Reginald Henderson held the procurement post that could accelerate the gun program. His experience as an aircraft-carrier admiral also gave him a practical basis for questioning reassuring exercise results. Henderson rejected the apparent lesson that aircraft would leave destroyers alone. His appointment therefore makes an earlier high-elevation destroyer battery plausible, before wartime air attacks demonstrated the need.
Notable Point · 14:34-15:12
Henderson's carrier experience challenges a false exercise lesson
The proposed earlier 4.5-inch push rests on a Third Sea Lord whose carrier command experience made him skeptical that aircraft would leave destroyers alone.