Aircraft Carriers
Norman Polmar. New York: Doubleday, 1969. 788 pp. Illus. $17.95.
Reviewed by Clark G. Reynolds
(Author of The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy, Dr. Reynolds is associate professor of history at the University of Maine, where he directs graduate studies in military and maritime history. He received his doctorate at Duke University and taught naval history four years at the U. S. Naval Academy.)
“This is the most important landing of a bird since the dove flew back to the Ark!” Not the Eagle on the moon, but Eugene Ely’s primitive biplane on the wooden platform of the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania in 1911, the first landing of an airplane on a ship; the statement was uttered by the captain of that ship. This idea—the crucial importance of aircraft operating from ships—forms the theme of the book from which this quotation is taken: Norman Polmar’s Aircraft Carriers, published in the year of Apollo 11.
A complete history of the aircraft carrier has long been needed, tying together all the loose strings of aircraft operations at sea—the towed flying-off barges of World War I, the antisubmarine hunter-killer groups of World War II, the air support missions in the many post-1945 “limited wars,” the attempts of continental navies “to fly,” and the ship and aircraft types that evolved over these years of both war and “peace.”
Aircraft Carriers fulfills this need in the literature of 20th century naval history. So thorough is Mr. Polmar’s research, that the book is almost encyclopedic in its coverage, though following a general and very useful chronological approach. The photographs and diagrams are excellent and complement the text extremely well. Between the large amount of data and the many illustrations, Aircraft Carriers should become the standard reference work on the subject of the ships that have carried flying machines and the machines that have done the flying.
The book is straight narrative history, packed with technical details about the carriers and planes. If the reader has any doubt of this from reading the text, he will find much of the data repeated in the captions to the photographs. For backup, many of the ship statistics are again repeated in the 35 pages of appendices. This kind of book is not always easy to read from cover to cover, since the detail is almost overwhelming. But the aviation buff will find satisfaction in such facts as (on page 141) the relative rates of climb of the F4F-3 Wildcat (flown in this picture by Jimmy Thach and Butch O’Hare) and the F2A-2 Buffalo (flown by Jumpin’ Joe Clifton, though he is not identified). The general naval reader, however, will find such a technical survey rather monotonous. It is this detail, though, that makes the book an indispensable reference work.
As long as the author remains with his narrative of carriers at war—especially in World War II—he is in safe waters. The accounts of carriers to the end of World War II cover mostly familiar events, for Polmar has relied upon generally standard sources. He then pulls together all existing information about carrier aviation after 1945, the first writer to have done this in a thorough manner, performing a service for which all future naval historians of this period will be indebted to him. And thus, we have again the chief merit of this massive tome: the first 60 years of carrier aviation history are finally between two book covers.
Mr. Polmar has clouded this real contribution by introducing broader historical dimensions into a vague and misleading subtitle: A Graphic History of Carrier Aviation and Its Influence on World Events. Since he never really addresses himself to the latter problem, he betrays a certain doubt about the focus on his book. By repeating the unfortunate preoccupation of many American naval writers with the Mahan syndrome (The Influence of Sea Power Upon Everything), Polmar suggests this is an interpretative work. If this was indeed his intent, he has clearly failed. The book is rather a straight narrative history, and a very good one.
Ignoring the subtitle, the reader can then look at the subject as it actually is—aircraft carriers. The facts and figures are there; few could dispute their accuracy. But facts alone leave much to be desired, and here is the major weakness of Aircraft Carriers. No effort has been made to develop sub-themes about the evolution of carrier policy, strategy, and tactics over the years. In particular, the author failed to confront the problems of continental navies in a coherent discussion. He has unearthed most of the necessary information for dealing with this problem, but has neglected to organize it in any meaningful way. His information on French carrier activity is stressed throughout the narrative (and is especially germane with regard to the Indochina fighting of 1946-1954), and he has a good deal to say about the Soviet Navy’s new helicopter carriers. But he unaccountably saves the German and Italian efforts at developing carrier aviation for a long appendix, “War Without Carriers,” outside the text. In this area, and in others equally important, he has failed to exploit his data systematically for important interpretations of why carriers have succeeded or failed in the various navies that have sought to use them.
Another sub-theme that was not developed from the facts the author has presented is the evolution of blue-water carrier doctrine. What were changing carrier formations in the various navies like, and why did they change? What were the relationships between the flattops and their screening vessels? Why and how did these screens change? We only learn that the carriers had escorts. Such questions still need to be asked of carrier war, for doubt has always existed among naval tacticians of what should be the primary defensive system of the carrier task force—anti-aircraft fire from escorts or the wide-ranging combat air patrols. In this reviewer’s opinion, the latter has usually been the case, which raises serious questions about the real utility of today’s guided missile cruisers in carrier formations.
Polmar occasionally ventures into the uncertain area of evaluating strategic carrier doctrine, but in the best-known examples of decision-making, he depends chiefly on long direct quotations of the participants—Spruance off Saipan and Kinkaid at Leyte—rather than integrating the evidence for some original conclusion of his own. The book is also weak in this respect. The demands for complete ship and aircraft facts and figures leave little room for doctrinal cohesion and tactical analysis.
The only real overall interpretative statement is the very political one in the first and last paragraphs of the book, namely, that “. . . the aircraft carrier remains the backbone of United States sea power.” But the 723 pages between the two appearances of this statement do not involve any continuous analysis of how carriers competed with other weapons systems to achieve such a dominant status. Furthermore, this reviewer regards such an assertion as untrue. The attack carrier, in 1970, may be the backbone of U. S. limited war naval operations, and the hunter-killer carrier may be the backbone of ASW systems, but the strategic arms limitation talks nowadays are not concerned with aircraft carriers. The backbone of American seaborne nuclear deterrence is the Polaris submarine system.
Footnotes are poorly interspersed, unsystematically and even incorrectly, throughout the book. Some key quotations are cited, though most are not. Where magazine articles are cited, the date of issue is not included, making such notes useless.
Aircraft Carriers is, then, a thoroughly-researched, meticulous, exhaustive, and encyclopedic work, crammed with useful information, statistics, and photographs. It is a big book, about a very big subject. Its overall message might be summed up by non-aviator “Thirty-One Knot” Burke’s alleged remark after watching Task Force 58 pound the Hollandia beaches in April 1944: “The airplane is here to stay!” To which Norman Polmar has added, “so long as the carrier is there to provide it with a deck!”.
International Code of Signals—United States Edition, H.O. 102, 1969
U. S. Naval Oceanographic Office, Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1968. 156 pp. Illus. $4.00.
Reviewed by Commander Thomas W. Lyons, Jr., U. S. Navy
(Commander Lyons, a 1952 graduate of the Naval Academy, has been primarily connected with the communications field. He received a communications engineering degree in 1959 at the U. S. Navy Postgraduate School, and has since served in various communication billets on board ships and with shore staffs. He was the commanding officer of the USS William R. Rush (DD-714), prior to assuming his present duties with the Defense Communications Agency in Washington.)
Men who have not been at sea for the past year or so will be surprised to find when they return how extensively the International Code of Signals has been revised.
H.O. Pub. 102, the 1969 edition of the International Code of Signals became effective 1 April 1969. It replaced both H.O. Pubs. 103 and 104, Volume I and II, so that the one publication is now used for all means of signaling—visual, sound, and radio.
The revised code was developed by a subcommittee of the Maritime Safety Committee of the International Maritime Consultive Organization meeting in London during the period 1963-1964. As a member of the communication section on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Naval Forces, Europe, this reviewer served as the senior U. S. member on the subcommittee. Other countries represented were the United Kingdom, Argentina, France, West Germany, Soviet Union, Norway, Japan, Italy, and Greece. It is noted as an interesting sidelight, that only the United States and Italy were represented solely by naval officers. Other national delegations were composed almost exclusively of active merchant marine officers, or former merchant marine officers associated with ministries of shipping or maritime safety organizations. The chairman was a British civil servant, whose regular job was senior examiner for master’s, mate’s, and pilot’s licenses.
Anyone familiar with the old code knows how unwieldy it was. Although it had the capability to convey almost any thought a message originator might want, it usually took several signals to get one idea or sentence across, and separate books were required for visual and radio signaling. As a result, the code was seldom used. The committee, realizing this, decided to produce a code that would be used in any mode of signaling. It would be much simpler, and would be limited primarily to signals concerned with safe navigation and safety of life at sea. After this decision had been reached, a request was made to interested countries and groups to submit recommended signals for inclusion in the code. When these were received, the subcommittee then went to work editing the submissions to develop the format and operating procedures.
Chapter 1 of the new Code consists of the operating instructions and procedural signals for various means of communication. It also includes two new tables—“Figure Spelling Table” and “Single Letter Signals Between Icebreaker and Assisted Vessels.” The first is a means of phonetically pronouncing numerals somewhat similar to the present phonetic alphabet, and hopefully, will eventually be used universally. It should be more readily understood and less susceptible to error than the figure spelling table in the International Radio Regulations. Prior to the adoption of the second code, that for use between icebreakers and supported ships, the Scandinavians, Russians, Germans, and Canadians each had their own system.
Chapter 2 is the principal code section. It is similar to the U. S. Navy Signal Book, ATP 1, Vol. II. Each signal is a two-letter signal, some of which may be used with complements, and each one represents a complete thought. Chapter 3 is the “Medical Signal Code.”
This consists of three letter signals, all beginning with “M.” This portion of the code was developed with the assistance of the World Health Organization. Chapter 4 is a compilation of standard distress and lifesaving signals, and also radiotelephone procedures.
In view of the increasing use of the VHF radio telephone in merchant ships, and the increasing familiarity of merchant seamen with the English language, use of the new code will probably remain quite limited. When a language problem exists, however, and safety of life or safe navigation is a factor, the new code will prove to be a significant improvement over the old.