Carrier battles: Command decisions in harm's way

This dissertation considers the transformation of the United States Navy from a defensive-minded coastal defense navy during the first century of America's history into an offensive-minded, risk-taking navy in the early stages of World War II. Since none of the top U.S. Navy leaders in World War II were commissioned prior to the Spanish-American War and none participated in any significant offensive operations in World War I, the premise that education, rather than experience in battle, accounts for that transformation is examined. In evaluating this thesis the five carrier battles of the Second World War are analyzed to determine the extent to which the inter-war education of the major operational commanders translated into their decision processes and transformed them from risk-adverse to risk-accepting in their operational concepts.;Several authors have speculated as to what accounts for the U.S. Navy's success in World War II---and particularly in its early stages. Luck, war gaming, breaking of Japanese naval codes, and Divine Intervention have all been postulated as rationale for that success. Though all of these were important---none can adequately account for the aggressive, risk-accepting decisions the top U.S. naval operational leaders made. The institutionalized naval educational process stands out as being responsible for decisive decision and action and fundamental understanding among the leaders interacting in combat of what they could expect from those fighting with them. Foremost in their education was Sound Military Decision, which provided an extremely concise and rote method for conceptualizing and analyzing a problem and formulating a sound course of action appropriate to the situation.;The main thesis explored is that education rather than experience accounts for U.S. Navy success in operations in World War II, and that Sound Military Decision can be appropriately established as the main element of that education which produced the success enjoyed.;This thesis is evaluated by analyzing the naval decision process in the five carrier battles of World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea; The Battle of Midway; The Battle of the Eastern Solomons; The Battle of Santa Cruz; and The Battle of the Philippine Sea.