U S Naval Aviation

Published to coincide with the centennial celebration of U.S. Navy Aviation, this book chronicles Navy aviation from its earliest days, before the Navy’s first aircraft carrier joined the fleet, through the modern jet era marked by the introduction of the F-18 Hornet. It tells how naval aviation got its start, profiles its pioneers, and explains the early bureaucracy that fostered and sometimes inhibited its growth. The book then turns to the refinement of carrier aviation doctrine and tactics and the rapid development of aircraft and carriers, highlighting the transition from propeller-driven aircraft to swept wing jets in the period after WW II. Land-based Navy aircraft, rotary-wing aircraft and rigid airships, and balloons are also considered in this sweeping tribute.

Oversized and magnificently illustrated, this book by historians and active duty and retired officers will be cherished by aviators and the countless others who have been inspired by the feats of U.S. naval aviation. 500 photos, 300 in color.

Within six months of the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy had checked the Japanese military advance in the Pacific to the extent that the United States could return to its original "Defeat Germany First" strategy. That the Navy was able to accomplish this feat with only six fleet aircraft carriers and little more than 1,000 combat aircraft was not sheer luck but the culmination of more than two decades of determined preparation. This thorough study, with detailed drawings and photographs, explains and illustrates the trial and error process which went into developing the aircraft, airships and ships of the interwar period. The critical factors that shaped Naval Aviation after World War I--naval treaties, fleet tactics, government programs, leadership and organization, as well as the emergence of Marine Corps and Coast Guard aviation--are discussed in depth.

This pictorial history tells the story of US naval aviation from its early beginnings in the 1920s to its dominance in the Pacific theater of WWII. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor sank or crippled almost all of the battleships in the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet. But the fleet’s aircraft carriers survived—and soon demonstrated the power of US naval aviation. Thanks to pioneering technology and far-sighted pre-war policy, the US Navy had the necessary ships, aircraft, and crews to turn the tide of the Pacific war. With more than 200 rare photographs, Leo Marriott traces the growth of US naval aviation from the flimsy seaplanes of the first years of the twentieth century to the mighty armadas that challenged those of the Japanese and, after the carrier battles at Coral Sea and Midway, led the advance across the Pacific. Marriott puts special focus on the navy’s first aircraft carriers of the 1920s, the tremendous progress made in the decades between the wars in tactics and strategy, and the innovative design of ships and aircraft themselves.