, 1,221 combat aircraft for Fleet duty had priority over all others--whether for Army or Navy--except those earmarked for the British. The Navy is now getting a little more than half the U.S. production of naval aircraft--a considerably higher proportion than the Army gets of Army plane production.

For Fighting Now. If the Navy had to go to war--all-out war--this week, it would of course have to fight with the 1,800-odd combat planes it has. Today the fleets have their full complements of men and planes. That is, each of Admiral Towers' six carriers has a squadron of fighters, two squadrons of scouts, one squadron of torpedo planes (which can also serve as bombers, carry either an 1,800-lb. torpedo or three 500-lb. bombs). Battleships and cruisers have their normal numbers of catapulted scout observation and bomber planes.

Of the planes in service, too large a number still are old types which would be better withdrawn from combat units, to put in schools for advanced trainers. Even so, Admiral Towers insists, most of them would be as good as any naval aircraft they might go up against.

Pictured on page 19 are types of carrier planes which would bear the brunt of naval air war if it comes before the ships now on order are available: Grumman fighters, designed to protect the fleet from enemy attack by destroying enemy planes; Douglas torpedo planes, for attack on enemy vessels; Curtiss scout bombers, whose dual role is to scout and to pepper the enemy ships with light bombs.

Last February Admiral Towers told Congress that "very few" of his planes then had modern armor, self-sealing tanks, etc. By 1941 standards, most of them were underarmed. But the Navy is now getting quantity delivery of fine, fully armed fighters for its carriers.

Admiral Towers could wish that torpedo-plane production and deliveries were faster.

At the present ratios of aircraft with the Fleets, plane deliveries and increases in pilot personnel will soon outstrip the surface Navy. Admiral Towers knows what to do with the excess planes and pilots: create complete reserve crews and squadrons. Flying boats stay in the air as long as 30 hours, fly 4,000 miles and more on single hops. Back at their bases, refueled and checked, the planes are ready to go again before their tuckered-out crews are rested. Admiral Towers would like to have two and even three crews for each boat. Similarly, he wants to have complete reserve units of crews-&-planes for his carriers (a week of constant, hazardous carrier flying can pretty well exhaust pilots).

Carriers are much on Jack Towers' mind nowadays. The Fleets now have six in service, plus a seventh (the Hornet) almost ready for duty, and eleven more on order. By the Navy's accepted standards, six were perhaps enough for the old Fleet organizations. Now the Navy has ceased to think in terms of concentrated battle lines, plans instead for dispersed "task forces"--units of battleships, carriers, cruisers, destroyers on special missions. This conception requires more carriers than the Navy has in service and in sight. A carrier shortage is therefore one of the biggest holes in the Navy's preparations for war (especially in the Atlantic). One temporary stopgap: conversion of merchant vessels to carrier duty.

For his still stronger naval air force of the future Admiral Towers has at last been promised plenty of long-range, heavy-duty patrol bombers. The Navy plans to buy about 1,500 (cost per plane: $150,000 and up). Glenn Martin in Baltimore already had orders for 322 last February. Consolidated (maker of the famous PBYs) had at least as many more on order (including its giant four-engined flying boats).

These are the craft which give the naval air service its long striking arm. Of all types, they offer the greatest threat to the supremacy of surface navies. They are a type which Jack Towers has espoused for years and was able to get the U.S. Navy to accept in quantity only when World War II began.

* Jack Towers at 56 is still a qualified pilot, is especially adept in big flying boats. He gets in about 100 air-hours a year. Because a crash in 1912 left him with a damaged left eye, he has to have a co-pilot along for safety when he flies.

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