The U. S. Navy pioneered in the development of aircraft as a military weapon and spared no effort to develop it and fit it into naval organization. The _Lexington_ and the _Saratoga_ were the proving grounds for the ideas of our imaginative leaders of naval aviation. The lessons learned in maneuvers with the _Lexington_ and _Saratoga_ were well embedded in the minds of the men who were someday to command the greatest carrier task force the world has ever seen. The old _Lexington_ and _Saratoga_ were in the thick of the fight in the Pacific from the day after Pearl Harbor. The “Lex” went down in the gallant fight that stopped the Japs in the Coral Sea. Within two years a new and more powerful _Lexington_ was hammering the Japs in the Pacific. The _Saratoga_, damaged severely several times, lived through the heroic struggle to see victory. The “Lex” and the “Sara” will always live in the hearts of the Navy’s veteran airmen. SHIPBOARD FIGHTERS [Illustration: GRUMMAN FF-1 FIGHTER] The Curtiss TS-1 was the first carrier fighter built to Navy specification. It was followed by the Boeing FB-l. Carrier fighters offered one of aviation’s most difficult problems. A carrier fighter had to have a short takeoff run, necessitated by the carrier’s short deck. Another requirement was a short wingspan to permit the storage of a number of planes in the limited space of the carrier’s hangar deck. As a result, small light biplanes were used on the carriers for many years. The Curtiss BFC-l and BF2C-l were the first carrier-based aircraft to be equipped with retractable landing gear. The Boeing F4B-4, though it did not have a retractable landing gear, was a very fast, all-metal fighter and was popular as a carrier-based fighter. Grumman came into the picture in 1935 with a stubby, fast, two-place fighter, the FF-1. It was highly successful, but was later re-designed as a scout plane, the SF-1. The FF-1 was the fastest fighter yet to appear in service and, after several modifications, it became the F3F-1, a design standardized by the Navy and used throughout by the carriers’ fighter squadrons. [Illustration: U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIER _LEXINGTON_] BATTLESHIP OF THE AIR In line with its strategic policy the Army Air Corps continued to develop aviation around long-range bombardment. Long-range bombers would stop an invader far from our shores and therefore the aim of our Air Corps leaders was to develop a bomber that could be used for that purpose. The Martin BM-1, the Barling bomber, and the Keystone LB-6, developed in the twenties, were all biplanes made of wood, metal, and fabric. What the Army airmen really wanted was an all-metal, low-wing, multi-engined bomber capable of flying far out to sea, dropping its bombs, and returning to its base on land. Naturally at that time our only thoughts were of weapons for defense and the protection of our coastline from an invader.