History

“The Fleet at Flood Tide” – A Conversation with Author James D. Hornfischer

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CIMSEC was saddened to learn that renowned naval historian James Hornfischer passed away on June 2, 2021. He was 55.

To celebrate his memory, CIMSEC is reposting this interview we published on his latest book, The Fleet at Flood Tide.

By Christopher Nelson

The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945 by James Hornfischer
The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945 by James Hornfischer.

A passionate naval historian, Jim Hornfischer finds time in the early morning hours and the weekends to write. It was an “elaborate moonlighting gig” he says, that led to his latest book, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945. 

The Fleet at Flood Tide takes us back to World War II in the Pacific. This time Hornfischer focuses on the air, land, and sea battles that were some of the deadliest in the latter part of the war: Saipan, The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, Tinian, Guam, the strategic bombing campaign, and the eventual use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  

The battles Hornfischer describe share center stage with some of the most impressive leaders the U.S. placed in the Pacific: Admiral Raymond Spruance, Admiral Kelly Turner, Admiral Marc Mitscher, General Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, and Colonel Paul Tibbets. It is quite a cast of characters.

Hornfischer, to his credit, is able to keep this massive mosaic together – the numerous battles and personalities – without getting lost in historical details. His writing style, like other popular historians – David McCullough, Max Hastings, and Ian Toll immediately come to mind – is cinematic, yet not superficial. Or as he told me what he strives for when writing: “I then dive into the fitful process of making this rough assemblage readable and smooth, envisioning multiple readers, from expert navalists to my dear mother, with every sentence I type.”

The Fleet at Flood Tide is his fifth book, following the 2011 release of Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Gudalcanal. Hornfischer — whose day job is president of Hornfischer Literary Management — also found time to write The Ship of Ghosts (2006), The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors (2004; which won the Samuel Eliot Morison Award), and Service: A Navy SEAL at War, with Marcus Luttrell (2012). Of note, Neptune’s Inferno and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors have been on the Chief of Naval Operation’s reading list for consecutive years.

I recently had the opportunity to correspond with Jim Hornfischer about his new book. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

How did the book come about? Was it a logical extension of your previous book, Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal?

All these years on, the challenge in World War II history is to find books that need writing, stories that need telling with fresh levels of detail, or in an entirely new frame. After Neptune’s Inferno, I was looking for a project that offered expansive territory in terms of geography, people and operational terrain, fresh, ambitious themes, and massive amounts of combat action that was hugely consequential. When I realized that no single volume had yet taken on the entirety of the Marianas campaign and followed that coherently to the end and what it led to, I had something. I wrote a proposal for a campaign history of Operation Forager, encompassing all its diverse operations on air, land and sea, as well as the singular, war-ending purpose to which that victory was put. The original title given to my publisher was Crescendo: The Story of the Marianas Campaign, the Great Pacific Air, Land and Sea Victory that Finished Imperial Japan. In the first paragraph of that proposal, I wrote, “No nation had ever attempted a military expedition more ambitious than Operation Forager, and none had greater consequence.” And that conceit held up well through four years of work. Everything I learned about the Marianas as the strategic fulcrum of the theater fleshed out this interpretation in spades.

As you said, in the book you focus on the Marianas Campaign, and there are some key personalities during the 1944-45 campaign. Namely, Raymond Spruance, Kelly Turner, and Paul Tibbets are front and center in your book. When scoping this book out, how did you decide to focus on these men?

As commander of the Fifth Fleet, Raymond Spruance took the Marianas and won the greatest carrier battle in history in their defense along the way. Spruance, to me, stands as the finest operational naval commander this nation ever produced. After all the ink spilled on Halsey and the paucity of literature on Spruance, it was, I thought, time to give him his due. Kelly Turner, Spruance’s amphibious commander, has always fascinated me. After his controversial tour as a war plans and intelligence guy in Washington in the run-up to Pearl Harbor, and then in the early days of Guadalcanal, surviving a dawning disaster (and did I mention he was an alcoholic), it’s incredible that Turner retained Spruance’s confidence. Yet he emerged as the leading practitioner of what CNO Ernest J. King called “the outstanding development of the war”: amphibious warfare. He has been poorly credited in history and deserved a close focus for his innovations, which included among other things an emphasis on “heavy power”—the ability to transport multiple divisions and their fire support and sustenance over thousands of miles of ocean—as well as the first large-scale employment of the unit that gave us the Navy SEALs.

As for Paul Tibbets, he and his top-secret B-29 group were the reason for the season, so to speak, the strategic purpose behind all the trouble that Spruance, Turner, and the rest endured in taking the Central Pacific. Without Army strategic air power, the Navy might never have persuaded the Joint Chiefs to go into the Marianas in 1944. And without Paul Tibbets and his high performance under strenuous time pressure, the war lasts well into 1946. Did you know that it was his near court-martial in North Africa in 1942 that got him sent to the Pacific in the first place?

General Carl Spaatz decorates Tibbets with the Distinguished Service Cross after the Hiroshima mission/USAF Official Photo
General Carl Spaatz (l) decorates Colonel Tibbets (r) with the Distinguished Service Cross after the Hiroshima mission (USAF Official Photo)

Early in the book you say that naval strategy was driven more by how fast the navy was building ships and not by battle experience. How so?

Well, of course the naval strategy that won the Pacific war, War Plan Orange and its successors, was drawn up and wargamed in the 1930s. But at the operational level, nothing prepared the Navy to employ the explosion of naval production that took place in 1943 and 1944. Fifteen fast aircraft carriers were put into commission in 1943. Thus was born the idea of a single carrier task force composed of three- and four-carrier task groups. The ability to concentrate or disperse gave Spruance and his carrier boss, Marc Mitscher, tremendous flexibility.

They realized during the February 1944 strike on Truk Atoll that it was no longer necessary to hit and run. There had been no precedent for this. Instead of hitting and running, relying on mobility and surprise, they could hit and stay, relying on sheer combat power, both offensive and defensive. That changed everything.

By the time the Fifth Fleet wrapped up the conquest of Guam, the carrier fleet was both an irresistible force and an immovable object. That was a function of a sudden surplus of hulls, and the innovations that the air admiralty proved up on the fly in the first half of 1944. Most of these involved making best use of the new Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat, fleet air defense, shipboard fighter direction, division of labor among carriers (for combat air patrol, search, and strike), armed search missions (rocket- and bomb-equipped Hellcats), the concept of the fighter sweep, adjusting the makeup of air groups to be fighter-heavy, night search and night fighting, and so on.

Grumman F6F Hellcats of VF-8 in flight/Wikipedia
Grumman F6F Hellcats of VF-8 in flight (Wikimedia Commons)

Just as important was the surge in amphibious shipping. In 1943, more than 21,000 new ‘phibs were launched of all sizes. The next year, that number surpassed 37,000. That’s the “fleet at flood tide” of my title. As Chester Nimitz himself noted, the final stage of the greatest sea war in history commenced in the Marianas, which became its fulcrum. Neither Iwo Jima nor Okinawa obviated that. And that concept is the conceit of my book and its contribution, I suppose—the centrality of the Marianas campaign, and how it changed warfare and produced America’s position in the world as an atomic superpower.

Spruance, King, Halsey, Tibbets, Turner ––  all of them are giant military historical figures. After diving into the lives of these men, what surprised you? Did you go in with assumptions or prior knowledge about their personalities or behavior that changed over the course of writing this book? 

I had never fully understood the size of Raymond Spruance’s warrior’s heart. I just mentioned the Truk strikes. Did you know that in the midst of it, Spruance detached the USS New Jersey and Iowa, two heavy cruisers, and a quartet of destroyers from Mitscher’s task force, took tactical command, and went hunting cripples? This was an inadvisable and even reckless thing for a fleet commander to do. He and his staff were unprepared to conduct tactical action. But he couldn’t resist the chance to seize a last grasp at history, to lead battleships in combat in neutering Japan’s greatest forward-area naval base.

Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo/Wikipedia
Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo (Wikimedia Commons)

Also, I hadn’t known how much Spruance exulted in the suicide death on Saipan of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the executioner of the Pearl Harbor strike and Spruance’s opponent at Midway. Finally, I was unaware of the extent of his physical courage. Off Okinawa, in the space of two weeks in May 1945, two of his flagships, the Indianapolis and New Mexico, were hit by kamikazes. In the latter, he disappeared into the burning wreckage of the superstructure, to the horror of his staff, and turned up shortly afterward manning a fire hose. That’s a style of leadership that the “cautious” COMFIFTHFLT is seldom credited for.

Regarding Tibbets, I mentioned his near court-martial in North Africa. Few people know this happened, or even that he served in Europe at all, but he was among the finest B-17 squadron commanders in the ETO in 1942. The lesson of his near downfall is: Never mess with a line officer who’s destined to become a four star. This would be Lauris Norstad, Tibbets’s operations officer in North Africa, who went on to become one of the most important USAF generals of the Cold War.

You touch on this in your book, but the war stressed all of these men greatly. And each of them handled it in their own way. Taking just Spruance and Tibbets as examples, how did they handle the loss of men and the toll of war?

Spruance, in his correspondence, often described war as an intellectual puzzle. He could be hard-hearted. Shortly after the flag went up on Mount Suribachi, he wrote his wife, “I understand some of the sob fraternity back home have been raising the devil about our casualties on Iwo. I would have thought that by this time they would have learned that you can’t make war on a tough, fanatical enemy like the Japs without our people getting hurt and killed.” That’s a phrase worthy of Halsey: the sob fraternity. And yet when he toured the base hospitals, he felt deeply for the wounded in war.

It was for this reason that Spruance opposed the idea of landing troops in Japan. He favored the Navy’s preference for blockade. But those were perfectly exhausting operations at sea, week after week of launching strikes against airdromes in Western Pacific island strongholds, and in the home islands themselves. By the time Admiral Halsey relieved Spruance at Okinawa in May 1945, Spruance was exhausted both physically and morally.  

Paul Tibbets suffered losses of his men in Europe, but in the Pacific he was stuck in a training cycle that ended only at Hiroshima on August 6. Later in life, he considered the mass death and destruction he wrought as an irretrievable necessity. Responding to those who considered waging total war against civilian targets an abomination of morals, Tibbets would say, “Those people never had their balls on that cold, hard anvil.” I don’t think the moral objectors have ever fully credited either the tragic necessity or the specific success of the mission of the atomic bomb program: turning Emperor Hirohito’s heart. Tibbets was always unsentimental about it. 

Why is Spruance considered a genius?

Admiral Raymond Spruance, USN/Alfred J. Sedivi, courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute
Admiral Raymond Spruance, USN (Alfred J. Sedivi, courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute)

He was the ultimate planner, and through his excellence in planning, naval operations became more than operational or tactical. They became strategic, war-ending. It was no accident that Raymond Spruance planned and carried out every major amphibious operation in the Western Pacific except for the one that invited real disaster, Leyte. He was in style, temperament, and talent a reflection of his mentor, Chester Nimitz. The Japanese gave him the ultimate compliment. Admiral Junichi Ozawa told an interviewer after the war that Spruance was “impossible to trap.”

Switching gears a bit, what is your favorite naval history book?

It’s a long list, probably led by Samuel Eliot Morison’s volume 5, Guadalcanal, but I’m going to put three ahead of him as a personal matter: Tin Cans by Theodore Roscoe, Japanese Destroyer Captain by Tameichi Hara, and Baa Baa Black Sheep by Gregory Boyington. This selection may underwhelm your readers who are big on theory, doctrine, and analytical history, but I list them unapologetically. These were the books that set me on fire with passion for the story of the Pacific War when I was, like, twelve. If I hadn’t read them at that young age, I don’t think I would be writing today. It is only a bonus that all three were published by the company that’s publishing me today, Bantam/Ballantine. We are upholding a tradition!

What is your research and writing process like?

It’s all an elaborate moonlighting gig, conducted in relation to, but apart from, my other work in book publishing. It takes me a while to get these done in my free time, which is stolen mostly from my generous and long-abiding wife, Sharon, and our family. But basically the process looks like this: I turn on my shop-strength vacuum cleaner, snap on the largest, widest attachment, and collect material for 18 to 24 months before I even think about writing. Having collated my notes and organized my data, I then dive into the fitful process of making this rough assemblage readable and smooth, envisioning multiple readers, from expert navalists to my dear mother, with every sentence I type. I stay on that task, early mornings and weekends, for maybe 18 more months. Then, in the case of The Fleet at Flood Tide, my editor and I beat the draft around through two or three revisions before it was finally given to the Random House production editor. Then we sweat over photos and maps. History to me is intensively visual, both in the writing and in the illustrating, so this is a major emphasis for me all along the way. I never offload any of this work to a research staff.

In spite of all of this effort, the result is usually, maddeningly, imperfect in the end. But it is always the best I can do, using this hand-tooled approach under the time pressure that inevitably develops.


What’s next? Are you already thinking about what you want to write about after you finish the book tour and publicity for The Fleet at Flood Tide? Do you have a specific subject in mind?

One word and one numeral: Post-1945.

Last question. A lot of our readers here at the CIMSEC are also writers. What advice would you give to the aspiring naval historian?

Think big. Then think bigger. Then get started. And focus on people and all the interesting problems they’re facing.

James D. Hornfischer is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Neptune’s Inferno, Ship of Ghosts, and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award. A native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Colgate University and the University of Texas School of Law, he lives in Austin, Texas.

Christopher Nelson is a naval officer stationed at the U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters. A regular contributor to CIMSEC, he is a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College and the U.S. Navy’s operational planning school, the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School in Newport, Rhode Island. The questions and comments above are his own and do not reflect those of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.

Featured Image: First Wave of U.S. Marines landing on Saipan. (USMC photo)

1980s Maritime Strategy Series

Pat Roll on Tactics of the Maritime Strategy and Cover and Deception Operations

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1980s Maritime Strategy Series

By Dmitry Filipoff

CIMSEC discussed the 1980s Maritime Strategy with Captain Pat Roll (ret.), who served as a staff tactician for Admirals Ace Lyons, Joe Metcalf, and Hank Mustin. In this conversation, Capt. Roll discusses how tactical development fleshed out the execution of the Maritime Strategy at sea, the Navy’s use of cover and deception operations to move battle groups undetected, and the core relationship between strategy and tactics.

In what sort of roles did you contribute to the tactics undergirding the Maritime Strategy?

My work on the Maritime Strategy started when I met first Ace Lyons in the 1970s, who was at the time the chief of staff of Commander Carrier Group 4 staff, embarked on America. I was a fresh-caught lieutenant commander and I had just graduated from the Tactical Action Officer school. I came aboard the staff as the staff tactician. My background was electronic warfare, that was my subspeciality. Included there was of course cover and deception. So I came aboard the staff as the tactician and he came as a warfighter and that’s what he did, he put together a small cadre of folks when he was Captain James “Ace” Lyons, and I was one of his people.

And then we sort of split to the four winds and he was promoted to rear admiral and sent to the Pacific. The years passed, and then in 1981 when John Lehman became Secretary of the Navy (he and Admiral Lyons were friends), he asked Admiral Lyons if he wanted to take 2nd Fleet. At that time Lyons was in OP-06 in the Pentagon. He then took 2nd Fleet in the summer of 1981.

At the time I was the combat systems officer on the new construction USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). So he called me to the flagship Mt. Whitney and he said, “I want you to sail with me on an exercise (Ocean Venture) we are going to have here shortly, and bring some modern tactics with you.” I was a commander at the time. I said, “Yes, sir, but I really am gainfully employed, I’m putting together the combat center for Carl Vinson.” And he said, “Well I’m sure you can find somebody to cover for you.” Well, whatever you say, Admiral. And so I sailed.

We were gone for three weeks in the North Atlantic, and it was just a regular 2nd Fleet exercise at the time. After the exercise he said to me, “I want you on the staff. I want you to be the tactician.” And I said, “Okay, I’ll do it, just let me finish up the work on Carl Vinson.” Which I did. And then the winter of 1981-1982 after contractor sea trials for Carl Vinson I was released to work for Ace Lyons.

At the time the component commanders of the 2nd Fleet, all of the CARGRUs and the DESGRUs, they all had their own TACMEMOs, tactical memoranda, tactical notes, air wings especially, on how to employ the F-14, A-6, and the EA-6B Prowler, and how to do it effectively. All these different tactical notes were floating around, but they were platform-specific, disjointed, and not always written with the same language.

So he got a couple of us together and said, “Look, we’ve got to make rhyme and reason out of all this paper that’s out there. And train in its accordance with what’s required of the Maritime Strategy.” We took a careful look at what came out of the Pentagon and thought we had a lot of material here that could be distilled into a publication that would outline how to fight the 2nd Fleet. More importantly, how to fight the Striking Fleet Atlantic.

These were the Fighting Instructions.

That’s exactly right. So we started working with the CARGRUs and the DESGRUs to assemble these tacnotes and tactical memoranda, make rhyme or reason out of these things, and put it into a publication with common language. And with applicability to all platforms, not just platform-specific, although some of them were of course.

So we put it all together and sent it to the Center for Naval Analyses. Phil DePoy was the director at the time and he gave it to his people and they blessed it. They sent it back, said it looks good, and we published it. And it became a war-at-sea sourcebook for all component commands within the Striking Fleet.

How was it implemented, how was it used?

It was distributed as a directive. It was almost like a 2nd Fleet instruction: you will digest this, and you will incorporate electronic warfare and cover and deception into your tactical planning. And all tactical plans will be submitted to the commander of the 2nd Fleet, commander of the Striking Fleet Atlantic, for approval.

There is another component here: Anti-Submarine Warfare Group 2. That’s a British command, it was Rear Admiral Derek Reffell. He put together the outline for force disposition, it was a large grid, and he started work on decentralized command and control, which would allow for a large force to deploy to the GIUK gap and into the Norwegian Sea.

So we began to train for deployment with the anti-submarine warfare group, with the NATO vessels, although to be honest, it was 2nd Fleet that was driving the train, not the Striking Fleet. We did a successful exercise called Ocean Venture. Which was, in fact, executing the Maritime Strategy. And we went into the Norwegian Sea in the summer of 1982 on Northern Wedding. John Lehman’s book Oceans Ventured outlines what happened. They were successful exercises.

What we learned was that it was very difficult. The intent was to transpose the Norwegian Sea from a Soviet lake into a 2nd Fleet stomping ground. But what we found was it was impossible to stay away from the TU-95 Bear. The reconnaissance planes. They were all over us. We also learned that the Norwegian Sea is not friendly toward surface warfare, not by a longshot.

Later on I was Admiral Lyons’ tactician when he was CINCPACFLT and he asked me to join him as flag secretary, but in fact I was a tactician. His first move was to get the 3rd Fleet to sea, to become a warfighting entity, and operate in a similar mold that he had made the 2nd Fleet into. When Ace Lyons had taken over the 2nd Fleet, it had been a training command preparing ships and staff for deployment to the 6th Fleet. He had changed all that, saying this isn’t a training command, it is a fighting force. And he had made it into a fighting force. Sure, a lot of guys had to fall by the wayside for that, but that’s just how that happens.

When Ace came out to the Pacific, the first thing he did was get Vice Admiral Ken Moranville to move his 3rd Fleet from Ford Island to a flagship and then become a fighting force. Ace made cover and deception a household word in PACFLT. He gathered all the CARGRUs and DESGRUs from all over the Pacific, brought them into Pearl Harbor, and gave them marching orders. He said, “We are not going to be spread out here and there just maintaining presence. We’re going to fight the Maritime Strategy in the Pacific.” That was oriented on the Kuril Islands. He would run mirror exercises like we were going to take the Kuril wedge, to include amphibious forces, and then at the last minute would turn away. It was stressing the Soviets out.

Previously when Ace Lyons had finished up his tour at 2nd Fleet, Vice Admiral Joe Metcalf took over. Metcalf took a look at the readiness index and he liked it. But he was really antsy on command and control, and he was right. We didn’t have digital communication yet, we were still in the analog world. HF was not reliable. And we didn’t have the satellites that we have today. So we had to rely on decentralized command and control, which was where the Fighting Instructions came in.

The Fighting Instructions were instructions on how to operate, and of course they were dynamic, they were not chiseled in stone. But the Fighting Instructions allowed for support of operations for ASW and AAW, which was where our concern really was. So we were in the Norwegian Sea and we fleshed all the difficulties out, including command and control.

Admiral Metcalf was there for a little less than two years. Then Hank Mustin came in. And Hank Mustin came in like a tidal wave.

Of all the admirals I have worked for, if we were going to go to war, we needed Hank Mustin. As the custodian of the Fighting Instructions and the staff tactician, I got close to Mustin. We played racquetball every morning before work at the piers on Norfolk. I got to know him pretty well.

He took the Fighting Instructions to a new level. For him they became the bible. And they were already dynamic, but what he did (which none of the other guys did) was establish the Tactics Board. It was very clear that he wanted anybody who was not deployed to travel to Norfolk once a month, sit down, and take a careful look at how to implement the Maritime Strategy tactically.

I was the recording secretary of the Tactics Board. After these monthly meetings, after the decisions, points of discussion, and the hard spots were worked through, I made sure these got on paper. I authenticated and Hank Mustin signed. We were pretty confident we could execute whatever task was given in the name of the Maritime Strategy in the north Atlantic.

Because we were so concerned with the TU-95 reconnaissance planes, we thought to ourselves, what if we operated in the fjords? What if we took a carrier group into the Saltfjorden fjord out of Bodø, Norway, or the fjords by the North Cape before you go into the Barents Sea. We operated in pretty good water, but not a lot of sea room.

RDML Paul Ilg went into the fjords and did a really in-depth study, especially into the Saltfjorden fjord, on how effective flight operations could be, and at the same time, remain concealed from the TU-95s, which would have to be right on top of you to see you. We were really attracted to operating out of the fjords and the plan was to get into the fjord with a full complement of an air wing, and you could then conduct strikes across the Baltic into Kaliningrad, Leningrad, and some of their big shipyards. The only downsides that Paul Ilg came back with was sea room and weather. Weather was a constraint, it was always a consideration.

Our reconnaissance flown out of Rota, Spain kept a pretty good tab on what the Soviet Navy was doing in those shipyards, their exercises, and testing and development. We had great intelligence support.

Hank Mustin was faced with fuel constraints. He didn’t have a lot of bucks for fuel. So he established what he called the Battle Force In-Port Training (BFIT). We would run these exercises in Charleston, in Norfolk, Mayport, and King’s Bay, and run these Maritime Strategy-oriented exercises without anybody leaving port. It was a thing of beauty. And everybody not deployed would get trained up on aspects of the Maritime Strategy and not use any fuel. The readiness dividends were incredible. These boats would button up like they’re getting underway and they would carry out the tasks assigned.

If I was to identify the most important contribution to fleet readiness that I’d seen, it would be the Battle Force In-Port Training exercises. We loved it. It was Hank’s brainchild.

The communities each had their own sets of tactics but didn’t often interact with one another. How did you bring them together and make sure they were on the same sheet of music and socialize these tactical concepts?

The communication between the fleet commander and the subordinate DESGRUs and CARGRUs was excellent then, it was really dynamic. Every subordinate knew what Hank was thinking. He made the statement, “If you take the first hit, and you survive, I will fire you.” Everybody understood that.

So with that kind of emphasis and that kind of urgency, everybody had their ears up and their lights on. Before each exercise, he would gather everybody aboard Mt. Whitney and they would plan the exercise together. After the whole thing was over there would be a hot washup, maybe a day or two, and all the weaknesses and nuances would be fleshed out and addressed. Those kinds of working relationships between the communities were there. No independent steaming, no independent operations, it was cohesive and focused on whatever aspect the Maritime Strategy demanded.

How would you describe the difference between strategy and tactics, and how do they relate to one another?

Simply stated, strategy is force employment structured to accomplish a theater-level mission or portion thereof considering enemy composition, geographic location, logistics, force availability, etc. Strategic planning and execution usually resides within the battle force staff in collaboration with the theater commander. Tactics in its basic form is centered on fighting the ship or air wing. More to the point, tactics is fighting the ship/air wing as part of the battle group warfighting doctrine in support of an assigned task.

Without a strategy, putting together tactics is like the sound of one hand clapping. Unless you have a strategy in place as to what it is you want to do, unless you understand that, then all the effort in the world may or may not accomplish what you want to do. You have to have a strategy, you have to have a concept. If you don’t have a strategy, how can you put together fleet tactics to support something that doesn’t exist?

Three times a year we would take Mt. Whitney up to the Naval War College and we would run those modules and exercises. We would have a red cell, and we would have all the other ships, and we would run these exercises at Sims Hall. I was on loan to the red cell because they sometimes didn’t have tactically-oriented people to run the enemy, so that’s what I did. We’d finish up these exercises and everybody would learn. Everybody understood what was required.

Electronic warfare wasn’t appreciated originally, if you could speak more to that.

Electronic warfare was never attractive. It didn’t explode, it wasn’t a rocket, you didn’t sink ships. It was a higher level of warfare that was more of a force multiplier than a lethal weapon. Because of that the Navy never really invested heavily in electronic warfare. It was a mindset.

But you had guys like Ace Lyons and Hank Mustin, and they think well wait a minute, for minimal expense I can double my force. I can move my battle group without the Soviets knowing it. And we did it.

For example, it didn’t take long in 1986 to determine that the Persian Gulf was awash with Soviet mines and that the Kuwaitis were losing tankers. The State Department said we needed escorts for our tankers to move out into the Arabian Sea without running into mines. The word went out that they really needed help. CJCS Admiral Crowe told CINCPACFLT Admiral Lyons they needed minesweeping capability in the Gulf. So we moved a battle group to the Arabian Sea from the middle of the Indian Ocean in Diego Garcia without anybody knowing about it. It was the swiftest, coolest thing we’d ever done. We played the satellite game, we did total radio silence, and with high speed. That was cover and deception at its best. And that is a tactic, not a strategy.

There’s another thing to consider: logistics. It takes two weeks for a unit to go from San Diego to Hawaii. And then it takes another two weeks to go from Hawaii to the South China Sea or East China Sea. I didn’t realize this until I got out to the Pacific, but I didn’t really have an appreciation for distance. Maintaining the logistics to keep a ship out at sea with at least 70-80 percent of its fuel and other necessities, that’s a challenge. Logistics are always the big concern. All you have to do is read any of those historians that did the Pacific War and see what they had to say about support, the incredible amount of support that is needed to keep a force of several battle groups operating at sea for an extended period of time.

I was the CO of the Fleet Deception Group in Norfolk for three years. We had a lot of electronic warfare players that would support the 2nd Fleet. We would disguise ships, such as take a destroyer and make it look like an oiler, or take a cruiser and make it look like a carrier, things like that.

Sometimes folks don’t like having their sensors and comms jammed in combat exercises. How did they respond to that?

We would put these vans aboard that would simulate the communications you would expect out of a battle group, but it was on just a destroyer, and the CO would have to put up with that. Some received it well. The warfighters certainly did, but not everyone at sea is a warfighter. Not everybody in the War College is a warfighter. And a lot of them, the guys at the CARGRUs and the DESGRUs, a lot of them are administrative types. They didn’t know any more about naval warfare than they did about growing tomatoes. It was disappointing.

But Hank Mustin still took them aboard. And he would say, “You will fight. And if you take the first hit and survive, I’ll fire you.”

Captain Pat Roll (ret.) served for 31 years in the Navy. Specializing in fleet tactics and electronic warfare, he served in a variety of EW assignments, including as Commanding Officer, Fleet Deception Group Atlantic. While attached to Commander, Second Fleet, he was responsible for compiling, editing, and publishing the Second Fleet Fighting Instructions. He served as flag secretary and staff tactician to the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, Admiral Ace Lyons, and as Assistant Chief of Staff for Battle Force Command and Control to Commander, Second Fleet, Vice Admiral Hank Mustin. Capt. Roll retired in 1993.

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at [email protected].

Featured Image: March 19, 1983 – A left side air-to-air view of a Soviet Tu-95 Bear maritime reconnaissance aircraft, top, being escorted by a U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat aircraft as the Soviet aircraft approaches the Readex 1-83 battle group. (Photo by LT J.G. Thomas Prochilo via the U.S. National Archives)

Podcast

Sea Control 255 – Littoral Access Companies with Zach Ota

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By Walker Mills

Major Zach Ota, a Marine Corps Regional Affairs Officer, talks with host Walker Mills about his award-winning essay “Littoral Access Companies” as well as the opportunities and challenges in the Marine Corps international affairs community. Zach also tells the story of Sergeant Major Jacob Vouza, a Solomon Islands native who played a critical role in the Allied victory at Guadalcanal. 

Download Sea Control 255 – Littoral Access Companies with Zach Ota

Links

1. “Littoral Access Companies,” by Zach Ota, Marine Corps Gazette, February 2021.
2. “Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations,” by USMC, 2020.
3. “Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment,” USMC, 2017.
4. Solomon Islanders in World War II: An Indigenous Perspective, Anna Annie Kwai, Australian National University Press, 2017.
5. “Sleeper Cell Logistics,” by Michael Sweeny, Marine Corps Gazette, January 2021.
6. Civil Affairs: Soldiers Became Governors, by Albert Weinberg and Harry Coles, Center of Military History, 1986. 

Walker Mills is Co-Host of the Sea Control podcast. Contact the podcast team at [email protected].

Tactics

Close the Gaps! Airborne ASW Yesterday and Tomorrow

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By Jason Lancaster, LCDR, USN

Introduction

Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) is about putting sensors and weapons in place to detect and destroy submarines. The types of sensors have changed based on technological improvements and types of submarines, but the main principle is minimizing the sensor coverage gaps and engaging the submarine before it is within its weapons engagement zone (WEZ). Speed, endurance, and flexibility make aircraft excellent ASW platforms. It enables them to conduct wide-area searches and engage submarines before a submarine can attack.

Airpower is vital to protecting the center of gravity. In the Second World War, the European naval war’s center of gravity was the trans-Atlantic convoys that supplied the Allies’ war effort. The Allied struggle was to reduce air coverage gaps in the Atlantic to effectively protect convoys. In order to convoy ships across the Atlantic, the Allies had to close the gaps in air coverage. During the Cold War Era, the center of gravity was the power projection capability of the carrier. The challenge was to protect the carrier both for convoy protection and force projection. Today, the challenge to protect the carrier remains, and a dangerous new gap needs to be closed.

The Russian and Chinese navies have invested heavily in building quiet submarines capable of firing Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCMs) in excess of 200 nm. These missiles threaten our Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs) because the CSG lacks an organic capability to detect and engage these submarines outside of the submarines’ WEZ. This is not the first time that we have dealt with an increasingly dangerous submarine threat. Today, the U.S. center of gravity for naval combat remains the CVN. To defend the CVN or any high value vessels from submarines, we may find the answer to be similar to what it was in World War II and the Cold War. We can explore the U.S. Navy’s historical use of air power and technology to overcome submarine advantages and then explore future improvements to close the gaps using unmanned aircraft.  

The Second World War

The Battle of the Atlantic tested the Allies’ ability to defend trans-Atlantic convoys at points throughout the European Theater of Operations, from Archangel to Cape Town and the Panama Canal to the Suez Canal; convoys had to be protected from submarines. Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic was the result of the Allies’ ability to eliminate gaps in air coverage with long range air and carrier-based convoy escorts. The challenge for the Allies was to extend air coverage to cover the entire convoy route. The Allies closed air coverage gaps in three ways: they expanded the number of air stations, developed longer-range aircraft, and integrated the escort carrier (CVE).

In August 1942, aircraft were limited to proximity from the U.S., Canada, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, and the African coast. Air coverage decreased the number of attacks in the western approaches to the English Channel. However, the German U-boats continued their depredations farther to sea into an area where aircraft could not reach. The Navy had to continue to close coverage gaps.

In order to close gaps, the Navy went to work opening air bases around the Atlantic rim to expand air coverage. From Greenland to Brazil, the U.S. worked with host nations to build and develop airfields. Unfortunately, gaining permission to operate an airfield did not mean planes could start flying right away. For example, the Danish government in exile gave the United States permission to operate aircraft out of Narsarsuaq, Greenland in April 1941; VP-6 aircraft did not operate from there until October 1943. In Natal, Brazil, the Navy took over facilities that Pan Am had been developing in 1940, but the facilities did not officially become active until 1943. In the Caribbean, planes flew convoy routes from Coco Solo, Panama to Trinidad and on to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Extent of Allied Air Coverage (Author Graphic)

The Navy acquired the bases to operate from, but to close the gaps, aircraft were required to patrol from those bases. The Navy began the war with long-range aircraft, but not the vast numbers required for the massive amount of ocean requiring protection. Thousands of hours of patrol time were required to detect a submarine, creating a massive demand for aircraft. Congress passed the Two Ocean Navy Act in 1940, but aircraft production and aviation training had to catch up to wartime demand. 49 fixed-wing patrol (VP) squadrons were formed in 1943 alone. The influx of new planes and aircrews allowed the Allies to swarm the Atlantic.

This influx of planes enabled the Navy to cover the Atlantic in aircraft and force the U-boats to change tactics. In 1940, U-boats had submerged at the first sight of an aircraft. Many of those aircraft lacked effective weapons to sink a U-boat. Improvements to depth charges, radar, and searchlights increased the kill count. By 1943, U-boats had been re-armed with quadruple 20 mm anti-aircraft guns and traveled the Bay of Biscay surfaced in packs for mutual defense against aircraft. Submarines shooting it out with aircraft resulted in the sinking of 34 submarines in the Atlantic in July 1943. Between August and December of 1943, the Allies flew 7,000 hours of patrols in the Bay of Biscay alone. 7,000 hours translated to 36 sightings, 18 attacks, and 3 kills. Although the number of sightings was low, the U-boats had implemented a policy of maximum submergence, reducing their ability to travel rapidly on the surface during daylight.

Despite increased bases and more aircraft, the center of the Atlantic remained out of reach to land-based aircraft. This gap was closed by escort carriers (CVEs). These aircraft carriers were converted from merchant ships and equipped with a flight deck and a composite squadron of approximately 20 carrier aircraft; typically F4F Wildcats and TBF Avengers. Escort carriers operated in two main modes; direct support to convoys flying patrols around the convoy searching for U-boats, or as the flagship of a hunter-killer squadron. Initially, the aircraft only flew daytime missions, but submarines would surface to recharge their batteries at night. The aircraft flying off escort carriers became the first to regularly fly night missions. Escort carrier groups sank 53 U-boats during the war, including 60 percent of all U-boats sank between April and September of 1944.

A torpedo plane approaches for a landing while USS Guadalcanal tows U-505 astern. (U.S. Navy photo)

By June 1944, U-boats operated primarily submerged utilizing snorkels. The Allies’ ability to build airbases, manufacture planes, and convert aircraft carriers from merchant ships had enabled them to patrol the entirety of the Atlantic, giving the U-boats nowhere to escape.  Staying submerged dramatically reduced submarine range and speed, and there were more U-boat losses than merchant ship losses by the end of 1944. Closing the air coverage gaps in the Atlantic enabled the United States to transport armies across the ocean, maintain the supply lines to the Soviet Union and Great Britain, and win victory in Europe.     

The Cold War

During the Cold War, the Navy focused resources into the ability to project power ashore by building carrier battle groups and operating them in the eastern Mediterranean and the high north. The Cold War carrier battle group had to contend with Soviet long-range naval aviation, as well as nuclear and diesel submarines. Protecting the carrier against nuclear and diesel-electric submarines required defense-in-depth to prevent coverage gaps where submarines could freely target the carrier.

In the early years of the Cold War, World War II-era aircraft carriers were converted to ASW carriers (CVS) and operated 20 S-2 Trackers and 16-18 ASW helicopters and their escorts. During the 1950s, the U.S. maintained 20 ASW battle groups composed of a CVS and escorts. Budget constraints, a focus on the Vietnam War, and the increasing maintenance costs of aging ships resulted in the decommissioning of CVSs through the late 1960s. To maintain carrier-based airborne ASW, the CV replaced an attack squadron (VA) with an air ASW squadron (VS).

Exercises such as Ocean Venture ’81 had demonstrated the Navy’s global reach and ability to place strike aircraft on the Soviet border undetected. The Soviets wanted to deny the eastern Mediterranean and the high north to carrier battle groups to protect the Soviet Union from these attacks. The Soviets’ primary means of denial were their massive submarine fleet and long-range aviation assets. The U.S. expected the Soviets to attack the convoy routes that would bring additional U.S. troops, equipment, and stores to Europe, as well as target the carrier battle groups.  

The U.S. developed an ASW system to protect both convoys and battle groups. Submarines and maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft (MPRA) could patrol independently, but also received cueing from the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). SOSUS arrays stretched across the gaps that Soviet submarines would travel to reach the north Atlantic Ocean; from Bear Island to the Norwegian coast, and across the Greenland-Iceland-UK gaps (GIUK). These arrays were monitored by acoustic technicians and able to vector submarines and MPRA to pounce on Soviet submarines as they transited into the north Atlantic. These barriers formed the outer submarine defensive zones that would enable the U.S. to kill Soviet submarines in chokepoints. The role of these submarines and MPRA was sea denial.

A U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3C Orion from Patrol Squadron Eight (VP-8) “Fighting Tigers” flying over a Soviet Victor III-class submarine in 1985.(U.S. Navy photo)

Convoys would be supported by helicopter-equipped ASW frigates and destroyers and MPRA operating from bases in Canada, Iceland, the Azores, and the United Kingdom. The mission of these escorts was not to create permanent sea control, but to create a bubble of temporary local sea control that would enable the convoyed merchant ships to reach Europe without losses. Carrier battle groups would support these convoys, as required, to protect against air attacks, or would head to the Norwegian coast to conduct offensive operations against the Soviet Union.  

The purpose of the carrier battle group was sea control. The typical carrier battle group was composed of an aircraft carrier, 8-10 escorting cruisers, destroyers, and frigates, and the air wing. The carrier battle group utilized defense-in-depth to defend the carrier. The most distant ring was the inorganic theater ASW (TASW) fight utilizing the SOSUS network, MPRA, and submarines. The battle group did not lead this fight, but paid attention to it.  

Submarines that transited past the MPRA, submarine, and SOSUS barriers required the battle group’s anti-submarine warfare commander (ASWC) to defend the carrier. The 1980s battle group’s ASW plan was composed of three zones: the outer zone (100-300NM), the middle zone (30-70NM), and the inner zone (0-30NM). The battle group’s organic outer defense was composed of ASW helicopter-equipped frigates or destroyers with towed acoustic arrays. The VS squadron and helicopter anti-submarine squadron (HS) were to patrol the inner and middle zones, but maintained the ability to pounce in the outer zone, as required. The inner screen was composed of 3-4 destroyers or frigates utilizing active sonar. Active sonar was required because the carrier and its inner screen utilized speed and maneuver to minimize the ability of a submarine to target the carrier. The noise of speed negated passive tracking.

September 9, 1989 – A starboard quarter view of a Soviet Akula Class nuclear-powered attack submarine underway. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

Victory for the TASW MPRA, submarine, and SOSUS team was the number of submarines destroyed. The battle group’s victory was defined avoiding an attack, whether that was from killing submarines, utilizing limiting lines of approach and maneuver, or defense-in-depth deterrence to prevent submarines from closing on the carrier. The Navy utilized multiple assets with different capabilities and limitations to prevent gaps in the carrier’s screen. TASW, multiple surface ships, CV, DD, and FF-based helicopters and ASW aircraft all contributed to the successful defense of the carrier. The skilled ASWC was able to balance the strengths and weaknesses of each part of the screen and keep the Soviet submarine away from the carrier.

ASW Today and Tomorrow

The threat of Soviet submarines seemingly disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Without the threat of Soviet submarines, U.S. interest in ASW withered. The nation’s peace dividend included the cancellation of the P-3 replacement aircraft, and the reduction of MPRA squadrons from 24 to 12 between 1989 and 1996. The remaining P-3s found their sensors optimized for detecting surfaced submarines and were useful to the Joint Force flying ISR missions over the Balkans and the Middle East. These missions sustained the reduced MPRA force through the budget cuts of the 1990s and the land combat-centric days of the War on Terror. The S-3B Vikings left their ASW role behind and performed mission tanking duties for F/A-18s before being prematurely retired, many with almost 10,000 flying hours left in them.  

In the 2010s, a new generation of ASW aircraft was flying. The P-8A Poseidon replaced the P-3C Orion and the MH-60R replaced the SH-60B and SH-60F. As witnessed during multiple ASW exercises, the combination of P-8As and MH-60Rs is nearly unstoppable. However, there is a clear capability gap at the strike group level. As a theater asset, the P-8s are limited in number, and fly missions across the fleet. The MH-60R has tremendous capability, but a limited range. It is not designed for area searching, but localizing a contact or conducting datum searches.

Full Spectrum ASW’s 9th thread is, “defeat the submarine in close battle.” With modern ASCMs and over-the-horizon targeting, the close battle is at least 200 nm from the strike group. The strike group must rely on the theater ASW commander to prosecute any modern submarines. While the strike group is important for the TASW commander to protect, TASW has a limited number of available submarines and P-8s and a multitude of submarines to prosecute. An organic aircraft capable of long-range ASW would enable the strike group commander to defend a larger strike group operating area, freeing TASW assets for threads 5 (Defeat submarines in choke points), 6 (Defeat submarines in open ocean), and 7 (Draw the enemy into ASW “kill boxes”).

Today, the CSG is composed of an aircraft carrier and three to five escorting cruisers or destroyers, which is half the ships of a Cold War-era Carrier Battle Group, and an air wing. The main organic ASW aircraft are MH-60Rs, helicopters with outstanding capabilities, but limited range. There are no organic ASW aircraft in the carrier air wing capable of searching, localizing, tracking, and engaging submarines beyond the submarine’s WEZ.  

MH-60Rs were not designed for area ASW searches and lack the endurance to search 200 nm from their ship. E-2 and EA-18G aircraft support the ASW fight with their capable radar and electronic warfare suites when the submarine is surfaced, or utilizing a periscope or radar. F-18s, C-2s, and MH-60Ss support primarily through visual search for submarines as they fly around the carrier. But searching for submarines visually or when surfaced are hardly ideal tactics.

Reducing the inner screen in order to get a ship out far enough to conduct a search in the outer zone is incredibly risky. A compelling solution is to establish an unmanned sea control squadron (VUS) squadron. These squadrons would provide Sea Combat Commanders with a dedicated medium-range ASW aircraft that would allow commanders to detect, classify, track, target, and engage submarines outside their WEZ. Everything the aircraft needs already exists. Equip a carrier-capable UAV with Forward Looking Infrared cameras (FLIR), AN/APS 153 radar, and ALQ-210 Electronic Support Measures systems from the MH-60R, LINK-16, active, passive, and Multi-Static Active Coherent (MAC) sonar buoys, and arm it with Mk 54 torpedoes and air-launched ASCMs.

This capable aircraft would directly support the Carrier Strike Group and enable it to engage submarines outside their WEZ. The technology exists. In order to protect the carrier today, the Navy needs to continue to close the gaps.

LCDR Jason Lancaster is a U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer. He has served aboard amphibious ships, destroyers, and as operations officer of a destroyer squadron. He is an alumnus of Mary Washington College and holds a Master’s Degree in History from the University of Tulsa. His views are his alone and do not represent the stance of any U.S. government department or agency.

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Featured Image: An S-3 Viking and A-6 Intruder from the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) fly over a Soviet Foxtrot class diesel submarine. (U.S. Navy photo)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.