When later the Commander in Chief, Adm. Louis R. de Steiguer, once my captain on the _Old Ark_, finally released his statement of the fleet problem, the attention of all hands was focused on the forthcoming Hawaiian cruise. In April the following year, 1928, the fleet would rendezvous at San Francisco to sail from there for the joint Army-Navy exercises. In preparation for the maneuvers, each unit commander was called upon to submit his own “estimate of the military situation” and to formulate his own decisions and his operation orders. The fleet staff, after analyzing the several solutions, would promulgate the commander in chief’s orders. In FLEET AIR, as the Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet, were locally known, we planned to close the first phase of the exercises with a dawn attack on Pearl Harbor by planes launched from the _Langley_. Appreciating that a dozen tiny fighters in competition with the great guns of the ponderous battle wagons would make little impression on Pearl Harbor, the admiral undertook to expand greatly the number of aircraft to be flown off the _Langley_. To provide living accommodations for their crews he instructed Captain Towers to request the Mare Island Navy Yard to undertake alterations to the vessel during her forthcoming annual overhaul. To increase the fire power of our embryonic air force, presently confined to a pair of thirty-caliber machine guns each, we started our squadrons training in a new tactic. Dive bombing, first tested against Nicaraguan rebels by the United States Marines, had been further developed against naval targets by Fighting Five, a _Lexington_ squadron then being assembled at Norfolk, Virginia. Admiral Reeves waxed enthusiastic over this idea, primarily because it concentrated the attack upon objectives located at the surface, instead of wasting energy on the usual dogfights between knights of the air. Frank Wagner, after scurrying around to lease all suitable training areas in the vicinity, soon had airplanes diving all over the San Diego hinterland. In order to remove some of the hazards of operating carrier land planes over the sea, we began training our two auxiliary vessels, the former mine planter _Aroostook_ and the sweeper _Teal_ as “plane guards” for the _Langley_. For protection against losses incident to distant water landings, we equipped all planes with rubber flotation bags and gear to inflate them, when necessary, with bottled gas. Finally we borrowed two fast destroyers from the local squadrons under command of Adm. Thomas J. Senn. Here, though we little appreciated it at the time, was the germ of the big idea of the carrier task force.