Finding Their Way: Long Range Air Navigation Development, 1919-1939

摘要

The Navy began its aeronautical expansion of the Interwar years with the navigational feat of the first aerial transatlantic crossing. Bookended with the stellar accomplishments of naval aviation in oceanic power projection during World War II, the Bureau of Aeronautics appears at first glance to have been a pioneering force in the field of air navigation between 1919 and 1939. Close scrutiny reveals an entirely different narrative that illustrates the difficulties of Bureau of Aeronautics leadership in meeting their objectives within the administrative framework of the "steam Navy." Competing channels of innovation, internecine conflicts and changing doctrinal emphasis put the Bureau of Aeronautics behind its sister service and commercial enterprise in addressing the requirements of long-distance, over-water navigation.