They thought they had won the exercise, and they thought victory was in their grasp. The Navy,
as usual, was still superior to the Air Force when it came to defending the coasts of the country.
At least, this is what the Navy sailors thought as they contemplated the rainy sky from the deck.
The Air Force bombers had failed to find their ship. The exercise would be over
in less than 10 minutes, and there was no way they could possibly find them. They were wrong.
But as the sailors celebrated an anticipated victory,
dark shadows emerged from the grayish clouds. Spotting their prey at the very last instant,
B-17 and B-18 bombers, led by emerging Air Force legend, Curtis LeMay, flew straight to the USS
Utah and bombed it from an altitude of 400 feet with water bombs supplied by the Navy itself.
That day, August 13, 1937, during Joint Air Exercise Number 4,
the Navy got a taste of what was to come from the Air Corps,
as a new rivalry between these two branches of the United States Armed Forces was about to begin.
In the middle of this grudge was the best pilot America had to offer:
Curtis LeMay, the man who would humble the Navy again at the Wargames of 1938.
The sailors would eventually be defeated, not once, or twice, but three times, by the courageous
pilot. And this was a humiliation the Navy could not tolerate. They would try to hide it.
Joint Air Exercise No. 4
In 1937, the Air Corps wanted to conduct bombing practices in a more realistic way.
Besides hitting targets in the middle of the Desert, the Air Corps pilots aspired
to take training to the next level. That meant hitting a moving target,
something they would need to destroy in the years to come. And so, Joint Exercise No. 4 was born.
This joint exercise was also conceived to test the reliability of the B-17 Flying Fortress,
a new kind of bomber. Besides carrying a heavy bombload of up to 9,600 pounds,
it was armed to the teeth, with more than 5 machine guns to defend itself.
More importantly, it had enough horsepower and fuel to reach an approximate range of 3,750 miles.
The B-17 would eventually see action from the very beginning of World War 2,
all the way through 1945. From Europe, Africa, and Asia, to the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans,
the B-17 saw service across all theaters of the war.
In the end, it all was possible thanks to the three incredible achievements
that Curtis LeMay’s team was able to accomplish during the training exercises.
Joint Air Exercise No. 4 was approved on July 10, 1937, by President Roosevelt himself. The
target of this exercise was the USS Utah, a ship of the Navy that would represent a hostile fleet
of two battleships, an aircraft carrier, and nine destroyers. The objective of the 41 Air Corps
Bombers was to hit the Utah after a patrol wing of 30 Navy planes had located the “enemy fleet.”
It all came down to a “cat and mouse” game, as the B-17 bombers needed to find the Utah once the
Navy gave them the coordinates of the fleet. There were only two conditions: Number one:
The Air Corps Patrol had 24 hours to find the enemy fleet. Number two:
The patrol would not be able to operate farther than 300 nautical miles from the coast,
although later disputes would argue that the limit was up to 500 miles nautical miles.
The exercise began on the afternoon of August 12, 1937, near the coast of San Francisco, California.
It was a foggy day in the open ocean. After several hours of futile searching through an
environment with very limited visibility, the Navy patrol found the Utah 317 miles from the coast.
Quickly, without any hesitation, the Air Corp Bombers went after the enemy vessel.
However, once they arrived at the targeted location, the Utah was nowhere to be seen.
Even worse, the night had settled in, and the fog became thicker,
obstructing a clear view from the ocean.
Apparently, the coordinates the Navy patrol gave to the Air Corps was off by some 57 miles
from the designated search area. The Navy would later admit that it was a “clerical error.”
Nonetheless, the next day in the morning, after an intensive search that spanned more
than 27,000 square miles, another Navy patrol spotted the Utah 329 miles from the coast.
With the weather worsening every minute, the B-17 bombers rushed to the designated location. The
members of the Utah, quite complacent and already thinking themselves the victors of the exercise,
did not take the necessary cautions required to fight off the imminent attack that was closing in.
Under the cover of the foggy skies, just 10 minutes before the exercise was about to end,
the bombers showed up. Ignoring the shadows that were closing in fast, the sailors were
unable to repel the attack. From an altitude of 400 feet, the B-17s unloaded the 50-pound water
bombs supplied by the Navy and called it a day. Remembering this iconic day,
LeMay himself said, [QUOTE]: “The Navy was so sure they would not be found,
that the men were all over the decks! Everyone was diving for the gangplanks and hatches.”
The Navy, resentful, did not consider this fair play as they were “caught off guard.”
It was decided that the exercise would be repeated the next day.
The result: The Air Corps bombers hit them again from 18,000 feet.
Of all the bombs dropped from this altitude, roughly 12 percent were direct hits.
The Navy was so furious at being defeated twice that, upon their return to March Field,
California, Curtis LeMay and the other pilots were told by the Government that there would
be no publicity about the outstanding result they achieved against the Navy.
Intercepting the Rex
Almost a year later, in May 1938, the grudge between the Air Corps
and the Navy would lead to a third and final victory for Curtis LeMay.
The 1938 Wargames was one the largest and most expensive military maneuvers of its time.
For this operation, more than 2500 men and 150 airplanes were called to action
from all three wings of the Air Corps.
The B-17 Flying Fortress was again the star of the show. Still undergoing serious modifications
before reaching its final model, the B-17 had to achieve an objective similar to the one it
accomplished a year before; however, there were no US Navy ships to guide it on this occasion.
This time the bombers had to find a foreign vessel: the Italian cruise liner Rex.
Once The War Department and the Italian officials approved the operation,
the 1938 Wargames were ready to begin.
The 49th Bombardment Squadron was chosen for the main objective: the interception of the Rex.
The Lead aircraft of this squadron was the No. 80, piloted by Major Caleb V.
Haynes, with Lieutenant Curtis LeMay as the lead navigator. Frank Andrews and Robert Olds, two
other veterans from the USS Utah accomplishment from the year before, also served as crew members.
Onboard to document the flight was Major George W. Goddard.
The crew of the B-17 was ready to begin the search for the Rex on May 11.
At Mitchel Field, they were waiting for a radiogram message from the Rex. LeMay said,
[QUOTE]: “If the Rex proceeded at normal speed along the regular route from Gibraltar to New
York, she might be about 600 miles or a little more off Sandy Hook by the following noon.”
Sandy Hook marked the entrance to the New York Harbor.
No response came from the Rex that day, however, and May 12 brought poor weather
conditions to Mitchel Field. They were even worse at sea. Before taking off that day at 8:30 a.m.,
LeMay estimated the intercept time would happen at about 12:25 p.m.
Under heavy rain, they ventured out to the sea in search of Rex before they received an update from
the Italian ship. It was 725 miles from New York. LeMay said, [QUOTE]: “Immediately I saw that the
Rex was not as close in as we had expected her to be. There was not much margin remaining.”
This meant that there was only one opportunity to make the interception.
The three B-17 bombers flew eastward in search of the Rex.
Despite the storm, they went on, committed to completing the mission. LeMay said, [QUOTE]: “Most
of the time, we could not even see the water, and turbulence was heaving us all over the sky.”
But at 12:23, the bombers abruptly broke out of the sea storm, and as they did, the Rex lay across
the horizon. “There it is! There it is!” the crew members shouted at each other. They could not hide
their excitement. They had found the Italian vessel two minutes before LeMay’s prediction.
At 12:25, they passed Rex and greeted the Italian captain. On the next pass,
Goddard, the photographer, got a picture that made history: two B-17s sweeping past Rex.
This photo would appear the next day in hundreds of newspapers narrating the crew’s feat.
Aftermath
The three groundbreaking missions completed
by the B-17s proved that the Air Corps was a true fighting force,
capable of defending the coasts of the country and taking the fight straight to the enemy.
Curtis LeMay proved a point: heavy bombers were long-range instruments of power
that could be used for both the defense and the offense.
Although the Navy and the War Department did not want to acknowledge the point,
President Roosevelt was satisfied with the results of the missions and issued a call for
an Air Force of 20,000 airplanes. A significant quantity of these planes were Flying Fortresses.
The success of these operations made Curtis LeMay the most famous combat leader of World War 2.
However, until this very day, the old grudge between the Air Force and the Navy continues.
But as some would say, actions speak louder than words.