Alexander P. de Seversky and the Quest for Air Power

13. Victory through Air Power

193 13 Victory through Air Power By New Year’s Day 1942, the war front presented a grim spectacle from the American point of view. After Pearl Harbor and despite many hours of warning, the U.S. military in the Philippines under the surprisingly irresolute leadership of Gen. Douglas MacArthur suffered Little Pearl Harbor. Japanese aircraft attacked Clark Field, destroying on the ground sixteen B-17s, fifty-five P-40s, plus an assortment of thirty other military planes. Besides a number of frontline aircraft at other fields, the surviving aircraft available to the U.S. Far East Air Force were a few Martin B-10s, Douglas B-18s, and P-35As—all woefully obsolete aircraft whose very presence in harm’s way served as tangible symbols of bad decisions and tight budgets. In some respects, Little Pearl Harbor proved more decisive than Pearl Harbor. The latter continued in operation under American control; many of the sunken capital ships were raised, repaired, and returned to duty. By contrast, Little Pearl Harbor established Japanese air superiority that doomed American ground forces and condemned the Philippines to occupation.1 The Japanese also used air power to strike at Guam and Wake Island. A U.S. Marine Corps VMF-211 squadron composed of F4F Wildcats protected the latter. Unfortunately, the bulk of the Wildcats, like P-40s at Clark Field, were caught and destroyed on the ground; others were victims of Nippon’s superior A6M Zero. As it had in the Philippines, enemy air power aided the ground assault and occupation of these islands. Rising Sun victories in the Western Pacific had a direct impact on the application of U.S. air power in Europe. True, Gen. Hap Arnold promoted Ira C. Eaker to brigadier general and appointed him as U.S. Army Air Forces bomber commander 194 Victory through Air Power in Great Britain in January. Eaker undertook the gargantuan task of setting up staff and facilities and organizing the Eighth Air Force with its prime mission of conducting a strategic bombing campaign against Germany. The catch? No one was eager to send America’s long-distance bomber, the B-17, to Europe until America’s long-distance war in the Pacific seemed containable.2 Before Victory: Pearl Harbor and the Major It was under these extremely dark circumstances that Alexander P. de Seversky revised and rewrote his feature articles in book form and added comment about U.S. losses to Japanese air power that occurred in December 1941. Obviously, the environment in which he wrote helped sharpen his criticism of the leadership, organization, planning, and procurement of military aviation. The prophet certainly had to modify over time his views about carrier planes and his prediction about when a bomber could fly round-trip across the Atlantic Ocean. He missed that mark by several years. However, his other comments about air power issues proved to be absolutely correct. December events in the Pacific verified the European experience—air power would be a key to most victories in the battles of war. Additionally, Japanese ascendancy in the air, not just British and Russian evaluations, painfully confirmed de Seversky’s argument that the United States had to upgrade its military aircraft to successfully confront the air forces of Germany and Japan.3 In addition, deadly Japanese air attacks on American battleships at Pearl Harbor and British battleships off the coast of Malaya served to confirm the prophet’s claim that aircraft had eclipsed and hedged naval operations. Only the presence of American air power or the absence of enemy air power enabled U.S. Navy vessels to anchor safely in harbors or sail the seas openly. Certainly, the war in the Pacific terminated the isolationist debate, but it also validated the Major’s repeated arguments on the need to extend the range of military aircraft, especially pursuits. In terms of the latter, a battleready P-38F with a combat range of 425 miles would not be available until later in 1942. Only by the end of 1943 would external fuel tanks provide top-performing fighters, P-47 and P-51, the ability to accompany bombers on longer missions. The failure heretofore to employ fighter escorts on lengthy bomb runs led to frightful losses of enemy aircraft. Based on the 195 Victory through Air Power notion of such early air power philosophers as Giulio Douhet, U.S. military air leaders continued to reassure each...