The
history of Naval Aviation in California would not be complete
without including the biography of Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves,
for whom two naval airfields in California have been named –
the first, NAS Terminal Island, and the second, NAS Lemoore.
Joseph Mason Reeves was born in Tampico, Illinois, on November 20, 1872. He was appointed to the Naval Academy from the Seventh District of Illinois in 1890. Reeves was an avid football player as a Naval Cadet. (1) Sixteen years later he would return to Annapolis as the Head Football Coach of the Naval Academy. After graduation in 1894, Midshipman Reeves spent several weeks on the cruiser USS CINCINNATI (C-78) on the East coast before being assigned to his first duty on board the cruiser USS SAN FRANCISCO (C-5) (2) for Atlantic and Mediterranean patrols. In 1896 he joined the battleship USS OREGON (B-3) (3), operating with the Pacific Squadron, and was in her when, under the command of Captain Charles E. Clark, USN, she made her famous cruise from the West Coast to the Caribbean in the spring of 1898. Four days after the OREGON's arrival at Key West, Florida, she sailed with Admiral Sampson's flagship, the USS NEW YORK (CA-2), for the Cuban coast, where they were joined by other ships of the Northern Atlantic Squadron. On June 1, 1898, operations were commenced against Admiral Cervera's fleet in Santiago Harbor which culminated in the destruction of that naval force on July 3. For this duty he was advanced four numbers in rank on the list of Lieutenants (junior grade) and was commended as follows:
"For displaying eminent and conspicuous conduct in managing the machinery of the vessel OREGON July 3, 1898. The leading engineer officer of this vessel was so developed the efficiency of the motive power as to cause the attainment of a speed unusual to the ship, thereby enabling her commanding officer to place her in the very conspicuous position that she occupied on that occasion, thus contributing in a very important degree to the success of the OREGON in the battle."
In February 1899, he was commissioned ensign and assigned to the despatch ship USS DOLPHIN. As lieutenant (junior grade) he served on board the battleship USS KEARSARGE (BB-5) in the Northern Atlantic. In 1901 he had instruction at the Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, Rhode Island, followed by a second tour of duty on the SAN FRANCISCO during 1902.
In 1903, he served, in the rank of Lieutenant, as Aide to the Commanding Officer in Charge of the Asiatic Fleet, first with Rear Admiral Yates Stirling on the USS WISCONSIN (BB-9) (4), later with Rear Admiral Charles J. Train on the USS OHIO (BB-12) (5). He was next an Instructor in the Department of Physics and Chemistry at the Naval Academy and also had duty as Head Football Coach from 1906 until 1908.
Upon completion of that duty he joined the USS NEW HAMPSHIRE (BB-25)(6) in 1908 and was assigned as her Ordnance Officer until September 1909, when he assumed the duties of Fleet Ordnance Officer on the Staff of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Rear Admiral Seaton Schroader, flagship USS CONNECTICUT (BB-18).
Promoted to the rank of Commander, Reeves came ashore in 1910 and reported to Mare Island as a member of the Board of Inspection and Survey for three years and simultaneously assumed command of the Naval Coal Depot at Tiburon, California.
Three years later, in April 1913, Commander Reeves commissioned the Mare Island built collier USS JUPITER, the first electrically propelled vessel of the United States Navy (7). After successfully passing her trials, JUPITER, embarked a Marine detachment at San Francisco and reported to the Pacific Fleet at Mazatlan, Mexico, in April 1914, bolstering U.S. naval strength on the Mexican Pacific coast during the tense days of the Vera Cruz crisis. He was detached from the JUPITER in April 1914, and assumed command of the USS ST. LOUIS (C-20) which served as a training, receiving and submarine support ship.
In June 1915, he rejoined the battleship OREGON, this time as her Commanding Officer. In June 1916 he reported as Senior Aide to the Commandant of the Navy Yard, Mare Island, California.
Stationed at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations when the United States entered World War I. During World War I, he was Commanding Officer of the battleship USS MAINE (BB-10) (8), which operated with the Atlantic Fleet, and for "exceptionally meritorious service in a duty of great responsibility . . ." in that command and was awarded the Navy Cross. Promoted to the rank of Captain, he assumed command of the USS KANSAS (BB-21) before being serving as Naval Attache at the American Embassy, Rome, Italy, from February 1919 until April 1921, when he assumed command of the USS PITTSBURGH (CA-4). (9)
In October of that year he was ordered to Mare Island, California, for duty as Commander of the Navy Yard, and from 1922 until 1923 he commanded the USS NORTH DAKOTA (BB-29). He next attended the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island, and, completing the senior course, served a year on the staff. Following this tour, he volunteered for aviation duty and war ordered to NAS Pensacola, Florida, to take the Naval Aviation Observer course.
At the age of 53, he qualified as a Naval Aviator Observer, the minimum prerequisite for holding aviation commands, and after October 1925, assumed command as Commander Aircraft Squadron, Battle Fleet, serving in aviation billets from 1925 to 1931.
Congress, following the successful flight of the NC-4 flying boat, which in May 1919 achieved the first crossing of the Atlantic by air, appropriated funds for the conversion of the collier JUPITER (AC-3) into the U.S. Navy's first aircraft carrier, a platform that would truly integrate aviation into the fleet. Commissioned in 1922, she was christened LANGLEY (CV-1). But carrier aviation had stagnated under the reigning battleship mentality. (10) Though Moffett's acumen in handling political issues in the halls of Congress was important to naval aviation's development, its ultimate success or failure depended on its performance at sea. "The Navy is the first line of offense and naval aviation as an advance guard of this first line must deliver the brunt of the attack," Moffett wrote in 1925. "Naval aviation cannot take the offensive from the shore; it must go to sea on the back of the fleet. . . . The fleet and naval aviation are one and inseparable."
Entitled to be addressed as commodore in this billet, Captain Reeves hosted his broad pennant on his new flagship, the aircraft carrier USS LANGLEY (CV-1), formerly his old ship JUPITER, as Commander Aircraft Squadrons Battle Fleet. At the time, Naval aviation's seagoing force consisted only the LANGLEY, which following commissioning served only in an experimental role. This "experiment" operated twelve aircraft at most. Sea-based naval aviation had yet to demonstrate any offensive prowess that would dispel the traditional tenet of the supremacy of the battleship. All of this was about to change.
In 1925, Captain Joseph M. Reeves, who had watched aviation concepts tested at the War College and who also served as a member of the tactics faculty, took command of the fleet's aviation squadrons. Living up to his nickname, "Bull" Reeves drove his charges hard, demanding that his pilots push the limits. He ordered the commander of the LANGLEY to increase the number of airplanes she operated, and drilled the pilots and deck crews incessantly in an effort to reduce the time it took to launch and recover aircraft. Under his leadership, the LANGLEY began to conduct a series of experiments that led to such innovations as crash barriers and the deck park, which enabled the ship to more than double its aircraft complement and dramatically increase its sortie rate. Due to these innovations, LANGLEY stopped being an experiment and became an operational carrier, with 36 (and eventually 42) operational aircraft.
On December 13, 1926, Reeves, commanding Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet, reported on the results of the first dive bombing exercise ("light bombing," as it was then called) to be conducted in the formal fleet gunnery competition. One Marine and two Navy fighter squadrons and three Navy observation squadrons participated. The Marine and Navy fighters made 45 degree dives from 2,500 feet and at an altitude of 400 feet, dropped 25 pound fragmentation bombs; observation squadrons similarly attacked from 1,000 feet. Pilots of VF-2, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Frank D. Wagner and flying F6Cs and FB-5s, scored 19 hits with 45 bombs on a target 100 feet by 45 feet. The uses visualized for this tactic included disabling or demolishing flight decks, destroying enemy aircraft in flight, attacking exposed personnel on ship or shore and attacking light surface craft and submarines.
Following a six-week period of closely observing his air forces, Reeves called his officers together at North Island, California, and delivered a history-making lecture. He was blunt in his opinion that his aviators lacked insight into both the capabilities and limitations of their weapons and were, therefore, totally unprepared to conduct fleet air tactics. He then challenged his men to answer "Reeves' Thousand and One Questions," which were mimeographed sheets circulated to all squadrons. The answers to critical questions such as "How can we bomb effectively?"--were analyzed, refined and developed until the compilation of this work became "Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet Tactical Instructions, 1928."
Reeves used annual fleet exercises (Fleet Problems) to demonstrate new tactics, such as high-speed long-distance steaming combined with undetected predawn launches and coordinated dive-bomb attacks against targets ashore. Finally, Reeves seized upon opportunities to demonstrate the offensive potential of the carrier. During war games, he foreshadowed the Day of Infamy by launching a dawn attack against Pearl Harbor.
Reeves pushed the envelope of what those early aviators thought they could do; he challenged Fighting Squadron One to make as many landings and takeoffs on LANGLEY as possible in one day, while he clocked them from the bridge. Within a year he increased the number of aircraft embarked on LANGLEY from 8 to 30. By mid-1928 Reeve's technique of flight deck stowage and handling resulted in an increase from 72 to 90 aircraft embarked aboard both LEXINGTON (CV-2) and SARATOGA (CV-3).
In January 1929, the U.S. Navy undertook another exercise known as Fleet Problem Nine. Fleet Problem Nine took place off the coast of Panama. Present for the first time in these fleet problems were two ships of radically new design—the aircraft carriers USS LEXINGTON (CV-2) and USS SARATOGA (CV-3). During the exercise, Vice Admiral William V. Pratt, commanding the attacking force, authorized Rear Admiral Reeves, commanding the SARATOGA and a light cruiser as escort, to execute a high-speed run toward the Panama Canal. "We take off at 3:30 a.m. to bomb the canal," an excited Lieutenant Artie Doyle wrote on the eve of the landmark attack. "They haven't a chance to stop us." Reeves "attacked" the canal with a seventy-plane strike force launched 140 miles from the target.
"The planes struck without warning in an attack deemed so effective by the referees that they ruled the locks at the Pacific end of the canal destroyed."
The SARATOGA's performance changed naval warfare; she had demonstrated that a speedy aircraft carrier could independently attack enemy installations with devastating results. Admiral William V. Pratt, the Black Fleet Commander for this exercise, was so impressed that he moved his flag to the USS SARATOGA for the return trip to the United States. (11)
In his post-exercise critique, Admiral Pratt made the following comment, "Gentlemen, you have witnessed the most brilliantly conceived and most effectively executed naval operation in our history. . . . I believe that when we learn more of the possibilities of the carrier we will come to an acceptance of Admiral Reeves' plan which provides for a very powerful and mobile force . . . the nucleus of which is the carrier." (12)
After having served on the Navy's General Board, June 1929-June 1930, he reported for duty as Senior Member of the Board of Inspection and Survey, Pacific Coast Section on September 15, 1931, and during the building of the USS SAN FRANCISCO (13) at Mare Island, became Commandant of the Navy Yard, Mare Island, California in June 1932. Rear Admiral Reeves was one of Mare Island's most colorful and best-liked Commandants. His two-starred rear admiral's flag flew over the island from June 1, 1932, to June 7, 1933.
He again assumed command of the Battle Force in June 1933, and on June 15, 1934, hoisted his flag on board the USS PENNSYLVANIA (14) as Commander in Chief, Battle Force, United States Fleet. Rear Admiral Leahy relieved Rear Admiral Reeves in June 1936. Reeves was then ordered to the Navy Department, where he served as a member of the General Board until October 1, 1936, when he became Chairman of that board. He continued to serve in that capacity until his retirement effective December 1, 1936.
Reeves was recalled to active duty in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy on May 21, 1940 (15), where he served as the Lend-Lease Liaison Officer from March 1941 to December 1945. He served as Senior Military Member of the Munitions Assignments Board and Chairman of the Navy Munitions Assignment Committee from February 1945 to November 1945, also Chairman of the Joint Munitions Assignment Committee from January 1944 to September 1945. During this period, he was advanced to the rank of Vice Admiral, to rank from February 23, 1942, pursuant to an Act of Congress effective that date, having been especially commended for performance of duty in actual combat. On July 16, 1942, he was advanced to the rank of Admiral.
For his meritorious service during the World War II period he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and was cited as follows:
"For exceptionally meritorious service . . . displaying unusual qualities of leadership and ability in diplomatic negotiations with the senior military representative of the United Nations, Admiral Reeves rendered invaluable service in carrying out his manifold duties fulfilling many difficult tasks requiring great resourcefulness in coordinating and processing the request of the Allied governments for military equipment. His skill and initiative in bringing about the harmonious distribution of finished materials to meet the ever pressing demands of all United Nations Services were essential to the integration of the Allied military organization, and his brilliant analysis of the over-all situation were substantial factors in executing logistic plans in accordance with strategic requirements. Distinguishing himself by his sound judgment, exceptional tact and zealous devotion to the varied and complex details of his various assignments, Admiral Reeves contributed materially to the successful prosecution of the war and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."
On December 23, 1946, he was ordered relieved of all active duty, thus ending his naval career at the age of 74. He died on March 25, 1948 at the United States Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland. He was survived by his son, Joseph M. Reeves, Jr., who, at the time of his death, resided of Los Angeles, California (16).
In addition to the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal, Admiral Reeves had the Sampson Medal (USS OREGON); Spanish Campaign Medal (Spanish-American War); Victory Medal with Atlantic Fleet Clasp (World War I); American Defense Service Medal; American Campaign Medal; and the World War II Victory Medal. From the Government of Italy he was awarded the Crown of Italy (rank of Commander) and the Diploma of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (grade of Commendatore).
Admirals Joseph Mason Reeves' foresight laid the foundation for modern carrier striking forces. He and Rear Admiral William Adger Moffett was of the same school of thought that naval aviation would decide the outcome of future naval surface engagements between two opposing fleets in the expanses of the Pacific Ocean.
Admiral Reeves and his closest aviation proponents knew that the Navy would have to be prepared to deal with the rising naval aviation within the Empire of Japan, and that our battle tactics had to be written for such an engagement, no matter what the battleship admirals thought. The realism and sense of urgency Reeves imparted to fleet air operations and later to the entire U.S. fleet served the nation well.
Upon his retirement, in his honor, Reeves Field was commissioned in 1936 on Terminal Island, Los Angeles County, California. Reeves Field was operational from 1936 to 1947. The name of this Naval Air Station was later transferred to Naval Air Station Lemoore, California, in 1961.
Also in his honor, the Guided Missile Frigate USS REEVES (DLG/CG-24) was launched in 1962. The ship's sponsor was Mrs. Joseph M. Reeves, Jr., daughter-in-law of Admiral J. M. Reeves. Reclassified guided missile cruiser CG-24, on June 30, 1975, REEVES was decommissioned and stricken from the Navy Register on November 12, 1993 at Pearl Harbor.
(1) The origin of the modern football helmet is credited to Admiral
Joseph M. Reeves. The first leather football helmet was first
worn in an 1893 Army-Navy game. An Annapolis shoemaker created
the leather helmet for Cadet Reeves, who had been advised by a
Navy doctor that he would be risking death or "instant insanity"
if he took another kick to the head. This helmet would also serve
as the basis for the first aviator caps.
(2) USS SAN FRANCISCO (C-5) was built at San Francisco, California, and commissioned in November 1890. She served in the Pacific until 1893, then steamed to the Atlantic.
(3) USS OREGON (BB-3) was built by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, California. Commissioned in July 1896, at that time she was the only battleship serving on the U.S. Pacific seaboard. As the Spanish-American War approached, she was ordered to steam around South America to strengthen the forces available in the Atlantic. Upon arrival, OREGON served off Cuba, and had an important role in the Battle of Santiago on 3 July 1898.
(4) USS WISCONSIN (BB-9) was laid down on February 9, 1897 by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, California; launched on November 26, 1898; and commissioned on 4 February 1901. In May 1903, she sailed for the Asiatic Station, proceeding via Honolulu. WISCONSIN arrived at Yokohama, Japan, on June 12, with Rear Admiral Yates Stirling embarked; three days later, Rear Admiral Stirling exchanged flagships with Rear Admiral P. H. Cooper, who broke his two-starred flag at WISCONSIN's main as Commander of the Asiatic Fleet's Northern Squadron while Admiral Stirling hoisted his in the tender RAINBOW.
(5) USS OHIO (BB-12) was laid down on April 22, 1899 by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, California; launched May 18, 1901; and commissioned October 4, 1904. Designated flagship of the Fleet, OHIO departed San Francisco on April 1, 1905 for Manila, where she embarked the party of then Secretary of War William Howard Taft, which included Miss Alice Roosevelt, the President's daughter. She conducted this party on much of its Far Eastern tour of inspection, and continued the cruise in Japanese, Chinese, and Philippine waters until returning to the United States in 1907.
(6) USS NEW HAMPSHIRE (BB-25), commissioned 19 March 1908, after fitting out carried a Marine Expeditionary Regiment to Colon, Panama, in June 1908, then made ceremonial visits to Quebec, Portsmouth, New York, and Bridgeport. Caribbean exercises were followed by participation in the Naval Review by President Theodore Roosevelt in Hampton Roads on February 22, 1909, welcoming home the "Great White Fleet."
(7) Unknown then to Reeves, the Mare Island built collier USS JUPITER would again become a part of his life when she was converted in 1920 as a 11,500-ton aircraft carrier and renamed the USS LANGLEY. Commissioned in March 1922, LANGLEY was the U.S. Navy's first aircraft carrier, and in October-November 1922, she launched, recovered and catapulted her first aircraft during initial operations in the Atlantic and Caribbean areas. Transferred to the Pacific in 1924, LANGLEY would serve as the platform from which Naval Aviators, guided by then CAPT Joseph M. Reeves, undertook the development of carrier operating techniques and tactics. Sadly, in February 1942, during the early months of World War II, Japanese bombers would sink the old "Covered Wagon," with her deck-loaded with P-40s. LANGLEY was the oldest Mare Island veteran to get into the war, having been launched thirty years earlier as the collier JUPITER, and was the first Mare Island ship sunk during that war.
(8) USS MAINE (BB-10) was laid down on February 15,1899, a year to the day after the destruction of the first MAINE. She was launched on July 27, 1901, and commissioned on December 29, 1902. During World War I, she trained engineers, armed guard crews, and midshipmen. Following the defeat of the Central Powers, she took part in the review of the fleet at New York in December 1918.
(9) USS PITTSBURGH (CA-4) was originally the USS PENNSYLVANIA (AC-4). Renamed and renumbered USS PITTSBURGH (CA-4), it was on this ship, then the PENNSYLVANIA, that Eugene B. Ely first landed and took off his plane from a flight deck constructed by Mare Island Navy Yard in January 1911.
(10) The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, among other things, banned the construction of battleships and limited carrier tonnage among the major naval powers. In addition, in 1928 the United States signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war.
(11) Clark G. Reynolds, The Fast Carriers (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1968), p. 17; and "Remarks by Commander Black Fleet, W. V. Pratt," Fleet Problem IX," "Report of the CINC, U.S. Fleet," National Archives Publication M964, cited in Robert L. O'Connell, Sacred Vessels: The Cult of the Battleship and the Rise of the U.S. Navy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), p. 285. Pratt flew his flag from the SARATOGA on the return cruise, "partly as a badge of distinction, but most because I want to know what makes the aircraft squadrons tick."
(12) As Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral William V. Pratt directed that carriers be placed in offensive roles in war games and fleet exercises. In such exercises, involving experimentation with new kinds of equipment, doctrine, and formations, were sown seeds that brought forth the fast carrier task forces that enabled the U.S. Navy to defeat the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II.
(13) USS SAN FRANCISCO (CA-38) was laid down on September 9, 1931 at the Mare Island Navy Yard, in Vallejo, California; launched on March 9, 1933, and commissioned on 10 February 1934, Capt. Royal E. Ingersoll in command.
(14) USS PENNSYLVANIA (BB-38), commissioned 12 June 1916, was from August 1931 to 1941, homeported in San Pedro, where the PENNSYLVANIA engaged in Fleet tactics and battle practice along the west coast and participated in Fleet problems and maneuvers.
(15) Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, people around the nation, including some vocal congressmen, asked why America had been caught off guard. President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded by appointing an investigatory commission. Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts was selected to head it. Also appointed to the group were Major General Frank McCoy, Brigadier General Joseph McNarney, Rear Admiral Joseph Reeves, and Admiral William Standley. The Roberts Commission began investigating whether there were any "derelictions of duty or errors of judgment" that contributed to the disaster at Pearl Harbor. The commission blamed both Admiral Kimmel and General Short and the findings were made public. The investigations into Pearl Harbor were far from over, however. Seven more investigations followed, some of which exonerated Kimmel and Short while others upheld the findings of the Roberts Commission.
(16) Joseph Reeves, Jr., the son of Admiral Joseph M. Reeves, earned his reputation as a painter of Southwest subjects, many of them portraits. He graduated from the University of California in 1917, where he studied art with C. Chapel Judson. He continued his art education at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Corcoran Gallery and then served in the navy during World War I. He remained in Europe, studying at the Academies Julian and Colarossi in Paris. When he returned to the United States, he worked as a portraitist in New York and Norfork, Virginia before moving West, going first to San Rafael and San Francisco, and in 1923 and settled in Los Angeles where he was President of The Artists of the Southwest and The Painters and Sculptors Club. He was also a member of the California Art Club, the Los Angeles Art Association, and the Laguna Beach Art Association.