Returning to San Diego, we spent the autumn of 1928 at gunnery training, interspersed by monthly tactical exercises with the fleet. All three carriers and their squadrons operated in conjunction with cruisers, destroyers, and submarines against a simulated enemy battle line and in support of our own “backbone.” Yet even as we developed intricate joint attacks under this time-honored doctrine, we in COMAIRONS began to flirt with a revolutionary concept: maybe our task force could defeat the battle line singlehanded! From here to the fantastic proposal to use battle wagons in support of aircraft carriers was a terrific mental leap. When the detailed plans for the winter exercises became available, we drew a long breath and took it. CHAPTER SIXTEEN Maneuver for Position When the commander in chief released the preliminary statement of the 1929 fleet problem, we in COMAIRONS staff wore broad smiles of satisfaction. For while the exercises contemplated a conventional assault on the defenses of the Panama Canal, the problem was so stated as to convince us that the high command was beginning at last to recognize the role of the carrier in warfare at sea. A “red” fleet, comprising the modern battleships then based in the Pacific with its accompanying submarines, destroyers, and train, moving into the Gulf of Panama with the object of attacking the Canal, would be opposed by a friendly “blue” fleet which had just transited the Canal and moved out into the Gulf to defend it. The blue fleet comprised the vessels of the scouting fleet, then based in the Atlantic but reinforced by the _Lexington_ and _Langley_ from the “battle fleet” of the Pacific. This gave the defenders an air force comprising all the Army and Navy shore-based aircraft in the Panama Canal Zone, the aircraft of the scouting fleet then based on my old seaplane tender, the _Wright_, and the planes of the _Langley_ and _Lexington_; it left to the attackers the _Saratoga_ and her planes, under the command of Admiral Reeves. In the past, these Panama maneuvers had been stereotyped battle-line tactics with the battle wagons steaming majestically behind a destroyer-laid smoke screen while bombarding the Canal with their turret guns at maximum range. After the fleet had fired a few blank charges or “primers” to simulate long-range attack and its airplanes had been “shot down” by the local defenders, the vessels would proceed to their anchorage in the Bay of Panama and all hands would go ashore for a big bust at the Union Club. Later there would be a “critique” in which the high rankers would stand up before a congregation of Army-Navy officers and alibi their failures, or try to impress their personalities upon the assembly. Following this, the social whirl would begin and fleet grand tactics would be put aside until another year.