Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [100]
Halsey—always companionable—enjoyed His Majesty’s admirals as social and drinking partners but kept a professional distance. In truth, few Americans wanted the British poaching on U.S. Navy turf. Third Fleet staff saw the “Brits”—correctly—as latecomers to the game, whose government might expect to share the inevitable victory. While Halsey indulged the Royal Navy as much as diplomacy required, he usually sent the BPF on lesser errands with concurrence of America’s profoundly Anglophobic chief of naval operations, Ernest King.
Nevertheless, Halsey extended what courtesy he could, sailor to sailor. Given a choice of integrating into TF 38 or operating independently, Rawlings readily accepted the former. Thus united, the allies agreed upon the tasks at hand: maintain air superiority over Japan, strike worthwhile targets inland, attack remaining enemy shipping, and probe northern Honshu and Hokkaido.
Vian later wrote that Halsey seemed “fully aware of our difficulties, and from that moment onwards, by kindly word or deed, he availed himself of every possible opportunity to offer encouragement and to smooth our path.”
Certainly the nautical path needed some smoothing. Britain’s Fleet Air Arm was not expected to match the more experienced Americans’ operating tempo, though Vian strove mightily. Halsey later wrote disingenuously that the British “were able to match us strike for strike.” In truth, there was little opportunity, as RN aircrews only flew over Japan for the last four weeks of hostilities.
To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, the Americans and British had two navies separated by a common language. That certainly applied to communications; the BPF had no choice but to adopt U.S. codebooks and procedures. Additionally, standard phraseology differed. Royal Navy catapults were “boosters” and elevators were “lifts.” British landing signal officers were “deck landing control officers” or “batsmen” who used different signals. The American signal for “high” meant “You are too high” but in the Fleet Air Arm it meant “Go higher.” The Brits had no signal for “too slow,” and the two services used opposite signals for “lower your hook.” Apparently the differences were never fully resolved.
Furthermore, Britain’s aerial torpedoes were incompatible with Grumman aircraft bomb bays so RN Avengers only carried bombs. Standard “kit” such as radios and even oxygen masks also were different.
Other problems rose from the keel up. British carriers were designed to operate in the freezing Atlantic and the balmy Mediterranean, posing serious habitability problems in the sweltering Pacific. Additionally, the size and nature of the Pacific War forced unaccustomed strains upon the Royal Navy, which historically operated near bases much closer to home. Consequently, the British had too few tankers—often old, slow ships ill suited to operating with fast carriers. Additionally, the RN still used the stern-to-bow method of refueling at sea, far slower than the Americans’ more efficient side-by-side method. A British correspondent who had been aboard USS Lexington marveled that the Yanks refueled a fleet carrier in barely two hours whereas the RN took most of a day.
Nine of the BPF’s fifteen carrier squadrons flew American aircraft: Hellcats, Corsairs, and Avengers. The Seafire, a “navalised” version of the legendary Spitfire fighter, proved an excellent if short-legged performer but suffered under the severe strains of carrier landings. The two-seat Firefly fighter-bomber represented an outdated concept, designed under the assumption that a carrier pilot needed a navigator.
With armored decks, RN carriers were more resistant to bomb and kamikaze damage than their wooden U.S. counterparts. However, with smaller hangar decks the Fleet Air Arm embarked fewer planes in its largest carriers,