Stalking the U-Boat: U.S. Naval Aviation in Europe during World War I

Foreword

Foreword Water is unquestionably the most important natural feature on earth. By volume the world’s oceans compose 99 percent of the planet’s living space; in fact, the surface of the Pacific Ocean alone is larger than that of the total land bodies. Water is as vital to life as air. Indeed, to test whether the other planets or the moon can sustain life, NASA looks for signs of water. The story of human development is inextricably linked to the oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers that dominate the earth’s surface. The University Press of Florida’s series New Perspectives on Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology is devoted to exploring the significance of the earth’s water while providing lively and important books that cover the spectrum of maritime history and nautical archaeology broadly defined. The series includes works that focus on the role of canals, rivers, lakes, and oceans in history; on the economic, military, and political use of those waters; and upon the people, communities, and industries that support maritime endeavors. Limited by neither geography nor time, volumes in the series contribute to the overall understanding of maritime history and can be read with profit by both general readers and specialists. Historians have devoted considerable attention to the history of military and naval aviation, but until the publication of this volume there has been no book-length examination of U.S. Navy aviation during World War I. Geoffrey L. Rossano admirably fills this lacuna with his detailed examination of how the Navy forged an air service between 1917 and 1919. The foundation upon which the Navy built its air arm was very weak. At the outbreak of war in Europe, the Navy possessed only 54 planes, most of which were technologically obsolete; the first plane had been purchased as early as 1911. The Navy stationed these aircraft at rudimentary airfields, the most important of which was the training facility at Pensacola, Florida, established in 1914. Of the fewer than three hundred pilots and naval personnel holding aviation ratings, many also held other assignments. The Navy Department divided responsibility for aircraft procurement, maintenance, and xiv Foreword armaments among several of the semi-autonomous bureaus, none of whose heads reported to the Office of Naval Aeronautics (established in 1914). Advances made by European air forces between the outbreak of war in 1914 and the American entry in 1917 placed the United States even further behind in virtually all aspects of air power. Yet by the end of the war, U.S. naval aviation had been transformed in size, expanded its missions, and laid the basis for growth during the 1920s and 1930s that placed the U.S. Navy in the forefront among the leading maritime air forces of the world. This transformation forms the basis of Rossano’s study, the focus of which is on developments in Europe, because that is where the Navy met and solved theenormousorganizational,logistical,personnel,andoperationalchallenges posed by the war. This is not a top-down institutional study but rather one from the multiple perspectives of commanding officers, aviators, and enlisted personnel, not just from the leaders who planned strategy and the pilots who flew the missions. It also focuses on the organizers who got the men and machines across the Atlantic, established the bases—creating American towns in England, France, Ireland, and Italy from which they operated—and developed the logistical system to keep them supplied with all the necessities— food, fuel, arms, and equipment—to sustain operations. Rossano analyses those operations in terms of both doctrine developed and effectiveness. Rossano also puts a human face on the entire undertaking, describing the boredom of long patrols, the excitement of bombing raids and dogfights, leisure activities on base, and the difficulties encountered working within a tradition-bound navy. Delving into the organization of the civilian bureaucracy as it rapidly expanded in wartime America, he also explains the similar challenges that faced the U.S. Army as it prepared to fight on the Western Front. Rossano concludes that naval aviation had less impact on either the conduct or outcome of World War I than the reverse. That is, he describes the obstacles that naval aviation faced during the war and how those challenges helped shape the service more so than naval aviation shaped the outcome of the war. Indeed, the war in Europe formed the foundation upon which naval aviation built during the interwar years. The 1921 establishment of the Bureau of Aeronautics, with control...