“Wars are fought with weapons based on fundamentals discovered during the preceding years of peace,” wrote Dr. Theodor von Karman in 1945. During World War II tremendous new scientific developments -electronics, jet propulsion, missiles and rockets, and nuclear weapons-influenced the conduct and potential of air warfare. The scientific fundamentals of each of these developments were known to all combatants well before the war, but their adaptation to military purposes depended on the initiative and productive capabilities of the belligerent nations.

The working principles of the branch of electronics known as radar (radio detection and ranging) were well understood in the early 1930′s in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. Only the British, however, expedited the construction of a chain of radar early warning stations, which enabled an inferior force of RAF fighters to meet and defeat superior numbers of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. Radar facilitated offensive fighter control and accurate antiaircraft artillery direction, thereby reducing the ability of bombers to reach their targets. On the other hand, additional developments in radar enabled aircraft to perform precision bombing at night or in bad weather, thus increasing the capabilities of offensive aviation. Every phase of air operations also demanded the utmost development of other forms of electrical communications, and by the spring of 1945 about 12.5 percent of United States Army Air Forces personnel was assigned to some phase of electronics activity.

One of the almost inexplicable puzzles of the war was the fact that early in the conflict Germany had air weapons within its grasp that might have redressed its growing aerial inferiority, and yet its Nazi masters failed to pursue their development. Arrogant after the defeat of Poland, Hitler refused to order full mobilization of Germany’s economic potential for war until it was too late, and in 1940 he severely curtailed the development of new weapons that could not soon be available for combat. As a result of low development priorities and Allied bombing attacks, the Germans did not begin to employ their V-1 and V-2 missiles until June-September 1944, when the war was entering its final act. Because of indecision as to priorities and Hitler’s insistence that the plane must carry bombs, the Me-262 jet fighter was not put into series production until November 1944. The operational employment of this new jet aircraft (superior by far to any Allied fighter) was too late to have any decisive influence on the air war.

Before the war strategic air warfare enthusiasts had overestimated the effect of air ordnance on urban and industrial targets. They had assumed erroneously that air attacks would easily break an enemy people’s will to continue a war. Both in Europe and in Japan repeated air attacks and many tons of conventional bombs were required to neutralize war production facilities. A prior establishment of air superiority had proved necessary to the prosecution of effective strategic bombing attacks. Unknown to many air leaders, the United States began to explore the possibilities of nuclear fission weapons shortly after Dr. Albert Einstein informed President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Aug. 2, 1939, that such weapons seemed practicable. Headed by Maj. Gen. (later Lt. Gen.) Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Engineer District produced the Hiroshima and Nagasaki weapons dropped by the Army Air Forces’ 509th Composite Group in August 1945. The detonation of these first nuclear bombs not only hastened Japan’s decision to surrender, but also represented a “quantum jump” in strategic air capabilities, which appeared fully to substantiate the Douhet concept of strategic bombardment. How these new and terrible weapons -which ultimately would be deliverable with little or no warning by intercontinental jet bombers and ballistic missiles-were to be utilized would be the complex problem facing military strategists in the years following World War II.

For a nation that had extensive civil experience with air transport and had pioneered in the military application of airlift by ferrying Gen. Francisco Franco’s Moroccan troops to Spain in 1936, Germany was strangely ambivalent in the field of transport aviation. The Luftwaffe never consolidated the management of transport under a single chief, and the standard Ju-52 transport fleet not only was used for airlift but provided a substantial proportion of the aircraft employed in Luftwaffe training programs. In operations that proceeded according to schedule, Luftwaffe air transport machinery worked well, as was demonstrated in the employment of air-dropped and airlanded troops in Norway and the Netherlands in 1940 and in the capture of Crete in the spring of 1941. By the winter of 1942-1943, however, German air transport forces were exhausted in a futile effort to resupply the besieged ground armies at Stalingrad (now Volgograd).

At the outset of the war the Soviet Union probably intended to make extensive use of elite airborne troops, but these forces were soon destroyed in ground battles, and such transport aircraft as remained were usually employed in resupplying guerrilla forces. One of the chief missions of the ADD was to fly nocturnal supply drops to partisan troops in forward areas.

The Anglo-American organization of airlift forces placed central control of most such units under a troop carrier headquarters, which could employ the transport planes either for airlift or for air assault operations. Allied airborne assaults accompanied invasions in North Africa in November 1942, in Sicily in July 1943, in Normandy in June 1944, in southern France in August 1944, in the Netherlands in September 1944, and across the Rhine River in March 1945. The First Allied Airborne Army, which commanded both airborne divisions and troop carrier wings, managed the two last-named operations. In the Pacific theater smaller regimental-sized air assault operations were conducted at Nadzab, New Guinea, in September 1943 and at Tagaytay Ridge and Corregidor in the Philippines in February 1945. Both aerial resupply and air assault operations were vitally important under jungle warfare conditions in the recapture of Burma, the most striking single operation being Operation Thursday, the fly-in of Maj. Gen. Orde C. Wingate’s Special Force into central Burma in March – April 1944.

When not employed in air assault operations, British and American troop carrier forces in all theaters hauled high priority supplies to forward airfields and evacuated sick and wounded men to rear-area hospitals on their return trips. In each Anglo-American theater of war the allocation of cargo space was managed by some form of central air transport control agency, which set priorities in terms of the immediate requirements of the theater commander’s mission. Global air transport developments were almost entirely American. The Army’s Air Transport Command reached from the United States into every combat theater with scheduled flights, while the Naval Air Transport Service centered its operations in the Pacific. Flying the “hump” route across the Himalaya, the Air Transport Command’s India-China Division delivered critically needed supplies to otherwise inaccessible China. On return trips to the United States both Army and Navy air transport planes brought sick and wounded men to hospitals near their homes. Air Transport Command crews also ferried replacement aircraft to combat air forces in various theaters.

Other nations had planned to employ aviation in support of their ground forces, but the techniques of the Luftwaffe in Poland, Norway, the Low Countries, and northern France during 1939 and 1940 established a model of effectiveness. Organized into air fleets (Luftflotten) and air corps (Fliegerkorps), the Luftwaffe jealously guarded the integrity of its air units, but it made every effort to perform preplanned missions in support of the blitzkrieg. ( Only reconnaissance was attached directly to ground units, and this branch of aviation was repossessed by the Luftwaffe in 1942.) Rarely remaining at one airfield more than a few days, the Fliegerkorps shifted the mass of their dive bombers and fighters to attack critical targets on any ground front. The stages of the air attacks included strikes against hostile aircraft and enemy airfields, the enemy’s communications and main headquarters, and then the enemy’s beaten and retreating troops. These corps performed very effectively on the narrow fronts characteristic of ground operations in western Europe. At the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union the German Air Force again achieved striking successes, but the distances soon proved too great and the force available too small. Moreover, the Soviet Air Force rebuilt its strength and countered German blows with telling effect. The Luftwaffe not only was overextended, but also was required to devote most of its efforts to the close support of German ground forces, with a consequent reduction in the effort that could be applied to counter air force and interdiction operations.

In the early campaigns in Europe an RAF component was attached to the British Expeditionary Force, and individual squadrons were often attached to divisions and corps. In January 1943, the United States 12th Air Support Command in North Africa was similarly attached to the United States 2d Corps. Such arrangements negated the inherent flexibility of aviation, and centrally controlled Luftwaffe units easily overwhelmed divided Allied air squadrons. Recognizing that “penny packets” of aviation were ineffective, Gen. (later Field Marshal) Sir Bernard Law Montgomery (later 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein), commander of the British Eighth Army in North Africa, acknowledged Air Vice Marshal (later Air Marshal Sir) Arthur Coningham as his equal and permitted the Desert Air Force to be employed as a centrally controlled force. On July 21, 1943, the United States War Department officially accepted this coequality of ground and air forces and provided that the tasks of the new tactical air forces, which were designed to cooperate with ground armies, would be to gain air superiority, to prevent the movement of hostile troops and supplies, and to provide close air support to ground troops. This pattern of air employment was tested in Italy and elaborated in the all-out ground campaigns in Europe after June 1944.

Even though the USSR continued to consider aviation as an auxiliary to ground armies, the actual employment of the Soviet Air Force was similar to that of the Americans and the British. As a rule, one air army served each front (army group) and operated according to the battle plan of the front commander. The Soviet Air Force recognized the tasks of air superiority, isolation of the battle area, and close support. Long-range missions of the ADD were usually coordinated with the requirements of the ground battle.

In the jungle and island battles of the Pacific the broad outlines of tactical air force employment were not unlike those of Europe. Ground invasion troops in these theaters, however, generally lacked sufficient organic artillery, with the result that close air support of ground forces was of added importance. With a long tradition of ground support, which dated back to the Nicaraguan intervention of 1926-1933, United States Marine airmen developed ( especially in the latter stages of the Pacific campaigns) communications, command, and employment techniques that enabled them to give excellent close air support to friendly ground troops.

In its essentials the concept of strategic bombardment was best stated in Douhet’s writings. This concept visualized a defensive role for surface forces, an aerial offensive designed to secure command of the air, and the aerial destruction of an enemy’s capacity to support surface forces and its will to continue the war. Douhet believed that command of the air would be established by attacks against enemy aviation facilities and not through aerial fighting. He therefore advocated development of a “battle plane” capable both of defending itself in the air and of destroying hostile ground objectives.

Although the Luftwaffe was not designed for strategic air warfare, Adolf Hitler elected to commit it to the Battle of Britain on Aug. 8, 1940. The Nazi plan was to gain air superiority by destroying the RAF Fighter Command and to employ the German bomber force to soften British coastal defenses, transportation facilities, and population centers in preparation for a combined sea and airborne invasion of southern and southeastern England. Aided by newly developed radar, the British fighter force proved superior to German bombers, which were inadequately armed and lacked the ability to carry heavy loads of bombs. A series of vacillating decisions by the Luftwaffe commander, Hermann Goering (Goring), also prevented the numerically superior German Air Force from achieving a decisive concentration of force against any single objective. By December 1940, the Luftwaffe had failed to accomplish its strategic mission and had suffered heavy losses. In its subsequent campaigns against the Soviet Union, it continued to lack long-range bombers and was powerless to prevent the Russians from rebuilding an air force at factories and bases beyond the Ural Mountains. According to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, the first factor in the ultimate defeat of the German Air Force was that: “The German Air Force was originally designed for direct support of ground operations, and a lack of a long-range bomber force proved a grave strategic error.”

Because of the national emphasis on air defense, the RAF Bomber Command was weak at the beginning of the war and was unable to undertake strategic bombing before May 1940. The buildup of American Army Air Forces heavy bombers in Europe was delayed by conflicting requirements of the Allied land campaign in North Africa. Not until Jan. 21, 1943, could the AngloAmerican Combined Chiefs of Staff order a combined bomber offensive designed to attain “the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened.” As implemented thereafter, the combined bomber offensive employed RAF bombers that flew at night chiefly against area targets and American bombers from Great Britain and Italy that made daylight precision-bombing attacks. Contrary to original expectations, American bombers required fighter escorts to prosecute sustained attacks against heavily defended targets, but early in 1944 a combination of attacks against aircraft facilities and of aerial battles established Allied air superiority over Germany.

Many airpower proponents consider that World War II neither proved nor disproved the validity of strategic air doctrines, since the war was conducted as a series of interdependent air, ground, and naval campaigns. In any assessment of the results of the combined bomber offensive against Germany, it is certainly important to note that it was related to the Allied ground campaign, which began with the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Of the 2,700,000 tons of bombs dropped against Germany, only 28 percent fell before July 1 of that year. Only after the successful Allied invasion were the heavy bombers free to attack strategic targets in Germany in full force. Utilizing its tremendous economic potential and displaying good ability to repair and disperse its factories, Germany actually increased its war production during the months of the Allied air attack. War requirements multiplied even more swiftly than production, however, with the result that beginning in December 1944 all sectors of German economic life were collapsing. “The German experience,” stated the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, “suggests that even a first-class military power-rugged and resilient as Germany was-cannot live long under full-scale and free exploitation of air weapons over the heart of its territory.” After a later and more exhaustive study, the British historians Sir Charles Kingsley Webster and Noble Frankland concluded in The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, 19391945 (vol. 3, p. 310, London 1961) : “. . both cumulatively in largely indirect ways and eventually in a more intimate and direct manner, strategic bombing . . . made a contribution to victory which was decisive.”

In the war against Japan, carrier-based aircraft of the United States Pacific Fleet eventually joined the strategic air campaign, but the United States Twentieth Air Force contributed the vast preponderance of the strategic bombing effort against the Japanese home islands. With a limited economy crowded into a few industrial cities and without adequate air defenses, Japan was highly vulnerable to air assault. Nevertheless, strategic bombing had to await the deployment to combat of the new B-29 aircraft, which had a range long enough to reach Japan from available bases. Hurried into combat from airfields in western China, the Twentieth Air Force’s 20th Bomber Command initiated strategic air attacks against Japan on June 15, 1944, but the distance was too great and logistical support too scarce for the B-29′s when flying from China. Utilizing newly built bases in the Mariana Islands, B-29′s of the 21st Bomber Command launched sustained air attacks against Japan on Nov. 24, 1944. During the period March 9-June 15, 1945, these planes flew at night to prosecute heavy incendiary attacks against six principal Japanese urban industrial concentrations. Effectively blockaded by American submarines and under heavy air attack, Japan’s leaders were ready to sue for peace (though not unconditionally) in May 1945, well before the USSR’s entry into the Pacific war and the employment of United States atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki (qq.v.) on August 6 and August 9. “It seems clear,” stated the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, “that air supremacy and its later exploitation over Japan proper was the major factor which determined the timing of Japan’s surrender and obviated any need for invasion.”

Aviation had little effect on the outcome of the surface battles of World War I because it was still in its developmental infancy. In each major nation after the war, however, civilian and military leaders studied the ideas of such men as Britain’s Sir Hugh Trenchard, America’s William Mitchell, and Italy’s Giulio Douhet. The nations that were to be the major air adversaries of World War II developed plans for organization and aerial equipment which reflected their national objectives and their basic concepts of war.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) of Great Britain was formed on April 1, 1918, by the union of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. Although the British Navy later recovered control of its aviation units, Britain continued to accord aviation coordinate status with land and sea forces. In its rearmament programs after 1936 it felt compelled to emphasize the development of air defense forces to meet the challenge of Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe.

Despite frequent demands for a unified air force, the United States continued to maintain separate Army and Navy air forces, but the organization of the Army Air Forces on June 20, 1941, and the establishment of air representation on the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff gave aviation a status practically coordinate with that of the older services. As a result of war experience, War Department Field Manual 10020, Command and Employment of Air Power, which was issued on July 21, 1943, stated: “Land power and air power are coequal and interdependent forces; neither is an auxiliary of the other.” United States Air Corps leaders were able to obtain the development of long-range heavy bombers because of the requirements of hemispheric defense, but they also gave attention to the procurement of aircraft designed to support ground forces.

Although the Luftwaffe was established as an independent equal of the German Army and Navy in 1935, the Nazi high command viewed air forces as valuable chiefly for supporting blitzkrieg ground assault campaigns. The Luftwaffe was equipped chiefly with fast fighters, twinengine bombers, and transport planes. The other Axis partner in Europe, Fascist Italy, in 1923 created a separate air force that professed to follow Douhet’s teachings. Prewar feats of picked Italian aircrews and special airplanes enhanced Benito Mussolini’s reputation, but the Italian Air Force had almost no modern aircraft when it went to war in 1940. A few Italian air units later served with the Luftwaffe when Germany took over military operations in the Mediterranean area.

When World War I ended, France possessed the world’s largest and most virile air force, but its strength was eroded by mismanagement at high levels. During the 1930′s, French economic mobilization policy did not support the country’s foreign policy, and the General Staff chose to develop the Maginot Line and the navy at the expense of aircraft and tanks. France was probably superior to Germany in the caliber of its aircrews and in individual aircraft characteristics in 1939, but the Luftwaffe held an imposing quantitative superiority, which was increased by the dispersion of the French Air Force. In the air-ground battles of 1940 the French air arm inflicted heavy damage on German air and armored forces, but it was too small and was soon destroyed as a fighting force.

Viewing aviation as a supporting force for surface operations, Japan maintained completely separate and seldom cooperative army and navy air forces. Even in the final months of the war, when the home islands were under air attack, the two air arms had separate aircraft warning systems, and each attempted to protect the targets which it judged to be most important. Except for the courage and patriotism of the fliers who gave their lives in futile Kamikaze attacks, Japan contributed little to the development of airpower experience during the war.

The USSR’s air forces were organized into a relatively unimportant naval air force and the Soviet Air Force, which both belonged to and was assigned to assist the Soviet Army. As a support force, the Soviet Air Force developed heavily armored fighters and medium bombers. In 1942, Joseph Stalin organized an independent air force, known as the Long-Distance Flying Command (ADD), but it did not receive equipment suited to its mission. By Anglo-American standards the ADD was a force of medium bombers and twin-engine transports.

Insofar as future warfare was concerned, the most important naval developments of World War II may have occurred in the North Atlantic, where the struggle for survival of Great Britain was won before the United States offensive in the Pacific began. The victory over the German submarine was mainly the result of British efforts, the United States contribution consisting primarily of mass production processes.

Karl Doenitz (Donitz), the German admiral in command of submarines, was one of the toughest naval antagonists that the Allies met during the war. He believed that Germany could win only by sinking an average of 750,000 tons of Allied shipping monthly, and his strategy was to keep his submarines moving to areas where sinkings were easiest to obtain. Against convoys he preferred to use heavy concentrations of Uboats known as wolf packs in continuous attacks, directing them individually from his headquarters ashore. The weakness in this method of control was the amount of two-way radio traffic required: Allied high frequency direction finders were able to locate German submarines with considerable accuracy. Wider convoy routing and better antisubmarine precautions in distant areas forced Doenitz to return to the shipping lanes of the North Atlantic, and it was there that the battle was finally settled in the summer of 1943.

The German submarines were defeated by the Royal Navy’s battle-scarred escorts and by aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF) Coastal Command under the operational control of the Admiralty. British scientists also made contributions to this victory, two of them major: microwave radar and operational research on antisubmarine warfare methods. The British success can be attributed to radar; sonar (asdic in British terminology), high frequency direction finding; the escort carrier; antisubmarine support groups of destroyers, which reinforced the escorts of convoys under attack; and the extension of landbased airpower across the Atlantic by the employment of B-24 Liberators. The principal United States contribution was the escort carrier, used to cover the areas in the mid-Atlantic that landbased aircraft did not reach. Escort groups, consisting of a small carrier and about 4 destroyer types, began operating in June 1943. They were especially successful in locating submarine refueling rendezvous. Hunter-killer groups of this type are still retained in the operating forces of the United States Navy.

The technological advance that proved most fruitful for the British in the antisubmarine campaign was microwave radar. German submarines while on the surface were able to detect enemy use of long-wave radar and could submerge in time to avoid attack. They failed, however, to discover that microwave radar was being employed against them until 1944, with the result that surface vessels were able to approach close enough to a submarine before it submerged to get it on the sonar. Coastal Command aircraft were eventually fitted with this type of radar. Used in conjunction with the Leigh light, a powerful searchlight controlled by the radar set, it was able to surprise surfaced submarines, which could be attacked before they submerged.

Late in the war antisubmarine ordnance was radically improved by the introduction of a projectile to augment the depth charge. The mount, called a hedgehog, threw 24 missiles over the bow of the attacking ship. Since the missiles exploded only after one of them had struck the submarine, there was no explosion in an unsuccessful attack to disturb the sonar search and give the submarine time to escape.

Because sailing in convoys delayed shipping, vessels capable of making 15 knots and over sailed singly, with the expectation that faster turnarounds would compensate for submarine losses. Pressure was brought on the Admiralty to sail 13-knot ships singly as well, but this change proved a mistake, and the 13-knot convoys were reestablished in May 1941.

Improved convoy efficiency was finally attained through operational research. By analytical studies of attacks, British scientists discovered that the number of sinkings bore no relation to the size of the convoy and depended only on the number of attacking U-boats, on whether the convoy had air escort, and, when it did not, on the number of surface escorts. Convoys were therefore increased in size from 32 to 54 ships, providing both better protection and faster delivery of cargoes. Air escort during daylight was found to decrease losses by an additional 64 percent, making sinkings negligible.

Late in the war the Germans developed the snorkel, by which a submarine could both cruise and charge batteries underwater with only the extension of this breather pipe exposed. It was perfected too late to affect the German submarine effort and require antisubmarine methods to counter it. But the problem of countermeasures remained with the postwar nuclear-powered submarine, a true submersible able to remain underwater constantly and cruise at great depths with high speed.

The major carrier and amphibious operations in the Pacific could not have been carried out without a highly developed system of mobile logistics. By means of this system ships of the Pacific Fleet were able not only to remain indefinitely in forward areas adjacent to enemy territory, but also to cruise at sea for long periods in readiness for combat. Such mobile logistics enabled combat ships to receive fuel and other needs from service ships either while under way or at anchorages near operating areas. Advanced base facilities were maintained afloat at all times, and techniques were developed for transferring fuel, ammunition, stores, and personnel at sea, thus freeing combat ships from the necessity of returning to port at frequent intervals.

The maintenance of logistics afloat had two advantages in addition to keeping combat ships at sea: (1) Service craft could move forward relatively easily either under their own power or by towing. (2) Better storage and handling facilities and more accurate inventory control were available than in primitive shore areas. The disadvantage was the great demand for ships.

The primary requirement of a floating base is a large anchorage affording good holding ground and capable of being protected from submarine attack. Adjacent land is required only for fighter strips, recreation areas, and those naval facilities that can perform their functions better on shore. The atolls and islands of the Central Pacific provided such areas, and in the advance across the ocean United States naval forces used the anchorages at Majuro, Eniwetok, and Ulithi. Earlier in the war floating bases were established in conjunction with shore facilities at Noumea in New Caledonia, Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, and Manus in the Admiralty Islands. Afloat bases were later located at Samar in the Philippines and the Kerama-retto near Okinawa.

From its beginning the United States Navy had a tradition of operating with afloat logistics, since historically it was a navy without proper bases even in its own country. Nevertheless, the immensity of the logistic problem in a crossPacific war had not been realized in prewar planning. Various reasons may be advanced for this failure, the most logical being the discontinuance of the study of logistics at the Naval War College and the fact that fleet problems could not be made broad enough for the impact of logistics to be felt. As a result, major problems had to be solved just before or during the war. A logistic structure had to be improvised, and the reason that it was clone so quickly and so well was that abundance could cover mistakes.

The first conception for providing logistics for the fleet was the establishment of advanced base units on shore. Such units were specially organized in the United States with equipment packaged for erection in forward areas. Designated as Lions (major bases), Cubs (minor bases), and Acorns (aviation bases), they included construction battalions, boat pools, harbor defense units, repair facilities, and other functional components. These had to be set up in advanced areas and could not readily be moved forward as the war advanced. Cubs were established at Espiritu Santo and Gaudalcanal, and a Lion was set up at Manus. As the war moved closer and more. rapidly toward Japan, this conception was largely abandoned.

With the capture of the Marshall Islands in February 1944, the practice of afloat logistics came into its own. Most of the service ships at Pearl Harbor were transferred to Majuro to form Service Squadron 10. This force-was a medley of floating equipment, including repair ships, floating dry docks, tenders, provision ships, ammunition ships, hospital ships, station tankers, lighters, tugs, floating cranes, distilling ships, survey ships, cold storage ships, and floating barracks. The largest piece of floating equipment used during the war was the ABSD ( advanced base sectional dock), capable of lifting 90,000 tons and docking any ship in the Pacific. Any of its sections (a maximum of 10) could be towed forward separately and be docked by the others.

The second element in mobile logistics during the war was afloat replenishment, which enabled ships to remain at sea longer than steam vessels had ever done before. The continuing requirement was fuel oil, of which a combat ship always required sufficient for battle. The practice in the Pacific therefore was to fuel at sea every three to five days. The technique of such fueling, which had been developed in the United States Navy before World War I, did not change essentially thereafter. Two ships would steam alongside each other, one at a slightly greater speed so as barely to tow the other, and both under rudder control. Fuel would be delivered through flexible hoses that were kept suspended and out of the water between the two ships by booms and running gear. The British Navy, having operated through two world wars largely in the North Sea and with bases elsewhere in the world, had not developed an efficient technique of fueling at sea, and the Royal Navy carrier force that joined the Pacific Fleet in 1945 had to fuel by the slow method of towing in tandem with a floating hose between the two ships. The major replenishment need after fuel was ammunition, for magazine space in combat ships was limited. In the later stages of the war provisions and special stores, replacement aircraft, and even personnel also were transferred at sea.

The replenishment force operated as Service Squadron 6 during the Iwo Jima and Okinawa. campaigns. While its composition varied with conditions, it was generally composed of a light cruiser flagship, about 16 tankers, 4 ammunition ships, 4 fleet tugs or salvage ships for towing crippled ships from the battle area, 2 aircraft transports, provision ships as required, and protective escort carriers and destroyer types.
The realization of the importance of mobile logistics was illustrated in the Okinawa campaign by the seizure before the assault landing date of the Kerama-retto, an island group west of Okinawa that had a good anchorage. Mobile logistics was not nearly as essential for ground forces and land-based forces in the Pacific as for naval forces, but it was found that, where sufficient shipping was available, it was preferable to retain supplies afloat until they were needed ashore. The transfer forward of army bases from the New Guinea coast after the recapture of the Philippines necessitated the withdrawal of a large number of LST’s from combat operations.

To move men and materials across two oceans required a complete reorganization of the American merchant marine and a tremendous shipbuilding program. In February 1942, the War Shipping Administration (WSA) was established to provide shipping needs for the war economy and the armed services. Two standard types of cargo ships were built rapidly and in quantity by the American shipbuilding industry: the 10knot Liberty ship and, later, the 15-knot Victory ship. These ships were then outfitted and manned by shipping companies but were operated by the WSA.

All ground operations in World War II began with amphibious assaults. The first, made in August 1942 at Guadalcanal, was a defensive operation designed to seize the island in order to halt the Japanese thrust into the Solomons. It was followed. in November by landings in North Africa. Amphibious operations in Europe included the assault on Sicily in July 1943, the cross-Channel invasion of Normandy in June 1944, and the movement into southern France in August. These were all primarily operations intended to seize beachheads from which large forces would subsequently break out for land campaigns. In the Pacific, however, one amphibious operation necessarily followed another. Amphibious operations in the Southwest Pacific were made at frequent intervals in relatively short shore-to-shore movements, while in the Central Pacific they involved large lifts over long distances. The assaulting forces in Europe were Army troops, whereas in the Central and Southwest Pacific both Marine and Army forces were employed. A greater amount of improvisation was necessary in the Southwest Pacific than in the Central Pacific, since naval elements were smaller and the theater generally received lower priorities for amphibious equipment.

Because of sound doctrine and proper landing equipment, all United States amphibious operations in World War II were successful. The doctrine had been developed by the United States Marine Corps in the two decades before the war, under the shadow of the British failure at Gallipoli in World War I. It was set forth in a Manual for Landing Operations, which attempted to define (1) command relationships; (2) naval gunfire support; (3) air support; (4) ship-toshore movement; (5) the securing of the beachhead; and (6) logistics. The basic doctrine outlined in this manual withstood the long trial by fire in war without fundamental changes.

The reason for this success was without doubt the provision of adequate craft for the landing of assault units and for logistic support over the beaches until proper port facilities could be built. The landing craft were of two basic types: (1) ships and boats that had the ability to beach without swamping, and also to withdraw; and (2) amphibians. Hulls of the first type were designed so that the craft grounded on only a small area forward. In withdrawing, the slipstream from the protected propeller washed away sand in the grounded area, thus releasing the craft from the beach. A ramp forward facilitated the rapid discharge of passengers and cargo. The smaller types, which were carried aboard transports, were designed by Andrew J. Higgins, a New Orleans boatbuilder. These were the LCVP (landing craft, vehicle and personnel) and the LCM (landing craft, medium), which were capable of transporting a tank. A larger type, designed to proceed under its own power to the designated area, was of British design; it included the LST (landing ship, tank) and the LCI (landing craft, infantry). The LCI subsequently evolved into a close-support gunboat type, while the LST with its ample tank deck became one of the most useful crafts in the war, employed in a range of logistic services far beyond those originally intended. LST’s were employed as hospital ships, barrack ships, tenders for small landing craft, floating machine shops, and issue ships. When they were forced to beach out from the shoreline because of shallow gradients, they could carry pontoon causeways with them. Intermediate types between shipboard craft and the LST were the LSM (landing ship, medium), a small LST, and the LCT (landing craft, tank), which was essentially a powered barge.

The second basic type of landing vehicle, the amphibian, could be propelled both in water and on land. The caterpillar type, invented by Donald Roebling, was able to cross the shoals and beaches of the Pacific. Two models were employed: the personnel carrier, LVT (landing vehicle, tracked), with a ramp in the rear, which allowed troops to debark quickly under some cover; and the LVT (A), or armored amphibian, which was actually an amphibious tank. The Army developed a vehicle of its own, code named the DUKW, an amphibious truck with a propeller drive in the water and a wheeled drive on land.

Special types of large amphibious ships also were built, mainly for the transport and support of landing craft, such as the LSD (landing ship, dock) and the LSV (landing ship, vehicle), an amphibian carrier. The assault transport or cargo ship carried as many as 9 LCM’s and 26 LCVP’s.

An important element in an amphibious operation was the shore party, which included the labor for quick unloading under difficult conditions. In the Central Pacific, where troop space in large overwater movements was limited, such labor was performed by a small number of specialized service troops augmented by reserves, although the latter were often called into combat when the unloading phase was at its most critical stage. In the Southwest Pacific the engineer special brigade was employed; it had regiments consisting of a boat battalion and a shore battalion, ably officered and with needed service troops attached.

The task force system was most widely exemplified in carrier operations. The destruction of the battleships at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 made the capital ship of the United States Navy the carrier, with its main battery of manned striking aircraft carrying torpedoes and bombs and a defensive system consisting primarily of fighter planes. Only the Japanese and United States navies developed carrier operations to a high degree. The technique of operating aircraft from carrier decks and the tactics of various aircraft types, especially the dive bomber, had been developed before the war and were similar in both navies. Usually the Americans initiated these developments, while the Japanese copied and perfected them.

As a capital ship, the carrier caused a revolution in naval tactics. As long as the gun remained the major weapon, the standard combat formation was the battleline, with light forces disposed on the engaged van and rear. When carriers first operated with the fleet, they took station on the unengaged side. As the manned airplane with its longer range replaced the big gun, the battle formation was changed to a circular one, with the carriers in the center, and other forces disposed around them to give them protection. United States formations were generally tight, with all the ships making tactical movements together in a task group that included four carriers. The Japanese operated in looser formations, and carriers with their attached ships conducted flight operations independently.

The primary striking carrier weapons in the United States Navy were the TBF Grumman Avenger, which could be used as a torpedo plane or as a level bomber, and the SDB Douglas Dauntless, a scout and dive bomber. The fighter that finally triumphed over the Japanese Zero was the Grumman F6F Hellcat. Japanese. aircraft were also given identification names by the Allied forces. The famous Mitsubishi Zero fighters, for example, were called Zekes, while the long-range, two-engine Mitsubishi bombers were known as Bettys.

All American ships were equipped with aircraft and surface radar by the end of 1942, but radar did not come into general use in the Japanese Navy until late in 1943. The Japanese fought such major actions as the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway without it. United States fighter aircraft in these and subsequent engagements were directed against oncoming raids by fighter directors using radar, thereby enabling the fighters to meet enemy aircraft from 50 to 70 miles out. The extensive use of radar resulted in the establishment in United States ships of a combat information center ( CIC), where all information received was analyzed and plotted and then relayed to the flag or commanding officer for his action. In some cases the officer in tactical command took his station in the CIC. It was surface radar that finally enabled the Americans to overcome the superiority of the Japanese in night actions.

Antiaircraft fire from United States ships early in the war was not effective, and enemy planes that were able to elude the United States fighter planes had good chances of making a successful attack. The variable-time (VT) or proximity fuze in antiaircraft ammunition, which was adopted in the Pacific in January 1943, changed this situation. An influence fuze, the VT was actually a small radar set that triggered the firing mechanism within 70 feet of the target in its destructive zone. At first it was restricted to naval actions, since it was feared that its use against land targets would result in its discovery by the enemy. In 1944, VT fuzes were employed successfully against V-1 flying bombs, as well as by ground forces in the Battle of the Bulge, the importance of which was considered to justify the possibility of discovery. Exploding a short distance above the ground, this fuze made the foxhole valueless as a safeguard for the foot soldier.

During World War II the expression “task force” used in connection with fast carrier operations in the Pacific caught the imagination of the American people and became part of their language, though with a variety of meanings. In the working language of the United States Navy, however, “task force” is one of a group of terms employed in connection with a system of organization which it has evolved for managing its combat ships in order to make the most effective use of sea and air in modern, fast-moving warfare, while at the same time providing for te maintenance, support, and constant replenishment needed by these ships. In naval warfare it is the manned ship that fights, not the man himself. A combat ship functions only at sea, but it must return to port at various intervals to prepare and replenish itself again for sea duty. It is therefore possible to separate in time the tactical employment from the logistics of a ship, its operation from its administration, and this separation is carried over into naval organizational structure in a manner not possible in land warfare.

The task force method of conducting naval warfare is a byproduct of what might be called the task-type organization of naval operating forces. In this method of organization a combat ship’s captain actually works for two commanders. He is under the operational control of a task commander, who is responsible for completing some task within the Navy’s mission; and is under the administrative control of a type commander, who is responsible for the ship’s upkeep, supply, discipline, and (within certain limits) training. Broadly speaking, a task commander is concerned with functions of purpose, and he serves as operational commander of a composite force of ships suited to a particular purpose. A type commander is concerned with the functions of support, and he maintains the readiness of his ships, which are usually of one type, such. as carriers, cruisers, or destroyers. He is an administrative commander and does his job primarily with such of his ships as are in port.

The task force organization of combat ships was best represented during World War II by the carrier task forces, which also included battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Amphibious task forces were composed of amphibious ships of all types, as well as battleships for gunfire support, small carriers for air support, and destroyer types for antisubmarine protection. Replenishment task forces consisted primarily of tankers, ammunition ships, and salvage tugs, with a cruiser flagship and small carriers and destroyer types for protection. These task forces could be divided into task groups and task units, while the administrative commands retained the older designations of squadron and division. The task concept was expanded to the fleet level in 1944. The two task fleets in the Central Pacific were the Fifth and Third fleets: the Fifth Fleet conducted the operations against the Marianas, Iwo Jima, and Olcinawa, while the Third Fleet assisted Gen. (later General of the Army) Douglas MacArthur in the recapture of the Philippines. The units that composed these fleets came from the pool of Central Pacific ships, which were assigned or withdrawn as operations required and the condition of the individual ships warranted. When ships were withdrawn from operational status, they reverted to the control of their type commander, whose headquarters were usually located with that of the commander of the Pacific Fleet. Ships newly commissioned or reverting to operational status after extensive repairs were assigned temporarily by the type commander to training commands, which specialized in preparing ships for combat. Such training was usually conducted outside of operational areas, although Japanese forces on bypassed Pacific islands provided targets for aircraft training.