old hoodoo wrote:
I just read that that the Navy took no responsibility for protecting
the naval base and that this was an Army responsibility. The few
fighter aircraft at the naval base were aircraft in transit or under
repair and there were virtually no available fighter pilots. Does
this seem ridiculous to anyone else??????

Not to me.

First of all, the Army was reponsible for coast defense nationwide. The
Army leadership would have been very opposed to having the Navy attempt to
take over the role. In any case, the Army was probably better suited to the
task. The Army Air Corps had more planes and pilots than the Navy, I
suspect. Also, defense of bases required a combined arms approach with both
fighters and anti-aircraft artillery, which was clearly more along the
Army's line.

Also, remember that there were not yet the huge numbers of planes and pilots
we think of later in the war. It made sense for the Navy to concentrate its
efforts on getting sufficient fighters and trained aircrew for its carrier
airwings. This was hard enough, IIRC, without also trying to provide
airfield defense squadrons.


--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right." - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872