The early years of World War II brought the dawn of the aircraft carrier as the frontline instrument for delivering naval combat power, and this changed the dynamics of naval warfare forever. The greatest advantage that an aircraft carrier had was a range of reach, the distance from which aircraft could launch attacks, was 200 miles, while battleships were limited to 20 miles or less. Indeed, at first, there was some disbelief that aircraft could carry sufficient payload to replace battleships. However, by the late 1930s, engine technology, dive-bomber and torpedo-plane designs, and carrier arresting gear had developed to such a degree that aircraft carriers now became a powerful force. Indeed, it was U.S. and Japanese naval aviators who led these developments.
One tactical question of paramount importance was whether ships could be found at the furthest range of aircraft. Although it had been shown how to attack fixed targets like the Panama Canal or Pearl Harbor, finding and attacking moving ships at sea was far more of a problem. Effective scouting thus became the predominant tactical problem of carrier warfare, and it dictated how several major carrier battles in the Pacific Theatre were fought in 1942: the Coral Sea, Midway, the Eastern Solomons, and the Santa Cruz Islands. In these battles, the quality of the U.S. and Japanese aviators and their planes was probably about equal. The United States usually emerged victorious because of superior scouting and screening, aided by air-search radar and the advantage of having broken the Japanese code.
Another critical element was the U.S. Navy’s command and control structure, refined during the war, by which centralizing radar information and voice radio communications in the Combat Information Center enabled coordination. By 1944, this tactical doctrine of fighter air defenses in coordination with improved antiaircraft firepower was so effective that over 90 percent of 450 Japanese aircraft during the Battle of the Philippine Sea were ripped apart in an assault on AD Raymond Spruance’s 5th Fleet.
The new tactical formation was circular, with carriers in the center protected by an antiaircraft and antisubmarine screen of their aircraft, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. The shape of this formation enabled a quick turn for launching and recovering aircraft while concurrently reflecting robust antiaircraft defense. Strikes by air against alerted defenses rarely turned out as compact or decisive as naval airmen had anticipated. In all five big carrier battles, one attacker air wing accounted for just one enemy flattop. Good scouting and communications were crucial to successful command at sea, and victory depended on attacking effectively first in a decisive battle.
However, sea control through carrier-based air power did not prevail at night. German ships used the cover of darkness to good advantage, particularly during winter and in northern waters. The Guadalcanal campaign in 1942 showed that guns were supreme at night and nearly tipped the balance in favor of Japan. In its slow march across the Pacific, the Imperial Japanese Navy practiced night tactics to whittle down the U.S. battle line. They developed the Long Lance torpedo and tactics to launch a barrage of these long-range weapons while avoiding counterattacks. U.S. doctrine called for fighting in columns, using guns as the primary weapon. Superior radar advantages were largely squandered until mid-1943, when tactics attributed to Captain Arleigh Burke exploited radar fully, redressing the balance.
Naval aircraft remained the decisive weapon. Air strikes from sea to shore were crucial in securing control of the seas. Strikes by the British at Taranto, by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, and by the Americans in the South Pacific were at least as important as fleet engagements. In 1944 and 1945, the U.S. 3rd and 5th fleets, with 27 fast carriers, successfully attacked airfields in Formosa, the Philippines, and Japan. The traditional tactical maxim, “Ships do not fight forts,” was suspended for the war’s duration.
The Battle of Okinawa in 1945 showed the character of future combat at sea. By then, the U.S. Navy had reduced the Japanese Navy to impotence, and manned aircraft could not penetrate American defenses. Nevertheless, during the three-month campaign, the U.S. Navy lost 26 ships and suffered damage to 164 more due to Japanese kamikazes. These suicide pilots were, in effect, human-guided missiles. They showed that missiles could penetrate even the most supposedly impervious defenses. The guidance technology the missiles demonstrated in the last year of the war in Europe foreshadowed that missiles would be the kamikazes of the future. The atomic bomb promised “one hit, one kill” on the oceans.
Perhaps the greatest event of this period since World War II has been the sinking of an enemy ship by a UK Royal Navy Churchill-class fleet submarine, the first nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Conqueror. While deployed during the Falklands War in 1982, HMS Conqueror tracked and sank the Argentinean cruiser General Belgrano with Mark VIII torpedoes, killing 368 people. The sinking of the cruiser was controversial as it was outside of the declared exclusion zone, but it could be defended as a strategic necessity. General Belgrano has remained one issue that has been debated through the years and leaves many questions regarding the legality and the need to do so.