On the _Saratoga_ we sweated out the hour-long minutes of the approach. Radio silence was broken when Bogusch and Griffen reported success. We sweated out their return; the run would take all the available fuel. When they started coming aboard we were too busy to exult. Every plane got in safely except Les Arnold’s F3B. Les, our flag lieutenant, was right over the deck with a few seconds to go before the “cut,” when his engine conked, out of gas. He landed smoothly in the sea. We left him to the mercies of a convenient enemy destroyer we had called in to act as plane guard, and started out to sea. But too late! For now we found ourselves under the guns of the defending battleships. It seems that Admiral Pratt in our battleship divisions had failed to come up in time to support us. The navigator of the flagship had underestimated the strong current off Cape Mala and the _Saratoga’s_ screen was nowhere in sight. Every phase of the complex air operation had gone off like clockwork. All our squadrons had reached their objectives unopposed just at dawn, and had caught the defenders on the ground. With the exception of Les Arnold’s plane, which had now been recovered with only a ducking for Les, we had no casualties of any kind. Only the mighty battle wagons had missed the boat! The critique that year was brief. Admiral Pratt took the floor. “Gentlemen,” he began, “you have witnessed the most brilliantly conceived and most effectively executed naval operation in our history. I expect to fly my flag in the _Saratoga_ on our return cruise north, partly as a badge of distinction but mostly because I want to know what makes the aircraft squadrons tick.” Nearly twenty years after the dawn attack on Panama, I met Gen. J. B. Mitchell, USA, Retired, the officer who had then commanded the Panama defenses. The general told me that, having gone abroad early that morning in company with his adjutant, long before the alarm had been sounded, he had sighted specks against the sky. “Frigate birds?” his adjutant had inquired. “Frigate birds, my eye!” the general had retorted. “Those are enemy aircraft and they’ve caught us flat-footed.” Our own high-rankers, while appreciating the tactical skill Bull Reeves had shown, had entirely missed the implications of his accomplishment. While the Army Air Service had been talking air power, the Navy had created the first American strategic air force, not one riveted to shore bases but one roving the high seas—on the backs of the fleet! Yet if this revolutionary development was lost upon most Americans, it was not lost upon our potential enemies, the Japanese. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Another Turning