Evening star., 1945-02-25
Carriers Against the Land

carrier based planes against land
based planes, even cursory consid-
Grafton Of the Fifth Fleets recent
attack on Tokyo should be enough
to dispel them permanently.
Actually. in the sense that never
before had naval air power executed
sustained assault on the heart Of
an enemy homeland, these great
carrier strikes were the first blows Of
their kind in the history Of warfare.
Until they took place, there had been
nothing quite like them in any COM
bat area either in Europe or the
Pacific Asiatic theater, and the
more dogmatic partisans of land
based planes could still maintain
not very convincingly, of course
that the brilliant victories of our
ship-borne bombers and fighters in
such places as the Marianas and the
Philippines did not settle the ques-
ton. the theory being that the test
would be much more difficult against
Japan itself than against Japan's
island outposts.
Now, however, even this last ten
uous reservation has been swept
away. For the carriers of the Fifth
Fleet, serving as bases for about
1900 aircraft and protected by a
huge task force of battleships, cruis-
ers, destroyers and special antiair-
craft vessels, took up their positions
some 300 miles off Tokyo and for a
full two days, with supreme con-
f1dence and methodical leisureliness,
hammered away at the enemy right
in his front yard against the nerve
center and heart Of all his imperial
power. II ever the japanese had
reason to strike back with every bit
of their available strength, they had
it then, and apparently they did
their best, but their best was spec
tacularly inadequate: According to
Admiral Nimitz, they lost 500 planes
to 40 lost by us, and they failed to
damage even one OF our Fifth Fleets
surface vessels.
Two years and ten months prior to
this tremendous assault, when Gen.
eral Doolittle first struck at Tokyo
with few Army bonbers launched
from the Hornet, critics could argue
with some measure Of plausibility
that IT was hopeless for carriers to
approach hostile shores, particularly
the mainland of the enemy. They
could point out, for example, that
the Hornet task force, having been
sighted by japanese vessel, did not
dare proceed to within 400 miles of
Tokyo, as originally planned, but
had to send up the Doolittle planes
from a. point 800 miles away and
then make "its own precarious es-
cape" From this the extremists
concluded that carriers were largely
a waste of money, good at best only
for hit-and-run raids.
But as has since been demon
strated in numerous actions, con-
clusively 50 in the smashing strikes
against Tokyo, such criticism, was
altogether fallacious from the start.
1t overlooked the fact that our Navy.
once 1t recovered from Pearl Harbor
and restored the balance of sea
power in the Pacific and then started
cutting the japanese fleet to bits,
had 1t within itself to employ car
riers IN a strength 50 concentrated
as to cope with anything that might
be sent against them from the land.
this being done with the help of
battleships, cruisers and other sur
face units, and frequently with the
support Of the Army air arm-the
kind Of support they received from
the B-29s, for instance, in last fort
nights Tokyo assault.
In sum, carriers cannot win the
war all by themselves, no more than
any other single element in our
armed forces can win it. But they
have proved themselves weapon OF
extraordinary potency, capable Of
f1ghting it out on equal terms-much
better than equal in the Pacific so
far--against land-based planes.