Bomber Command and the Eastern Sea Frontier remained indefinite, the former serving without specific directives under the “operational control” of the latter. Any decision on these questions of jurisdiction would necessarily have involved a radical review of the existing relationship between the services, especially in their relation to the air arm. And some decision was obviously necessary if antisubmarine operations were not to founder hopelessly in a maze of overlapping jurisdictional boundaries and tortuous command channels. It was a kind of fighting that demanded extreme mobility on the part of the antisubmarine forces and almost instantaneous transmission of intelligence if the enemy, itself extremely mobile and under closely integrated command, were to be successfully engaged.
Almost from the beginning it began to appear that, if the Army Air Forces were to continue in the antisubmarine business, their units engaged in that work would have to be organized into a specially trained and equipped command with antisubmarine operations as its sole duty. Such a prospect at once raised a family of problems. In the first place, who, Army or Navy, should control this command? Secondly, should it be deployed defensively, in support of the fleet, primarily for the protection of the shipping lanes, or as a highly mobile force capable of carrying the battle aggressively to the enemy wherever the latter might be located? On these two grounds, the jurisdictional and the strategic, there arose a long and intensive controversy, a debate which centered on the creation, organization, and deployment of an AAF antisubmarine command, but which involved issues of much broader scope. In order, therefore, to understand these issues and to explain the confusion as a result of which the Army Air Forces found itself engaged in the submarine hunt, it will be necessary to review in some detail the evolution of policy governing the use of the air arm in overwater operations.
Ever since the advent of air power the Army and the Navy had argued over its control. Each service took a logical enough position. To the Army, control of land-based aircraft whether operating over land or water should be its responsibility. To the Navy, it seemed equally natural that operations over water, against seaborne targets, should be a naval responsibility. It all depended on where the respective arguments started: if it was a question of the primary mission of land-based aircraft, as a result of which they had been developed as such, the Army had a strong position; if it became a question of where the actual operations took place, whether as a result of the primary mission of the forces or merely ancillary to it, the Navy was well able to claim control over seaward aviation. No one disputed the Navy’s control over seaplanes and carrier-based aircraft which operated clearly as an arm of the fleet. Actually, logic had very little to do with the problem. Since the air was a medium which extended over both land and water, arguments concerning its control could drift more or loss at will. So it all became a question which would have to be answered either arbitrarily, by some competent authority, or with reference to some factors contingent upon the tactical or strategic situation. As things turned out, it was answered by both.
As early as 1920 it had been recognized that, in providing an air arm for both services, there lay a serious danger of duplicating installations and equipment. In that year Congress had enacted that Army aviation should control all aerial operations from land bases and that naval aviation should control all such activity attached to the Fleet; including the maintenance of such shore installations as were necessary for operation, experimentation, and training connected with the Fleet.
Joint Action of the Army and Navy, 1935 (ETP-155) did much to clarify the relationship between the services. The Navy not only retained control of aviation connected with the Fleet, but was given responsibility for all inshore and offshore patrol for the purpose of protecting shipping and defending the coastal frontier. It was further stated that Army aircraft might temporarily execute Navy functions in support of, or in lieu of, Navy forces, and conversely, that Navy aircraft might be called upon to support land operations. In neither case should any restriction be placed by one service on the freedom of the other to use its power against the enemy should the need arise. Each service was declared responsible for providing the aircraft needed for the proper performance of its primary function: in the Army’s case, the conduct of air operations over land and such air operations over the sea as were incident to the accomplishment of Army functions; in the case of the Navy, conduct of operations over the sea and such air operations over the land as were incident to the accomplishment of Navy functions.
All of which left the responsibility for the conduct of seaward patrols and the protection of shipping pretty definitely up to the Navy. But no formal agreement could be expected to end discussion on the matter, especially since the particular tactical situation was likely to change frequently. It was still, for example, an open question whether the Navy should control all air operations in frontier defense or whether it should control only those operations specifically in support of the Fleet. Naval spokesmen claimed that unity of command should be vested in whichever service held paramount importance in a given situation. Then, assuming that naval preeminence existed over land and air forces in all coastal defense, they claimed that unity of command in such operations should rest with the Navy. The Army, sensing a train of logic which might prove ruinous to its control of air forces, raised its voice in protest. The assumption of naval preeminence in coastal defense it declared unsound, witness the case of Alaska where land-based bombers were likely to be the principal arm employed. Furthermore, since most situations in which the Navy would be called upon for defensive operations would be ones in which the air forces would also be present, owing to their mobility and striking power, the Navy would, according to this argument, gain control of Army air forces, wherever the latter were most likely to be used in a tactical situation. This, the Army felt, would lead ultimately to complete naval control of the Army air forces. In short, the Army felt that the primary mission of its air arm was not support of the Navy, however likely such support might be in frontier defense.
When it came time to implement plans for frontier defense, it was clear that the Navy held the responsibility for protection of coastwise shipping and for the conduct of offshore patrols. And this province was guarded jealously. Units of the GHQ Air Force had been effectively discouraged from undertaking practice reconnaissance flights over water beyond the 100-mile limit, and their part in joint Army-Navy exercises had been strictly limited to a supporting role against a carrier-borne or shore attack; this despite the fact that plans explicitly made the GHQ Air Force responsible for whatever reconnaissance was essential to its combat efficiency in operations along the coast, regardless of whether or not the Fleet were present. Without an air arm trained in long- or even medium-range reconnaissance over water, the seaboard would clearly become vulnerable to submarine attack. Yet the Navy had done very little to prepare for antisubmarine air patrol by any type of aircraft, much less by long-range types. Joint Action had not only implied that this function belonged to the Navy, but had stated that it was up to the Navy to provide and maintain the equipment and installations necessary to the fulfillment of that function. Yet 7 December 1941 found the North Atlantic Naval Coastal Frontier practically without effective planes capable of conducting long-range seaward patrols, and with pathetically few surface craft capable of chasing a submarine.
Fortunately, some preparations had been made for joint operations. A “joint” control room had almost been completed and provision had been made for I Bomber Command and I Air Support Command to operate on seaward patrol missions wherever requested to do so by the naval authority. It was in fulfillment of these plans that the I Bomber Command undertook seaward patrol duty promptly on 8 December. But even this meager air force had been equipped not for antisubmarine activity but for normal bombardment action, and had been systematically discouraged from increasing its knowledge of overwater flying.
Every contingency, including enemy submarine activity in the coastal shipping lanes, had been considered in Joint Action. Yet nothing had been planned specifically to counter a campaign by enemy submarine forces. Training exercises off the Atlantic coast had apparently envisaged a surface task force, supported by carrier-based aircraft, as the only likely form of enemy action. The British had also failed at first to take the U-boat threat seriously, feeling that it should not be relatively as great in this as in the last war. After the Germans had built submarine bases on the west coast of Franco, however, the British answered this increased menace by creating the Coastal Command, a
