Maritime Airpower in the Interwar Period: The Information Dimension

Abstract

The impact of airpower on the conduct of naval operations was considerable. It affected the roles, perceived importance and composition of the battle fleet, but its transformational effect was gradual rather than instantaneous. Airpower played a crucial role in the information war that underlay maritime operations. Access to, and the exploitation of, information greatly influenced the way in which the Royal Navy managed the actual process of change, as institutional, cultural and political norms adapted to the new technological reality. The Admiralty's incomplete control of all aspects of maritime power does much to explain deficiencies in this process.

Notes

The opinions expressed in this article should not be thought necessarily to reflect official UK opinion in any way.

For an extreme version of this argument, see Robert L. O'Connell, Sacred Vessels: The Cult of the Battleship and the Rise of the US Navy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1991) especially pp.247–65, 277–316. With its focus on the clash of paradigms, William M. McBride, Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865–1945 (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press 2001) especially pp.182–210 is another review in the same vein. Lawrence Sondhaus, Navies of Europe (London: Longman 2002) pp.204–22 and Phillips Payson O'Brien, Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (London: Frank Cass 2001), especially the chapter ‘British Naval procurement and Technological Change 1919–1939’ by Jon T. Sumida, pp.128–43, offer a more balanced and comprehensive view.

Maritime airpower includes land-based airpower intended essentially for maritime use whether it was ‘owned’ by the navy (as in the case of Japan and the US) or not (as in the case of Britain).

Cunningham, 4 May 1944, Prem 3, 322/6, PRO, London.

Admiralty memorandum to the Cabinet, 2 July 1945. Adm 205/53, PRO. See John B. Hattendorf et al. (eds.), British Naval Documents 1204–1960 (London: Scolar Press for the Navy Records Society 1993) p.949.

A paper circulated by Rear-Admiral R.D. Oliver, Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, 15 Aug. 1945, with comments. Adm 1/17259, PRO. In ibid. p. 802.

W.J.R. Gardner, Decoding History: The Battle of the Atlantic and Ultra (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1999) is a rigorous review of this issue. The true complexities of the transformations in the war against the U-boat are brought out in G. Franklin, Britain's Anti-Submarine Capacity 1919–1939 (London: Frank Cass 2004) who argues convincingly that the Royal Navy was not ‘caught by surprise’ in 1939. March Milner reminds us that the anti-submarine war did not virtually end in 1943 in ‘The Dawn of Modern Anti-Submarine Warfare: Allied Responses to the U-boats, 1944–45’, RUSI Journal (Spring 1989) pp.61–8.

For a recent evaluation of the extent of the operational development of the battleship in the interwar period see Joseph Moretz, The Royal Navy and the Capital Ship in the Interwar Period: An Operational Perspective (London: Frank Cass 2002) especially Chap. 4.

See note 4.

David Edgerton, England and the Aeroplane: An Essay on a Militant and Technological Nation (London: Macmillan 1991) p.34; David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887–1941 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 1997) p.300.

This point and other arguments to be found in this paper are further developed in my Airpower and the Royal Navy (London: Jane's 1979) and ‘Adopting the Aircraft Carrier: the British, American and Japanese Case Studies' in Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett (eds.), Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: CUP 1996).

Evans and Peattie, Kaigun (note 10) pp.325, 351.

For a short summary of these issues, see G. Till, ‘Airpower and the Battleship in the 1920s' in Bryan Ranft, Technical Change and British Naval Policy 1860–1939 (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1977) pp.108–22.

Evans and Peattie, Kaigun (note 10) pp.323–4.

Ibid., pp.341–2.

For the Sempill Mission see ibid, pp.301–2 and Stephen Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars: The Period of Anglo-American Antagonism, 1919–1929 (London: Cassell 1968) pp.245, 529.

For a useful analysis of the difficulties of assessing technical progress by peer competitors see Anthony Wells, ‘Naval Intelligence and Decision-Making in an Era of Technical Change’ in Ranft (note 13).

See my ‘Perceptions of Naval Power Between the Wars: The British Case’ in Philip Towle (ed.), Estimating Foreign Military Power (London: Croom Helm 1981) p.187.

Quoted in Geoffrey Till, ‘Airpower and the Battleship in the 1920's’ in Ranft (note 13) p.120.

Quoted in ibid., p.110.

Quoted in Towle (note 18) p.18.

Quoted in ibid. pp.190–1. See the introduction by W. J. R. Gardner to Patrick Beesley, Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre 1939–1945 (London: Greenhill Books 2000) p.xii.

This is the main thesis in Edgerton's England and the Aeroplane (note 10).

Quoted in Till, Airpower and the Royal Navy (note 11) p.148. The whole matter is more fully discussed in Chap. 6.

Ibid., p.149.

Evans and Peattie, Kaigun (note 10) p.330.

Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, The Life of John Rushworth, Earl Jellicoe (London: Cassell 1936) p.349.

Ibid., p.329.

Till, Airpower and the Royal Navy (note 11) p.18.

The best reviews of the Bismarck operation are Graham Rhys-Jones, The Loss of the Bismarck: an Avoidable Disaster (London: Cassell 1999) especially Chap. 8; and, particularly from the German side, David J. Bercuson and Holger H. Herwig, Bismarck: The Story Behind the Destruction of the Pride of Hitler's Navy (London: Pimlico 2003).

The US Merrill incident is recalled in J. B. Perkins III, ‘Operation Praying Mantis: the Surface View’ in Proceedings of the US Naval Institute (1989), Vol. 114, No. 5, p.68. For Admiral Woodward's story, see One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander (London: HarperCollins 1992) pp.63–4.

Quoted in Bacon (note 27) p.247.

Admiral Sir Charles Madden, quoted in Till, Airpower and the Royal Navy (note 11) p.145.

B. Tunstall, Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail: The Evolution of Fighting Tactics 1650–1815, ed. Nicholas Tracy (London: Conway 1990) pp.202–3.

This is the general argument of Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game (London: John Murray 1996).

Ibid.

Till, Airpower and the Royal Navy (note 11) p.142.