page_title: Naval aviation
section_title: Interwar period
hierarchical_section_title: Naval aviation / History / Interwar period
caption_attribution_description: 鳳翔　日本海軍航空母艦　千葉県館山沖標柱間にて全力公試中の写真。 Imperial Japanese Navy's aircraft carrier, Hosho on its trial run at full power near Tateyama, Japan
context_page_description: Naval aviation is the application of military air power by navies, whether from warships that embark aircraft, or land bases.
  Naval aviation is typically projected to a position nearer the target by way of an aircraft carrier. Carrier-based aircraft must be sturdy enough to withstand demanding carrier operations. They must be able to launch in a short distance and be sturdy and flexible enough to come to a sudden stop on a pitching flight deck; they typically have robust folding mechanisms that allow higher numbers of them to be stored in below-decks hangars and small spaces on flight decks. These aircraft are designed for many purposes, including air-to-air combat, surface attack, submarine attack, search and rescue, matériel transport, weather observation, reconnaissance and wide area command and control duties.
  Naval helicopters can be used for many of the same missions as fixed-wing aircraft while operating from aircraft carriers, helicopter carriers, destroyers and frigates.
context_section_description: Genuine aircraft carriers did not emerge beyond Britain until the early 1920s.
  The Japanese Hōshō (1921) was the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier, although the initial plans and laying down for HMS Hermes (1924) had begun earlier. Both Hōshō and Hermes initially boasted the two most distinctive features of a modern aircraft carrier: a full-length flight deck and a starboard-side control tower island. Both continued to be adjusted in the light of further experimentation and experience, however: Hōshō even opted to remove its island entirely in favor of a less obstructed flight deck and improved pilot visibility. Instead, Japanese carriers opted to control their flight operations from a platform extending from the side of the flight deck.
  In the United States, Admiral William Benson attempted to entirely dissolve the USN's Naval Aeronautics program in 1919. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt and others succeeded in maintaining it, but the service continued to support battleship-based doctrines. To counter Billy Mitchell's campaign to establish a separate Department of Aeronautics, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels ordered a rigged test against USS Indiana in 1920 which reached the conclusion that "the entire experiment pointed to the improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs." Investigation by the New-York Tribune that discovered the rigging led to Congressional resolutions compelling more honest studies. The sinking of SMS Ostfriesland involved violating the Navy's rules of engagement but completely vindicated Mitchell to the public. Some men, such as Captain (soon Rear Admiral) William A. Moffett, saw the publicity stunt as a means to increase funding and support for the Navy's aircraft carrier projects. Moffett was sure that he had to move decisively in order to avoid having his fleet air arm fall into the hands of a proposed combined Land/Sea Air Force which took care of all the United States's airpower needs. (That very fate had befallen the two air services of the United Kingdom in 1918:  the Royal Flying Corps had been combined with the Royal Naval Air Service to become the Royal Air Force, a condition which would remain until 1937.)  Moffett supervised the development of naval air tactics throughout the '20s. The first aircraft carrier entered the U.S. fleet with the conversion of the collier USS Jupiter and its recommissioning as USS Langley in 1922.
  Many British naval vessels carried float planes, seaplanes or amphibians for reconnaissance and spotting: two to four on battleships or battlecruisers and one on cruisers. The aircraft, a Fairey Seafox or later a Supermarine Walrus, were catapult-launched, and landed on the sea alongside for recovery by crane. Several submarine aircraft carriers were built by Japan, each carrying one floatplane, which did not prove effective in war. The French Navy built one large submarine, Surcouf which also carried one floatplane, and was also not effective in war.
caption: Hōshō, the first purpose-built aircraft carrier, in 1922.
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