Montgomery And Conflicting Philosophies Of Sea Power

Few speeches in recent times have touched off such a widespread and heated controversy as those recently delivered by Field Marshal Montgomery.

Those speeches in which Marshal Montgomery expressed his thoughts on important strategic problems have both a dramatic and a personal quality. There is no question that the views of such a successful, respected, and famed commander would at almost any time attract broad attention. Yet, his recent speeches were further dramatized by being delivered practically on the eve of the launching of the USS Forrestal, first of the series of “super” carriers. While the content of his speeches did not harmonize with the kind of thinking represented by the construction of the USS Forrestal, they appear to have served a useful purpose in focusing professional and public attention on the first of the new carriers and, while so doing, also reminding us that there are strong elements that do not concur in the philosophy underlying the composition of modern American sea power.

Such a potent reminder is valuable for it requires those who believe in the validity of our national concepts of sea power to reexamine those beliefs and in so doing become better prepared to support them. Such results of the Field Marshal’s speeches have been beneficial.

Although, in keeping with his reputation for clarity of thought and expression, Field Marshal Montgomery undoubtedly presented the thoughts more pointedly than they have been previously voiced, the fact remains that essential features of certain strategic observations stated in his recent speeches are neither original with him nor of recent origin. Many will recognize a familiar theme running through the following excerpts from Field Marshal Montgomery’s November 29, 1954, speech before the California Institute of Technology which aroused such wide discussion as to defense strategy and particularly naval policy:

“Naval forces require air support in the same way as do land forces. It is vital in the conditions of today, that navies called on to operate in the great oceans should have their own air forces.” (Italics added.)

“If it is true that the seas will in the future be controlled mainly from the air, then it is for consideration whether this control would not be best exercised by national air forces and not by naval forces. If this is the case, then navies will not in the future require their own air forces. ... If this is true, then we should at once stop building any more aircraft carriers, because they are very expensive and will not produce a dividend.”. . .

“Today the navies must handle this war [the war at sea]. They must have the minimum means to insure control of the seas and of the approaches to essential ports and no more. It is essential that they should not dissipate those means on tasks which do not affect the war at sea.”

Field Marshal Montgomery’s assertion as to the carrier’s impending day of doom as a useful instrument of war involves far more than the pros and cons of the future combat utility of that type of vessel. Actually what is involved, and what is reflected throughout the Field Marshal’s recent dissertations, is a re-enunciation of a philosophy of war that has been repeatedly, since World War I, the source of doctrinal conflict in this country and, to a lesser extent, abroad. This general assemblage of dove-tailing strategic concepts condemning the carrier as an inutile weapon of future war, the questionable future value of naval aviation, limitation of naval activity to the geographical limits of the sea, and primacy of one weapons system—in this case the air forces—constitutes the essential attributes of what has long been recognized as the “continental” philosophy of war.

That this philosophy should clash with the fundamental concepts which have guided the development and utilization of our nation’s naval power should be no surprise. The reason is simple: Continental European strategic thought has evolved in accordance with the apparent requirements of European warfare, geographically attuned to land areas. To continental European military thinking, the sea is a peripheral matter, and in this philosophy of war the sea is likewise a peripheral, or secondary, consideration.

True, this line of thought does recognize the necessity of maintaining open sea lanes for the transportation of men and material, and the bordering waters assume some military significance as possible sea flanks. Yet, this appreciation of the sea is limited in that it is related and subordinated to land strategy. Continental Europe has never recognized the full breadth and nature of sea power as have the naval thinkers in Great Britain and in the United States. Accordingly, the continental philosophy of war produced in a strategic atmosphere estranged from the sea has evolved a landlocked and hence limited appreciation of the true character and potentialities of sea power. This limited recognition of sea power, in turn, placed artificial limitations on its role and weapons. The result was that naval development by Continental European nations was focused primarily upon the weapons system required to wage war at sea, precluding the realization of the strategic dividends that could be realized from a kind of naval power capable of projecting its military power from the sea against land objectives.

Thus continental strategic thought, shackled by the artificial limitations imposed by a land-locked philosophy of war, produced the kind of naval power designed to fight at sea, and which proved to be virtually incapable of projecting power from the sea against shore and inland targets.

Field Marshal Montgomery seemed to express this continental attitude toward naval power, when in his address he stated, “They [the navies] must be given the minimum means to ensure control of the seas and the approaches to essential parts, and no more. It is essential they should not dissipate those means on tasks which do not affect the war at sea.” (Italics added.)

In contrast to the doctrinal limitations traditionally imposed by continental naval thought, the United States developed, beginning in the latter 19th Century, a bold and unlimited brand of sea power thinking, culminating in the balanced naval forces which demonstrated their unsurpassed strategic mobility, versatility, and shocking power in World War II and in the Korean War. Sparked by the intellectual genius of Alfred T. Mahan and responsive to the naval nature of the Spanish-American War, U. S. naval thought took its departure, in the latter years of the 19th century, from the artificially limited naval concepts of continental Europe. From the Navy-Marine landing at Guantanamo Bay in the Spanish- American War there evolved the uniquely American concept of balanced fleets. In accordance with this concept, American naval power adopted and developed every kind of combat tool required by naval commanders to exploit, in the technologically advanced atmosphere of the 20th century, the full combat potentialities of sea power.

Stimulated and guided by such philosophy, American sea power developed, and brought to a high peak of combat proficiency, naval aviation and amphibious warfare. These two integral elements of our nation’s balanced naval power serve as constant reminders of the extent to which American philosophy of sea-power surpasses the continental in terms of scope, flexibility, malleability, and accumulative striking power. It is precisely these two indispensable attributes of U. S. balanced fleets that illustrate and dramatize the divergence of U. S. sea- power concepts from those of continental Europe. It should be no surprise that continental strategic thought, preoccupied today, as it has been through modern history, with the Northern European plain, should continue to doubt the wisdom of the aircraft carrier and all that it implies with respect to American sea-power.

Historically it is understandable why the continental European nations should subordinate what naval power they possessed to the considerations of land warfare. What is less understandable is why England, an island nation and, until World War II, the world’s greatest sea-power, has come under the influence of continental philosophies of sea power. On more than one occasion England has been on the threshold of adopting the balanced fleet concept. On each occasion the makers of British strategy reversed the trend and rejected balanced fleets. As a result, in this century England has never realized the potentialities of her vast sea power.

Viewed in historical perspective, Field Marshal Montgomery’s recently voiced doubts as to the future value of the carrier appears as a continuation of England’s naval air policy of 36 years ago. It was between World War I and World War II that British defense policy evinced a lack of faith in the future of naval aviation and carrier warfare. Because Field Marshal Montgomery’s opinions on that subject are so consistent with the official British pre-World War II policy regarding naval air and carriers, a brief review of such British policy and its results should be of value in explaining the philosophic background and identifying the origin of his present opinions.

Britain in World War I had again provided the organizational foundation for development of balanced naval power. In that war the British air weapon developed two distinct and separate organizations—the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. The latter was an integral element of the Navy and included land and sea planes.

The echo of the final shot of World War I had scarcely died away before British defense policy makers decided that the Navy would not require its own naval air weapon. In implementation of that policy decision, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service were merged into the Royal Air Force. By that single act England accomplished a number of things: a single Air Force, a turn toward continental concepts Of naval power—the means to fight at sea so as to control the sea flanks of land operations, clearance of sea lanes and guard approaches to necessary ports—and another British rejection of balanced naval power. All this assured England of a Navy more closely corresponding to the European naval organizational pattern than to the American. Because British policy makers decided in 1919 that the Royal Navy would not require its own air forces, the development—meager as it was—of the naval air weapon was placed under the bomber-minded single air force extremists, thus burdening it with insurmountable handicaps. Thus was the future of Great Britain and her maritime empire placed in mortal jeopardy.

In spite of protests by the more enlightened naval officers who sensed the potentially disastrous consequences of what was taking place, naval air material and carrier warfare continued to be retained as an integral part of the Royal Air Force. In such a predicament the art of naval air war intellectually and physically withered and wasted to the point of comparative ineffectiveness.

This condition, reflecting official British lack of faith in the future of naval aviation and the carrier, continued for 21 years. It was not until early 1939, when the clouds of imminent war were gathering low on the horizon, that naval aviation was reconstituted as a part of the Royal Navy. But as events were soon to demonstrate, this remedial action came too late.

Six months after emancipation of naval aviation from the Royal Air Force, World War II began. Britain paid a high price for her failure to push the development of naval aviation (including, of course, carrier design and techniques) during the interim between wars, for, according to British naval sources, the Royal Navy’s air arm on the eve of World War II was at least fifteen years behind that of the United States. As World War II was to prove, England’s dereliction of carrier development was a 21- year strategic sin that could not be expiated and rectified by recognition of the error on the eve of global war.

The late James Forrestal, one who grasped the inherent genius of our concept of balanced naval power, succinctly summed up British post-World War I policy toward naval aviation by stating:

“The consequence of this neglect was that the British went into the war with a totally inadequate naval air force.” Mr. Forrestal in his indictment of that erroneous policy, attributed the great British sea disasters— loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, the sinking of the Glorious off Norway, the 1942 escape of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prince Eugen from Brest—to lack of an adequate naval aviation.

Unquestionably, Mr. Forrestal by personal observation and study understood well the dire consequences that resulted from England’s post-World War I policy toward the naval air weapon and amphibious warfare. He spoke with great conviction as he warned against the “great risks” to which our nation would be exposed by following the British example in naval aviation. He saw, as an observer in England in 1941, the results of the “complete oblivion which had been forced on naval aviation.” Such a policy toward the fleet air arm was the basis for Mr. Forrestal’s blunt statement that “the British never got one.”

The reason for the absence of a strong British naval aviation was clear to Mr. Forrestal, who placed the blame upon “the iron hand which the Aircraft Ministry and the RAF had clamped upon British naval aviation, and had thereby prevented the development of modern carrier aircraft.” Because Mr. Forrestal held such firm views on the shortcomings of British policy toward naval aviation and carriers prior to World War II, it is interesting to speculate on what would be his reaction to Field Marshal Montgomery’s recent observations that “we should not build any more expensive aircraft carriers.” It would appear that Mr. Forrestal’s reaction could, with considerable accuracy, be predicted. The fact that the first of the new carriers bears the name of the first Secretary of Defense seems to have some connection with what that reaction would be.

Evaluated in the cold light of historical perspective, England’s decision in 1919 to choke off naval aviation—and with it carrier development—stands as one of the most stupendous strategic errors of modern military history.

The hard but inescapable fact is that such failure to exploit—as did the United States— the air weapon as an integral instrument of sea power, created a situation so broad in its scope and dire in its potentialities that it was beyond rectification in the six short months that intervened between the reestablishment of naval aviation within the Royal Navy and the outbreak of World War II. That 21-year British policy of stifling the development of carrier warfare had ramifications that extended even further than the sea disasters that befell the Royal Navy.

In the early years of the war when the very survival of England depended on winning the battle of the North Atlantic sea lanes against the Nazi submarine wolf packs, England simply did not possess the carriers that were so vitally necessary to achieve victory. Probably no one will ever be able to calculate what England’s 21 years of dereliction of naval aviation cost in ships, cargo, men, and effort. While the cost of such an erroneous policy may be incalculable, it is justifiable to state that England’s 1919 wrong-guess on the future of naval aviation could well have cost much more: the loss of the war for England, had not the Nazis made a similar error in failing to provide for close coordination of the Luftwaffe with the U-boat fleet.

Such could well have been the case had it not been for one thing—the United States had not followed the example of British naval air between the great wars. Consequently, American naval aviation was not, as was the British naval air arm, doomed to intellectual and material starvation by being separated from naval authority and placed at the mercy of single-air-force extremists who neither understood or believed in the future combat utility of either the carrier or the concept of balanced naval power. Because the United States had then rejected British opinion as to the future of the carrier, the United States was able to provide the very kind and quantity of carrier task forces so indispensable to the survival of England and the ultimate winning of the war.¹

Field Marshal Montgomery’s assertion that navies should be given no more than the “minimum means to ensure control of the seas and of the approaches to essential ports,” and emphasizing that even those limited means should not be dissipated on “tasks which do not affect the war at sea,” conflicts with more than the naval air aspect of the United States philosophy of naval power.

The British concept of placing arbitrary limitations on the weapons available to her naval power has the demonstrable effect of reducing not only England’s naval air development but her amphibious potential as well. Her failure to develop a strong amphibious capability is one of the towering paradoxes of modern military history. Yet, fundamentally, England’s negative policy toward amphibious warfare is a corollary of the post-World War I attitude toward naval aviation.

It will be recalled that England conducted at Gallipoli the largest amphibious operation of World War I. Unfortunately for England, and the future course of world events, Gallipoli was a British failure. As such, Gallipoli served to “confirm” the long-standing belief of continental strategists that successful amphibious operations against fortified positions were not possible in the face of modern quick firing and heavy caliber, long range weapons. The result was that European military strategy accepted the false lesson of Gallipoli, and amphibious warfare ceased to be recognized by European thought as a major instrument of strategy.

It is indeed a poor commentary on British, French, and German military intellect that they, along with the lesser powers of Europe, should be unanimous in their interpretation of Gallipoli. What they did was interpret Gallipoli as the failure of amphibious operations as a method of warfare, whereas, in fact, Gallipoli was a failure of one amphibious operation because of the lack of an amphibious doctrine. This general European condemnation of amphibious operations as a result of the British failure at Gallipoli precluded the development of an adequate amphibious doctrine by any European nation prior to World War II, including Germany, of course.

Parenthetically it should be recognized that no such negative attitude toward amphibious operations existed in the United States. At the very time European strategic thought was condemning amphibious operations as a major way of war, the U. S. Navy and U. S. Marine Corps were analyzing Gallipoli’s failures, devising solutions, and amassing a comprehensive amphibious doctrine. To England and the other principal European powers, Gallipoli was failure; to the U. S. Navy and U. S. Marine Corps, Gallipoli was the modern genesis for the successful amphibious doctrine that was so indispensable in achieving victory in World War II.

Why, then, did England accept the failure of Gallipoli as a final verdict of doom for amphibious operation?

In the first place England never had accepted “the balanced fleet” concept of naval power. Instead, she had largely adopted the continental philosophy of naval power predicated upon the idea that navies should have only those weapons required for fighting at sea. Accordingly, this line of thought did not provide an intellectual atmosphere conducive to acceptance of any kind of weapons system involving more than the orthodox combatant and supply vessels designed to fight at sea. Thus, amphibious warfare, by which a nation’s military power is projected from the sea against land targets, could not be harmoniously integrated into the prevailing philosophy of naval power. Therefore it was, for all practical purposes, abandoned.

In a sense, the British rejection of amphibious operations was even more final and conclusive than was that of naval aviation. It will be remembered that in the latter case, British policy makers belatedly sensed their error, and reconstituted naval aviation as a part of the Navy in 1939, on the eve of World War II. Not so with respect to amphibious operations. As late as 1939 a prominent British naval official reportedly observed that he could foresee no extensive use of large amphibious operations in future war! At least his erroneous estimate of the nature of World War II was fundamentally consistent with European theory!

World War II was in large measure a rebuttal to previous British thought both on naval aviation and on amphibious warfare. The late Secretary Forrestal pointedly emphasized the failure of England to develop adequate amphibious doctrine by referring to the British defeat by the Germans in Norway. “That disaster,” Mr. Forrestal testified, “which profoundly affected the course of the entire war, was more than a failure of 16,000 men, it was a failure in the exercise of sea power on the part of the then largest Navy in the World, and it was due entirely to the lack of a small, specially trained amphibious force such as we have in the form of the United States Marines, to supplement ashore the action of the fleet at sea.” By so stating, Mr. Forrestal pinpointed a fundamental reason for British failure in Norway at the same time he focused attention to the fact that while Britain, at a moment of historic importance, lacked adequate amphibious doctrine and forces, the United States, in contrast, possessed such tools of sea power.

The result of the neglect of amphibious warfare would have been disastrous for the British—and Allied—war effort had it not been for one fact: the United States had, in amphibious warfare, as in the case of naval aviation and carrier warfare, refused to follow the British example. Consequently, because of the vision, imagination, and work of the U. S. Navy and the U. S. Marine Corps this nation had a proven amphibious doctrine and a meaningful and growing amphibious capability at the outbreak of the war.

The foregoing examination of the contrast in British and United States naval thinking pertains primarily to events preceding and during World War II. On the basis of such review it is apparent that the British attitude toward naval aviation, carrier warfare, and amphibious operations, was not a momentary attitude, but rather one based on recognizable, if from the U. S. standpoint, an erroneous philosophy of naval power. That same philosophy seems clearly reflected in Field Marshal Montgomery’s views on current and future strategy. There are some additional factors that have since World War II strengthened British orientation toward continental sea power thinking, thus further sharpening the contrast between British and American attitudes toward the carrier and amphibious warfare.

The first of these influences is the closer association of England with continental Europe. This has been the result of many factors, the most basic perhaps is the “narrowing” of the English channel due to technological advances in warfare. No longer, as in the Napoleonic era, can the cross-channel approaches from the continent be guarded by a “thin line of wooden ships,” or any line of ships, for that matter. World War II and its buzz bombs brought England within artillery range of the Continent. By comparison with present day and foreseeable missiles, the German buzz-bomb was primitive. With England well within range of continental missile bases, the channel has lost much of its military significance. Thus England has a greater and more vital interest in continental land warfare, for her fate could well be settled by whether a friendly or enemy nation controls the areas suitable for locating missile-firing batteries within range of Britain’s industrial heart.

This technological narrowing of the Channel serves to minimize British dependence on sea power for defense against a hostile European power. Hence, England, for survival, must become, as she has, a participant in the continental land power arena. This ties her closer to continental military thought. Such preoccupation with continental military matters results in giving naval power a lower priority in the British scheme of war.

Another factor that has the effect of tending to minimize British requirements for balanced naval power, as it is understood in the United States, is the loosening of the bonds of the British Empire which has occurred since the end of World War II. It was sea power that held the Empire together. The present status of India and the loosening of the ties as vast and small areas move from colonial to more independent status has created a corresponding slacking in the obligation, incentive, and economic ability to give British sea power the priority accorded it in pre-World War II times.

While other reasons certainly exist, the gradual dissolution of the Empire is one of the prime underlying factors in the corresponding smaller emphasis given naval power in current British strategy. This reduction in the scope of Empire obligations, together with closer orientation with the continent, provides a fundamental clue as to why England’s navy, which passed sea power supremacy to the United States in World War II, has now been numerically superseded by the Soviet Union as a sea power.

In her present status of lower sea-power ranking, England does not have a sufficient organizational base in the Royal Navy to provide for and utilize carrier and amphibious forces approaching the dimension of those elements in the U. S. Navy. It would appear that the reduced role of the Royal Navy must have a direct result on carrier and amphibious warfare. This situation is reflected in British refusal to launch a carrier construction program similar to that now underway in the United States. Even though England has five carriers of recent construction, three of which are in the 26,000 ton class (the Forrestal class will be about 65,000 tons), England’s naval air capability is demonstrably inferior to that of the United States.

With respect to amphibious operations it likewise appears that England is continuing her longstanding policy of disinterest in such matters. At the present time it is questionable if Britain’s amphibious interest exceeds that of some Latin American nations. This means, in essence, that England has liquidated even the relatively limited amphibious establishment and capability that was created in response to the necessities of World War II.

In the light of such circumstances the recently expressed views of Field Marshal Montgomery appear more understandable, for not only was he re-enunciating the essentials of a longstanding British philosophy of sea power, but he was also attuning his observations to England’s current strategic and economic status, which, because of the technological narrowing of the channel and the reduction of Empire imposes a lower priority on naval power. This change in British strategy places a limitation on the kind of naval power appropriate to England’s world power status, which has changed since the beginning of World War II. Thus what has happened is that the continental philosophy of limited sea-power, so unsuitable to England and the Empire prior to World War II, is now more appropriate to England’s present reduced role and capabilities.

It is precisely England’s decline as a world ranking sea-power nation which imposes an added burden and obligation on the United States to fill the sea-power vacuum created by England’s reduced naval potential. While this condition has global implications, it poses particularly severe problems and requirements in the Western Pacific. There, in Pacific Asia, Russian sea-power is on the rise and threatens to fill the vacuum resulting from withdrawal or reduction of British sea-power in that area. The obligation of countering the rise of Russian sea- power in the Western Pacific now falls squarely on the United States.

Balanced naval power—based on carriers and amphibious forces—provides the power, mobility, and flexibility so responsive to the modern strategic requirements of the Pacific. Thus the reduction in British sea-power, a salient concomitant of which has been the belief in the future uselessness of carriers and the virtual abandonment of amphibious warfare, has the direct and immediate effect of making it imperative that the United States place even greater emphasis on those basic attributes of balanced naval power. The rise of Russian sea-power make it mandatory, in the interest of our national security and the safety of the free world, to depart completely from the philosophy and pattern of British sea-power.

All of our experience in World War II and since seems to underline the wisdom of the United States in continuing to fashion her naval power in accordance with our own national concepts and responsive to our own national security requirements.