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Awesome analysis!
BTW. Before WW2 the
leadership consisted of many who played it safe. After Pearl
Harbor there was a search for those leaders who would take
their ships into Harms Way.
Speaking of Naval
Aviators, during the battle of Midway - often considered the
turning point of the Pacific War, Commander Wade McLusky led
his flight of dive bombers on a search for the Japanese carriers
- and with their fuel gauges nearing the bottom, he decided to
follow a Japanese Destroyer racing to rejoin the fleet after
searching for a US Submarine. Seeing the destroyer 20,000
feet below, he decided to follow it. If he was wrong, his
flight would likely all run out of gas and go down at sea.
If he was right he would have to fight his way through to what
was at the time the most powerful fleet on the ocean at that
time. Luckily, he was right and that destroyer directed him
to the carriers, the Zero air protection was wave hopping and
shooting down the rest of a torpedo squadron (all but 1 man
was lost), and McLusky found himself leading a squadron that
would sink 3 of Japans fleet carriers. One escaped for a
while under a squall but was sunk later that day. (There are
so many great stories from this one battle that I'll need to
ignore for the sake of space). McLusky was a risk taker - I
wonder how many aviators today would lead his squadron on what
might be a wild goose hunt and risk either dying, being
captured, lost at sea or being a hero. Those are not good
odds.
Finally, the US Navy
is being reduced to being smaller than at any time since
before WW1 (that's ONE) and while advances in technology are
great, they don't always make up for a loss of numbers. The
administration must have some logic for the changes but I
can't imagine what it is - well I can, but I don't like what I
keep coming to.
Anyway, enough for
now.
LarryT
Subject: Is
Naval Aviation Culture Dead?
________________________________________
From the Naval Proceedings Magazine.
Is Naval Aviation Culture Dead?
By John
Lehman
The swaggering-flyer mystique forged over the past
century has been stymied in recent years by
political correctness.
We celebrate the 100th anniversary of U.S. naval
aviation this year, but the
culture that has become legend was born in
controversy, with battleship
admirals and Marine generals seeing little use for
airplanes. Even after
naval aviators proved their worth in World War I,
naval aviation faced
constant conflict within the Navy and Marine Corps,
from the War Department,
and from skeptics in Congress. Throughout the inter
war period, its culture
was forged largely unnoted by the public.
It first burst into the American consciousness 69
years ago when a few
carrier aviators changed the course of history at
the World War II Battle of
Midway. For the next three years the world was
fascinated by these glamorous
young men who, along with the Leathernecks,
dominated the newsreels of the
war in the Pacific. Most were sophisticated and
articulate graduates of the
Naval Academy and the Ivy League, and as such they
were much favored for
Pathé News interviews and War Bond tours. Their
casualty rates from
accidents and combat were far higher than other
branches of the naval
service, and aviators were paid nearly a third more
than non-flying
shipmates. In typical humor, a pilot told one
reporter: “We don’t make more
money, we just make it faster.”
Landing a touchy World War II fighter on terra firma
was difficult enough,
but to land one on a pitching greasy deck required
quite a different level
of skill and sangfroid. It took a rare combination
of hand-eye coordination,
innate mechanical sense, instinctive judgment,
accurate risk assessment, and
most of all, calmness under extreme pressure. People
with such a rare
combination of talents will always be few in number.
The current generation
of 9-G jets landing at over 120 knots hasn’t made it
any easier.
Little wonder that poker was a favorite recreation
and gallows humor the
norm. In his book Crossing the Line, Professor Alvin
Kernan recounts when
his TBF had a bad launch off the USS Suwanee
(CVE-27) in 1945. He was trying
desperately to get out of the sinking plane as the
escort carrier sped by a
few feet away. Looking up, he saw the face of his
shipmate, Cletus Powell
(who had just won money from him playing blackjack),
leaning out of a
porthole shouting “Kernan, you don’t have to pay.
Get out, get out for God’s
sake.” No wonder such men had a certain swagger that
often irritated their
non-flying brothers in arms.
Louis Johnson’s Folly
By war’s end more than 100 carriers were in
commission. But when Louis
Johnson replaced the first Secretary of Defense, Jim
Forrestal—himself one
of the original naval aviators in World War I—he
tried to eliminate both the
Marine Corps and naval aviation. By 1950 Johnson had
ordered the
decommissioning of all but six aircraft carriers.
Most historians count this
as one of the important factors in bringing about
the invasion of South
Korea, supported by both China and the Soviet Union.
After that initial
onslaught, no land airbases were available for the
Air Force to fight back,
and all air support during those disastrous months
came from the USS Valley
Forge (CV-45), the only carrier left in the western
Pacific. She was soon
joined by the other two carriers remaining in the
Pacific.
Eventually enough land bases were recovered to allow
the Air Force to engage
in force, and more carriers were recommissioned,
manned by World War II vets
hastily recalled to active duty. James Michener’s
The Bridges at Toko-Ri and
Admiral James Holloway’s Aircraft Carriers at War
together capture that
moment perfectly. Only later was it learned that
many of the enemy pilots
were battle-hardened Russian veterans of World War
II.
By the time of the armistice, the Cold War was well
under way, and for the
next 43 years, naval aviation was at the leading
edge of the conflict around
the globe. As before, aviators suffered very high
casualties throughout.
Training and operational accidents took a terrible
toll. Jet fighters on
straight decks operating without the sophisticated
electronics or reliable
ejection seats that evolved in later decades had to
operate come hell or
high water as one crisis followed another in the
Taiwan Strait, Cuba, and
many lesser-known fronts. Between1953 and 1957,
hundreds of naval aviators
were killed in an average of 1,500 crashes per year,
while others died when
naval intelligence gatherers like the EC-121 were
shot down by North
Koreans, Soviets, and Chinese. In those years
carrier aviators had only a
one-in-four chance of surviving 20 years of service.
Vietnam and the Cold War
The Vietnam War was an unprecedented feat of
endurance, courage, and
frustration in ten years of constant combat. Naval
aviators flew against the
most sophisticated Soviet defensive systems and
highly trained and effective
Vietnamese pilots. But unlike any previous conflict,
they had to operate
under crippling political restrictions, well known
to the enemy.
Antiaircraft missiles and guns were placed in
villages and other locations
known to be immune from attack. The kinds of targets
that had real strategic
value were protected while hundreds of aviators’
lives and thousands of
aircraft were lost attacking easily rebuilt bridges
and “suspected truck
parks,” as the U.S. government indulged its academic
game theories.
Stephen Coonts’ Flight of the Intruder brilliantly
expressed the
excruciating frustration from this kind of combat.
During that period,
scores of naval aviators were killed or taken
prisoner. More than 100
squadron commanders and executive officers were
lost. The heroism and horror
of the POW experience for men such as John McCain
and Jim Stockdale were
beyond anything experienced since the war with
Japan.
Naturally, when these men hit liberty ports, and
when they returned to their
bases between deployments, their partying was as
intense as their combat.
The legendary stories of Cubi Point, Olongapo City,
and the wartime Tailhook
conventions in Las Vegas grew with each passing
year.
Perhaps the greatest and least known contribution of
naval aviation was its
role in bringing the Cold War to a close. President
Ronald Reagan believed
that the United States could win the Cold War
without combat. Along with
building the B-1 and B-2 bombers and the Peacekeeper
missile, and expanding
the Army to 18 divisions, President Reagan built the
600-ship Navy and, more
important, approved the Navy recommendation to begin
at once pursuing a
forward strategy of aggressive exercising around the
vulnerable coasts of
Russia. This demonstrated to the Soviets that we
could defeat the combined
Warsaw Pact navies and use the seas to strike and
destroy their vital
strategic assets with carrier-based air power.
Nine months after the President’s inauguration,
three U.S. and two Royal
Navy carriers executed offensive exercises in the
Norwegian Sea and Baltic.
In this and subsequent massive exercises there and
in the northwest Pacific
carried out every year, carrier aircraft proved that
they could operate
effectively in ice and fog, penetrate the best
defenses, and strike all of
the bases and nodes of the Soviet strategic nuclear
fleet. Subsequent
testimony from members of the Soviet General Staff
attested that this was a
major factor in the deliberations and the loss of
confidence in the Soviet
government that led to its collapse.
During those years naval aviation adapted to many
new policies, the removal
of the last vestiges of institutional racial
discrimination, and the first
winging of women as naval aviators and their
integration into ships and
squadrons.
‘Break the Culture’
1991 marked the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and
the end of the Cold War.
But as naval aviation shared in this triumph, the
year also marked the start
of tragedy. The Tailhook Convention that took place
in September that year
began a scandal with a negative impact on naval
aviation that continues to
this day. The over-the-top parties of combat
aviators were overlooked during
the Vietnam War but had become accidents waiting to
happen in the postwar
era.
Whatever the facts of what took place there, it set
off investigations
within the Navy, the Department of Defense, the
Senate, and the House that
were beyond anything since the investigations and
hearings regarding the
Pearl Harbor attack. Part of what motivated this
grotesquely
disproportionate witch hunt was pure partisan
politics and the deep
frustration of Navy critics (and some envious
begrudgers within the Navy) of
the glamorous treatment accorded to the Navy and its
aviators in Hollywood
and the media, epitomized by the movie Top Gun.
Patricia Schroeder (D-CO),
chair of the House Armed Services Committee
investigation, declared that her
mission was to “break the culture,” of naval
aviation. One can make the case
that she succeeded.
What has changed in naval aviation since Tailhook?
First, we should review
the social/cultural, and then professional changes.
Many but not all were
direct results of Tailhook.
‘De-Glamorization’ of Alcohol
Perhaps in desperation, the first reaction of
Pentagon leadership to the
congressional witch hunt was to launch a massive
global jihad against
alcohol, tellingly described as “de-glamorization.”
While alcohol was
certainly a factor in the Tailhook scandal, it was
absolutely not a problem
for naval aviation as a whole. There was no evidence
that there were any
more aviators with an alcohol problem than there
were in the civilian
population, and probably a good deal fewer.
As a group, naval aviators have always been
fastidious about not mixing
alcohol and flying. But social drinking was always a
part of off-duty
traditional activities like hail-and-farewell
parties and especially the
traditional Friday happy hour. Each Friday on every
Navy and Marine air
station, most aviators not on duty turned up at the
officers’ club at 1700
to relax and socialize, tell bad jokes, and play
silly games like “dead
bug.” But there was also an invaluable professional
function, because happy
hours provided a kind of sanctuary where junior
officers could roll the dice
with commanders, captains, and admirals, ask
questions that could never be
asked while on duty, listen avidly to the war
stories of those more senior,
and absorb the lore and mores of the warrior tribe.
When bounds of decorum were breached, or someone
became over-refreshed, as
occasionally happened, they were usually taken care
of by their peers. Only
in the worst cases would a young junior officer find
himself in front of the
skipper on Monday morning. Names like Mustin Beach,
Trader Jon’s, Miramar,
and Oceana were a fixed part of the culture for
anyone commissioned before
1991. A similar camaraderie took place in the
chiefs’ clubs, the acey-deucy
clubs, and the sailors’ clubs.
Now all that is gone. Most officers’ and
non-commissioned officers’ clubs
were closed and happy hours banned. A few clubs
remain, but most have been
turned into family centers for all ranks and are, of
course, empty. No
officers dare to be seen with a drink in their hand.
The JOs do their
socializing as far away from the base as possible,
and all because the
inquisitors blamed the abuses of Tailhook ’91 on
alcohol abuse. It is fair
to say that naval aviation was slow to adapt to the
changes in society
against alcohol abuse and that corrections were
overdue, especially against
tolerance of driving while under the influence.
But once standards of common sense were ignored in
favor of political
correctness, there were no limits to the spread of
its domination. Not only
have alcohol infractions anonymously reported on the
hot-line become
career-enders, but suspicions of sexual harassment,
homophobia, telling of
risqué jokes, and speech likely to offend favored
groups all find their way
into fitness reports. And if actual hot-line
investigations are then
launched, that is usually the end of a career,
regardless of the outcome.
There is now zero-tolerance for any missteps in
these areas.
Turning Warriors into Bureaucrats
On the professional side, it is not only the
zero-tolerance of infractions
of political correctness but the smothering effects
of the explosive growth
of bureaucracy in the Pentagon. When the Department
of Defense was created
in 1947, the headquarters staff was limited to 50
billets. Today, 750,000
full time equivalents are on the headquarters staff.
This has gradually
expanded the time and cost of producing weapon
systems, from the 4 years
from concept to deployment of Polaris, to the
projected 24 years of the
F-35.
But even more damaging, these congressionally
created new bureaucracies are
demanding more and more meaningless paperwork from
the operating forces.
According to the most recent rigorous survey, each
Navy squadron must
prepare and submit some 780 different written
reports annually, most of
which are never read by anyone but still require
tedious gathering of every
kind of statistic for every aspect of squadron
operations. As a result, the
average aviator spends a very small fraction of his
or her time on duty
actually flying.
Job satisfaction has steadily declined. In addition
to paperwork, the
bureaucracy now requires officers to attend
mandatory courses in sensitivity
to women’s issues, sensitivity and integration of
openly homosexual
personnel, and how to reintegrate into civilian
society when leaving active
duty. This of course is perceived as a massive waste
of time by aviators,
and is offensive to them in the inherent assumption
that they are no longer
officers and gentlemen but coarse brutes who will
abuse women and gays, and
not know how to dress or hold a fork in civilian
society unless taught by
GS-12s.
One of the greatest career burdens added to naval
aviators since the Cold
War has been the Goldwater-Nichols requirement to
have served at least four
years of duty on a joint staff to be considered for
flag, and for junior
officers to have at least two years of such joint
duty even to screen for
command. As a result, the joint staffs in Washington
and in all the
combatant commands have had to be vastly increased
to make room. In
addition, nearly 250 new Joint Task Force staffs
have been created to
accommodate these requirements. Thus, when thinking
about staying in or
getting out, young Navy and Marine aviators look
forward to far less flight
time when not deployed, far more paperwork, and many
years of boring staff
duty.
Zero-Tolerance Is Intolerable
Far more damaging than bureaucratic bloat is the
intolerable policy of
“zero-tolerance” applied by the Navy and the Marine
Corps. One strike, one
mistake, one DUI, and you are out. The Navy has
produced great leaders
throughout its history. In every era the majority of
naval officers are
competent but not outstanding. But there has always
been a critical mass of
fine leaders. They tended to search for and
recognize the qualities making
up the right stuff, as young JOs looked up the chain
and emulated the top
leaders, while the seniors in turn looked down and
identified and mentored
youngsters with promise.
By nature, these kinds of war-winning leaders make
mistakes when they are
young and need guidance—and often protection from
the system. Today, alas,
there is much evidence that this critical mass of
such leaders is being
lost. Chester Nimitz put his whole squadron of
destroyers on the rocks by
making mistakes. But while being put in purgatory
for a while, he was
protected by those seniors who recognized a
potential great leader. In
today’s Navy, Nimitz would be gone. Any seniors
trying to protect him would
themselves be accused of a career-ending cover-up.
Because the best aviators are calculated
risk-takers, they have always been
particularly vulnerable to the system. But now in
the age of political
correctness and zero-tolerance, they are becoming an
endangered species.
Today, a young officer with the right stuff is faced
on commissioning with
making a ten-year commitment if he or she wants to
fly, which weeds out some
with the best potential. Then after winging and an
operational squadron
tour, they know well the frustrations outlined here.
They have seen many of
their role models bounced out of the Navy for the
bad luck of being
breathalyzed after two beers, or allowing risqué
forecastle follies.
‘Dancing on the Edge of a Cliff’
They have not seen senior officers put their own
careers on the line to
prevent injustice. They see before them at least 14
years of sea duty,
interspersed with six years of bureaucratic staff
duty in order to be
considered for flag rank. And now they see all that
family separation and
sacrifice as equal to dancing on the edge of a
cliff. One mistake or unjust
accusation, and they are over. They can no longer
count on a sea-daddy
coming to their defense.
Today, the right kind of officers with the right
stuff still decide to stay
for a career, but many more are putting in their
letters in numbers that
make a critical mass of future stellar leaders
impossible. In today’s
economic environment, retention numbers look okay,
but those statistics are
misleading.
Much hand-wringing is being done among naval
aviators (active-duty, reserve,
and retired) about the remarkable fact that there
has only been one aviator
chosen as Chief of Naval Operations during the past
30 years. For most of
the last century there were always enough
outstanding leaders among
aviators, submariners, and surface warriors to
ensure a rough rotation among
the communities when choosing a CNO. The causes of
this sudden change are
not hard to see. Vietnam aviator losses severely
thinned the ranks of
leaders and mentors; Tailhook led to the forced or
voluntary retirement of
more than 300 carrier aviators, including many of
the finest, like Bob
Stumpf, former skipper of the Blue Angels.
There are, of course, the armchair strategists and
think-tankers who herald
the arrival of unmanned aerial vehicles as
eliminating the need for naval
aviators and their culture, since future naval
flying will be done from
unified bases in Nevada, with operators requiring a
culture rather closer
computer geeks. This is unlikely.
As the aviator culture fades from the Navy, what is
being lost? Great naval
leaders have and will come from each of the
communities, and have absorbed
virtues from all of them. But each of the three
communities has its unique
cultural attributes. Submariners are imbued with the
precision of
engineering mastery and the chess players’ adherence
to the disciplines of
the long game; surface sailors retain the legacy of
John Paul Jones, David
G. Farragut and Arleigh “31 Knot” Burke, and have
been the principal
repository of strategic thinking and planning.
Aviators have been the
principal source of offensive thinking, best
described by Napoleon as
“L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!” (Audacity,
audacity, always
audacity!)
Those attributes of naval aviators—willingness to
take intelligent
calculated risk, self-confidence, even a certain
swagger—that are invaluable
in wartime are the very ones that make them
particularly vulnerable in
today’s zero-tolerance Navy. The political
correctness thought police, like
Inspector Javert in Les Misérables, are out to get
them and are relentless.
The history of naval aviation is one of constant
change and challenge. While
the current era of bureaucracy and political
correctness, with its new
requirements of integrating women and openly gay
individuals, is indeed
challenging, it can be dealt with without
compromising naval excellence. But
what does truly challenge the future of the naval
services is the mindless
pursuit of zero-tolerance. A Navy led by men and
women who have never made a
serious mistake will be a Navy that will fail.
Dr.
Lehman was the 65th Secretary of the Navy and a
member of the 9/11 Commission.
In victory you deserve Champagne
In defeat you need it!
Scars are Tattoos with
better stories !
If you follow all the
rules
You miss all the fun!
If you have no enemies,
you have no character !
Clyde Romero
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