Developing carrier airpower

Individual initiative created a powerful weapon

During the 1920s and 1930s, Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves emerged as the most important flag officer in American Naval Aviation. All the Factors of Victory by Thomas Wildenberg (Brassey's Inc., www.brasseysinc.com $27.50) tells of how Reeves took command of the USN's nascent carrier arm during a critical period and, imagining the aircraft carrier's possibilities as an offensive weapon, transformed it from a small auxiliary command in support of the battle line into a powerful strike force that could attack far in advance of the fleet. Astute politically, Reeves fashioned an offensive role for carriers without threatening the supremacy of the battleship, so that the Navy's carrier arm continued to receive valuable resources during the lean years of the Depression.

Indeed, until the carrier commanders of WWII proved their mettle, Reeves' expertise in the use of the aircraft carrier in Naval tactics was unequaled anywhere in the world.

Reeves, who entered the US Naval Academy in 1890, retired from the Navy in 1936. In May 1940, the service recalled him to active duty for the wartime emergency. He served another six years, making his career as an officer not only one of the most significant hut also one of the longest in American Naval history.

Copyright Challenge Publications Inc. Nov 2003
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