Battle For Midway

Sorry Steve, but "they" meant to, as per Lundstrom pg.468

It was not a "lack of experience" - after all, Coral Sea was the only carrier vs. carrier experience for the Japanese & Americans - so much as it was drawing conclusions, right or wrong, from the experience that they did have. No one wanted to leave the TBDs unguarded, however, the overriding factor was that their simply was not enough F4F escorts to go around, thus the Americans were forced to make compromises as to whom the escorts were to protect.

For various reasons, the Hornet & Enterprise drew wrong conclusions from Coral Sea and assigned their fighters to the SBDs. However, the Enterprise group at least made contingency plans for the fighters to come down if the TBDs encountered heavy resistance. Aboard the Yorktown - after much discussion, Leslie(CO VB-3) wanted the fighters to protect the torpedo bombers & Massey(CO TB-3)wanted the fighters to protect the dive bombers - Thach decided that the fighters should escort the torpedo bombers.

And as a nod to R Leonard & his father, I leave you with this quote from Lundstrom pg 412

 

when I say experience I meant understanding how badly the TBDs would need protection and there were foulups in the groups getting together for the Hornet groups. It was a general lack of coordination that would be fixed later.

 

Okay, you've read Shattered Sword. Good for you, seriously, a fine choice and an excellent piece of work, Jon and Tony did a great job.

So, what else have you read on Midway . . . books? . . . articles? . . . reports . . . official studies?

How about on WW2 US carrier operations generally . . . the same . . . books? . . . articles? . . . reports . . . official studies?

If you really want a contest, I'm ready to play . . . I keep a list . . . it is voluminous.

Who did you know who actually flew at Midway, not just shaking a hand at some air show, but sitting down and breaking bread at the dinner table - their house - your house - official functions - bending elbows at the officer's club, gentlemen who knew you on sight and addressed you by your first name even after years since you last saw them? To whom have you actually spoken? Not just a few of those of whom one might read, or see a picture in a book or magazine, are not just names or pictures to me, but people I knew and well remember.

I am sorry, I am not trying to be impolite, but your original contention is simply wrong, with the exception being the six F4Fs to cover the VT-3 strike, there was no other plan to provide close fighter support to either VT-8 nor VT-6, ergo, these squadrons did not become separated from their escorts . . . they did not have escorts. A close reading of the events can lead to some interesting conclusions about operational planning and control in TF-16. Apparently you have some other source . . . can you please provide some refutation? Something the veracity of which can be evaluated in light of the actual events?

 

I was going to say roughly this:

*Dreamy "What Dave might have said" music*

Well . . . R. Leonard has beaten me to the punch and said it much better and from a place of genuine "Holy crap!" If I were going to write a book on carrier doctrine I would absolutely call R. Leonard. You don't ask the prophet whether he's read prophecy, you just listen politely and take notes. Allow me to briefly quote Johnathon "John" Parshall Anthony "Tony" Tully:

I wonder where they got the nice details? (Or who Lundstrom, or Morrisson, or Spector might have called in the course of their researches?)

So why don't we all sit down and listen to what the nice Mr. Leonard has to say about Stanhope Ring. I bet it will be interesting.

 

Sorry gang, got side tracked for a few days. My boss retires tomorrow & things have been a little hectic.

Anyway, let's see, Stanhope Cotton Ring . . . hmmm . . .

I have never heard a serving or retired officer openly criticize VAdm Ring (yes, he was eventually promoted to Rear Admiral, on the active list and then, on retiring, a tombstone promotion to Vice Admiral).

Just some musings . . .

The closest thing to a verbalized criticism I’ve ever heard was comments on the HAG in general as being an “unhappy group,” very tense, as opposed to “happy” air groups aboard Yorktown and Enterprise. One might draw a conclusion that there was, perhaps, a top-down interpersonal relations problems.

I’ve probably read everything that everyone else has seen . . .

Ring served in BuAer with Mitscher for about a year and then went off the Britain as an observer. In some circles it was noted that he came and came back with a RAF moustache, a swagger stick, and some decidedly English turns of phrase and even accent/pronunciations . . . what was widely looked upon at the time as a kind of a “look where I’ve been” display. As CHAG Ring was also known for being somewhat rigid in his interactions with his subordinates; some writings even go so far as to use the word “martinet,” but I don’t recall ever seeing a specific incident described – though that could just be my own faulty memory,, at almost 61 everyday seems to mean less brain cells than the day before. On the other hand, perhaps the interactions of a long serving regular with more free-wheeling reservists did lead to some frictions, personality conflicts, and the tale is left at a few unhappy reservists versus one regular who did not himself choose to comment. There have been noted similar situations within HAG, mostly in VF-8.

Anyway, when Mitscher went to Hornet, he arranged for Ring to come along as his CHAG. Thus the CAG of a new air group was one who had not served in an active squadron for quite some time and not operated off of a carrier in some seven years. In fact, Ring’s last duty in a squadron had been as CO of VP-17 in 1938. A brief look at Ring’s assignments in the years leading into the war:

1933 (June) - Lieutenant (DOR 1 Oct 1930), VF-3B, operating Curtiss BFC-2’s off USS Langley and USS Ranger,
1934 (May) – Lieutenant, Assist Operations Officer, staff ComAirBatFor
1935 (June) – Lieutenant, shore assignment NAS San Diego
1936 – Lieutenant, shore assignment NAS San Diego
1937 (June) – Lieutenant (on the Lieutenant Commander promotion list), Exec Officer, VP-17-F (PatWing4) operating PM-1’s, operating out of Coco Solo tended by USS Teal.
1938 – Lieutenant Commander (DOR 23 Jun 1938), commanding VP-17 (PatWing4) beginning in October; operating PBY-1’s, home ported in Seattle, with deployments into the Aleutians with USS Teal.
1939 (May) – Lieutenant Commander, Chief of Admin Div, BuAer
1941 (April) – Lieutenant Commander, Assist. Naval Attaché for Air, London; deployed aboard as observer aboard HMS Ark Royal during combat operations
1941 (June) – Lieutenant Commander, pre commissioning, P-CHAG, USS Hornet
1941 (October) – Lieutenant Commander, CHAG, USS Hornet
1942 – Commander (DOR 1 Jan 1942), CHAG USS Hornet

So, from a USN standpoint, it is interesting to note that the last time Ring served aboard a US carrier was about nine years past and he was flying a bi-plane bomber/fighter type, some five or more aircraft types back in both the fighter AND the scout-bomber evolutionary chains. This lack of recent familiarity (not really his fault, just a product of his assignments – and all of his assignments were good ones, career-wise) would end up, however, as telling in some instances.

There was a decided tendency for him to stick to peace-time practices. The entire launch as planned on the morning of 4 June was a typical 1930’s evolution, but resulted in the fighters (the planes with the least range) being launched first and burning up 45 minutes or more of fuel circling around waiting for everyone else to get off the deck. This, combined with internal VF-8 problems, would have some unpleasant results before the morning was out.

The VSB search/strike led by Ring on the morning of the 4th was also typical of 1930’s mentality. I won’t even start in on the where’s, why’s, and OMG’s of this mission, that is a whole another story, and perhaps an ugly one. Just from an operations standpoint, one often reads descriptions of its ‘parade ground’ formation. Such formations have a remarkable tendency to have a major impact on fuel consumption as pilots throttle up and down to adjust their station keeping in the formation. Beyond the fact that there was no contact, this increased fuel consumption would have some more unhappy results before the morning was out, both in terms of aircraft/crews lost from fuel exhaustion and in the wholesale diversion of a large chunk of the VSB force to the island of Midway. Yes, they would return to Hornet later in the day, but for the time being they were lost for employment.

Equally telling was when it was found that after, I believe and not particularly felling like looking up an actual citation, the Hornet strike on Hiryu (no hits from any HAG VSB) there was one plane which still had its bomb . . . Ring’s . . . because he did not know which control was the bomb release . . . Apocryphal? Maybe it is. maybe not. I don’t know anyone who was actually there, but the story has appeared in print in a couple of places, while participants were/are still alive, without any challenge of which I am aware.

Then there is the famous, or infamous, depending on you point of view or how much an expert one considers one self, explanation of the events of 4 June written by Ring sometime in the late 1940’s and which came to light long after his passing.

Again, without getting too deep into where's, why’s and OMG’s, what’s my opinion? Well, in my opinion, he did not explain enough. I believe he knew that Hornet’s operational concept for the morning of the 4th, screwed the pooch and he was attempting to rationalize what happened without pointing too many fingers himself. Ring already knew that the sacrifice of Waldron and the rest of VT-8 made him look bad - very bad. It was, I believe, a cloud under of which he would never escape. Yet, one must remember the command structure.

First and foremost, the TF-16 staff, in the person of one Capt Miles Browning, the chief of staff, should have exercised not just more control, but control, period, over Hornet’s operations. Miles did not, almost through the entire battle and that which he did exercise was, shall we say, vague and second thought, and left too much to interpretation. One might even argue that Spruance should have exercised more control of Browning, but I’d suggest that just becomes an circular exercise in finger pointing up the ladder . . . Spruance should have exercised control of Browning; Fletcher over Spruance; Nimitz over Fletcher; King over Nimitz; Roosevelt over King; all to make sure Browning does a job Spruance, no doubt, expected he was doing – and of course later figured out he had not.

Secondly, on Hornet itself; the operational concept would be a command decision. In the military planning business this is called meeting the commander’s intent. The commander must provide the guidance to his subordinate commanders for the planning and execution of a mission or missions. This means that the operational concept must have come from Mitscher, the captain, to Soucek, the air officer, to Ring, the air group commander.

How much input did Ring have? The record is not clear. There is the story of the “heated” argument between the air staff (Mitscher, Soucek, and Ring) and the squadron commanders, how much of that was a shouting match we don’t know nor has the crux of the argument been specifically presented. Some would say the argument was over fighter coverage for VT-8, others over the attack plan concept, and some claim both. Could it have been simply the difference of opinion in sending the strike where it was thought the Japanese could possibly be if their forces were split versus where they probably are if they were not? Perhaps the commander’s intent was not adequately presented. Here’s a thought . . . what if Ring says to himself, “. . . if that old so and so wants us to go glory hunting for some undetected carrier force instead of attacking where we’re pretty sure they are, then that’s what we’ll do, we’ll run the search line of all search lines and that will be that.” That would kind of explain everything Ring did that morning, would it not?

Bottom line, as far as Midway and the performance of the HAG as personified by Ring is concerned, there was plenty of blame to go around. I would suggest however, but not to absolve him at all, that the blame should not, by the same token, all fall on Ring.

After Midway, Ring went ashore with Mitscher, (some would say, and they are probably correct, in a shunting aside of a couple gents whom the higher ups considered as messed up) serving as his chief of staff in PatWing2, a largely do nothing administrative command. Remember, Mitscher had already been selected for Rear Admiral before Midway. When Mitscher went off as ComFAirNoumea, Ring stayed on as his chief of staff. Still later, Mitscher moved up in command stature to the important ComAirSols job (evidently slowly redeeming himself); Ring went along as his operations officer. From ComAirSols staff (Mitscher went to ComFAirWest in San Diego, mostly as a ‘rest-up for what comes next’ billet) Ring was promoted to captain in May 1943 and was soon off to Office of the CNO as the director of aviation training. That keeps him busy for about a year and earned him an award of the Legion of Merit (that’s back when it meant something). In January 1945 he was detailed as the PCO of USS Siboney (CVE-112) and was CO when the ship is commissioned in May. The war, of course, ends a short three months later.

Post war Ring later commanded USS Saratoga (CV-3), the last CO before her demise at Bikini and, still later, commanded USS Boxer (CV-21). Have to say here that there were a plenty of aviation captains wandering about after the war and Ring got post war two fleet carrier commands . . . that is, just on the face, indicative of recognized positive performance. In 1950, as noted, Ring was promoted to Rear Admiral. He retired in 1955 and under the regulations (known as the Dismukes’ Law), still in effect until 1959, applied for and received a tombstone promotion to Vice Admiral on the basis of combat decorations.

So, what do I think about Stanhope Cotton Ring? I think he’s a guy with a fair share of mistakes, but perhaps too much of the blame coupled with an unwillingness to spread that blame around, whose later performance was apparently recognized as deserving. I think, whatever may have been his failings at Midway, he got over it professionally, but, perhaps, not personally. Americans can be a little simplistic sometimes and they really seem to like having someone at whom they can point a finger for this, that, or the other calamity; over the years Ring has become a convenient target.

Regards,

Rich

 

It's rather hard to lead by example, when you don't know how to drop a bomb. However, it was not on the Hiryu mission, it was the day after, June 5th. Stanhope Ring and half the Hornet's SBDs never sortied against the Hiryu, even though they were gassed and ready to go, thanks to another of Mitscher's foul-ups at Midway.

Robert J. Mrazek's book "A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Eight" came out some years earlier than Symond's book, and it paints a similar picture of Ring. Mrazek's conducted many interviews with the surviving members of the Hornet & VT-8. A lot of the dissension seems to come from, as you say, "leading by authority, rather than by example." Then there is his presumed incompetence - the "flight to nowhere" & the bomb drop issue. Rounded out by the fact that Stanhope Ring was awarded the Navy Cross for the Battle of Midway - even though he did nothing worthy of merit. Supposedly the Navy Cross was for his attacks on the Mogami on June 6th - even though Ring and all the bombers in his element missed the target, and two of his dive-bombers were shot down.

 

There was a huge battle between the aviators and non aviators during the war. At one time Adm Towers, who was the ranking aviator for the Navy proposed that all task force commanders and their seconds, naval theater and other significant commanders had to be aviator qualified effectivly shutting all non aviators out of command. The chief complaint of the non aviators was that aviators had no time on ship and would have no understanding of how to fight a surface battle or how to deal with a damaged ship.

 

More seriously, A Dawn Like Thunder suggests that Hornet's after-action report, prepared by Ring and Mitscher, was falsified. I don't have the book in front of me, but it is well researched and backed up by historians including Parshall & Tully and Sawruk. The report alleged that Hornet's air group flew southwest and missed contact by passing to the southeast of Kido Butai, between it and Midway. This is contradicted by pilots' flight logs, radar observations, etc. which confirm that the group actually flew almost due west, 265 degrees.

In Ring's version, both VT-8 and VF-8 broke off to the north or right rather than the actual south or left. This caused the initial search for the ditched fighter pilots to be misdirected and may have cost two of them their lives; the other eight were fortunately spotted by a PBY about 200 miles from where the report put them.

ADLT states that after action reports were usually submitted by all squadron commanders and attached to the ship's report; in Hornet's case only the Ring/Mitscher report was sent up the chain of command. Task force commander Spruance endorsed reports from both carriers under his command (normal procedure) and noted that Enterprise's was more credible.

In fairness, it is possible for flyers to become disoriented. The "Flight to Nowhere" provides an example in the fighter pilots who turned back. After flying back east about as long as they had flown west, they sighted ships' wakes to the north. This was of course TF16, which seems obvious in retrospect, but for some reason they thought or assumed that the ships might be Japanese and continued on into empty ocean until they finally ran out of fuel.

 

It is always nice if one’s subordinates find you to be a prince of a superior officer, however it is not essential. Ring died in, what, 1963? So all this angst starts to come out since, oh, say about around the mid-1970’s. So, and when did Ring ever get a chance to rebut such commentaries if he would even had so deigned? He did not, and I doubt he would have. While some, maybe even most, of his junior officers did not appreciate his command style, does the fact that he was perhaps a rigid disciplinarian translate into incompetence? I don’t believe it should; there were certainly other opportunities for that condition to rear its ugly head. Just as certainly there were other air groups in which there was friction between command elements and the rank and file.

Sometimes it can be it can spread so far as a given carrier commander’s relationship with the entire air group. CVG-85 aboard Shangri-La comes to mind . . . one very unhappy air group and one might even a say, ship’s company. That oft seen photo of the crew and air group mustered on the deck of Shangri-La as the ship cruises along off the coast of Japan? That was taken on 16 August 45 . . . and it was not in celebration of the end of the war, it was the captain’s response to celebrating the night before . . . he was very unhappy with end of war celebratory shenanigans of the night before. I have heard some, more than one, members of the TF-38 staff aboard Shangri-La at the time, and members of CVG-85 itself, remark on how they were welcomed in the air group ready rooms because they were more understanding of operational problems than the ship’s command elements. Does the ill-will between CVG-85 and CV-38 translate to incompetence? No, it does not, but I can assure you there was lingering ill-will.

Even in the 1942 time period there were examples of both “hard-chargers” and “hands off-ers” who did not rise in the estimations of their juniors. Aboard Yorktown, an early CYAG was considered an office type, more interested in the paper work than the nuts and bolts of flying and leading. The next guy, Oscar Pedersen, who moved up to CYAG from CO of VF-42 was considered a breath of fresh air. One might look into XOs on that ship, as well, and compare overall impressions of Jocko Clark to his successor, Dixie Keifer. I’ll leave that as a little research project for those who might wish to investigate and compare command styles and their impact on crews. Suffice to say, in these cases, personality really had little to do with ship performance; rather, simply, it was what it was.

Command is not, and never has been, never will be, a popularity contest and combat command is even more intense. I think it is a little unfair to condemn Ring or anyone else because one’s subordinates feel put upon. Ever wonder why a ship’s captain traditionally does not dine in the wardroom unless invited? The naval tradition is that familiarity breeds contempt. Apparently, an over aloofness and adherence to the customs of the service does so as well amongst the, perhaps, less indoctrinated, but I’d suggest that the course is better than the opposite. “Gee boys, it’s okay, do what you like,” is not the route for a commander to follow in the day to day routine. More than one commander has oft had to fall back on “because I said so,” rather than go through tedious repetition and explanation. In Ring’s case, the very inexperience of his air group could have militated against a warm-fuzzy-touchy-feely practice of command.

Okay, so Ring and his subordinates did not get along, aww gee, how sad . . . but is this a reason though to saddle him with all the failures, yes, failures, of the HAG in the Midway deployment. How about someone counting up the number of bombs dropped by HAG VSB’s and then make a comparison that number to the number of actual hits. Is that Ring’s fault? The HAG VSB squadrons did not even transition to SBD’s until March 1942, just before the Doolittle Raid deployment and they were not sparkling new planes fresh off the Douglas production line. Clay Fisher, then an ensign in VB-8, once wrote: “All the SBDs that VS-8 and VB-8 received (when the old SBC-4s were turned in at NAS North Island in March of 1942) were some very ‘used’ SBDs. I think most of them had been used in the operational training squadron based at North Island.” One might wonder just how much SBD time did all these stifled JOs have compared to Ring’s SBD time that would make them the experts? Anyway, to an extent, yes, partly Ring’s fault, a training issue, but circumstances and overhead command, from the captain right on up to ComCarPac, bear a large degree of responsibility for the lack of training and practice which produced such dismal results, factors over which Ring had little control.

I suppose I sound a little unsympathetic to JOs who believed themselves to be treated by Ring in a manner they did not appreciate. Well, tough beans. I’ve worked for a lot of bosses. Some, I’d be more that happy to work with again, for others the prospect results in ambivalence, and for a couple of individuals . . . well, I wouldn’t cross the street to, ahhhh, spit on them if they were on fire. Bottom line is the boss is the boss and you always get the last two words in any disagreement . . . “yes sir.”

As for Ring's Navy Cross, well, surprise, just about everyone at Midway got the Navy Cross or the DFC if they flew a combat mission with any sort of enemy contact. Mitscher recommended all the pilots from VT-8 to get a Medal of Honor. That concept got squashed when the powers that be looked at the losses of VT-6 and VT-3. And, yes, I am aware that my father was one of those who was awarded a Navy Cross at Midway, though his citation might stand up better to scrutiny than some. Oddly enough, his original recommendation was for a DFC, but was upgraded by the awards board (how do I know? I have the paperwork). Only one Medal of Honor was awarded to a US pilot at Midway. I could easily think of several individuals who were as equally deserving as Capt Richard Fleming (and, yes, I think his was deserved and, no, contrary to legend, his award was not for crashing into Mikuma).

Rich

 

I have the Hornet report. It was signed solely by Mitscher. What does that tell us?

 

American flight operations at Midway are often compared unfavorably with Japanese, particularly the common notation that it took Hornet and Enterprise about an hour to launch their morning strikes on June 4 while the Japanese had launched 108 planes in just seven minutes. This is unfair IMO because it ignores that the Japanese launched only half their attack aircraft at a time. The TF16 carriers were launching their entire air groups which, possibly due to the light winds that day, had to be done in two operations, dive bombers and fighters first, torpedo bombers second (I imagine most of us know the details). Sources agree that the interval between launches was 40-45 minutes and that the entire operation took about an hour, which suggests that the actual launching operations took about ten and five minutes respectively.

The best analogy to American operations at Midway might be the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They launched their first wave, then spotted the second wave and launched it about an hour later. Getting all their planes in the air and enroute to the target took about the same time as for TF16.

The Americans might have done better to launch as many planes as they could in a single operation, dispatch them immediately, then bring up the rest and send them as a second wave as quickly as possible, but that's a question of tactics rather than execution.

 

The folks I knew from the time period were all fairly junior – LCDRs and below and mostly below - during Browning’s time and were unlikely to have hob-nobbed with him socially. I remember Dick Best saying essentially that Browning was a captain and he was a lieutenant and Browning did not converse happily with such lowly beings. So, what do I know about Browning and his alcohol consumption proclivities or lack thereof? I know nothing other than that I have read in the easily available histories, mostly hearsay and third party accounts.

Browning was sidelined, summarily relieved, as captain of USS Hornet after a man overboard incident and spent the rest of the war on the staff of the Army’s Command & General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth. He retired after 30 years service in 1947; he applied for and received a retirement promotion to Rear Admiral on the basis of combat decorations under the Dismuke’s law, then in effect.

(I suppose I should be clear, some think these ‘tombstone promotions” were automatic, they were not. The individual had to apply for the promotion in their retirement processing and Congress had to approve each and every one. I can only think of one individual who did not actually apply, but received the promotion and he was too sick, dying in fact, to make the application, so the Navy made it for him.)

As an aside, that was a different time, much different that today. Drinking was not at all unusual and one’s habits ashore were often somewhat overlooked as long as one did one’s duty at sea. Even into the 1970’s, the unit “beer bash” was a typical social event; nowadays, such can be the kiss of death to one’s career. I can think of several folks – and it serves no purpose to name names – some of whom no one here ever heard and some who are fairly well known, for whom their drinking habits eventually caught up with them and resulted in their being passed over for significant command, promotions, or being quietly bounced out of the service.

Regards,

Rich

 

probably already said, but they usually wanted to coordinate their attacks with the DBs

 

That was the intent, but they ran up against the number of planes they could launch in a single operation. Although our carriers at Midway had catapults, they were still using rolling takeoffs, so the key constraint was how much deck the furthest forward bomber in the spot needed to take off. That determined how many planes could be spotted from the stern to that point. They figured it carefully, for example the leading SBDs carried 500lb bombs, those further back with a bit more takeoff run carried 1000-pounders, and of course the TBDs with their torpedos were at the back of the pack.

The breeze was light that day, which limited the number of planes that could go on the first launch. Hornet seems to have spotted as many as possible, 6 TBDs all the way aft, with 35 SBDs (some sources say 34) ahead of them, the lead planes about amidships. Fighters, which needed the least takeoff run, were forward of the SBDs. Hornet launched the fighters and SBDs first, then brought up the nine remaining TBDs to spot in front of the other six and all launch together. Ideally this would only take a few minutes, so the others wouldn't burn too much gas waiting for them, but it ended up taking about 45 minutes to get the TBDs ready for launch. As I mentioned earlier, the actual launching operations took only a few minutes for each group.

Enterprise was a bit more conservative, spotting and launching just the 33 SBDs (preceded by CAP fighters IIRC). They then brought up all 14 TBDs and the 10 escort fighters for the second launch, which again took about 45 minutes, causing Spruance or his staff to lose patience and order the circling SBDs on their way without waiting.

What else could they have done? If we accept Hornet's air staff's calculation that 41 attack planes was all they could spot at one time in the conditions of the day, they could have spotted all 15 TBDs, 26 SBDs, or some other combination, and fighters, and Enterprise could have done roughly the same. That would allow them to quickly dispatch coordinated attack groups, just with fewer SBDs. Also fewer of the SBDs would be carrying 1000-pounders; the ones at the back of the back would be the ones displaced by TBDs.

That would leave each carrier with 6-9 SBDs - about half a squadron - which could either be held in reserve or spotted and launched as quickly as possible. They might be able to catch up with the main attack groups in time to participate in the attacks or take advantage of whatever confusion they caused.

Another option would be to launch the excess SBDs by catapult before the main group took off. For some reason, catapult launches were not standard operating procedure at that time. For example Enterprise reported only 18 catapult launches in the entire fiscal year 1941. As late as 1943 when the Big E went into the shipyard for overhaul, her captain recommended removing the cats.