How a 1918 harbor strike could reshape naval strategy

Even limited damage at Wilhelmshaven would have demonstrated that a fleet was no longer secure merely because it remained in harbor. Such a precedent could have weakened confidence in the fleet-in-being concept before the interwar treaty system took shape. A late-1918 attack might therefore have influenced naval policy and carrier planning in the 1920s and 1930s as well as the immediate war. The Royal Navy did not forget the concept after the armistice. It used ships such as Furious to refine the carriers, aircraft, torpedoes, and operating methods needed to make future harbor strikes more credible.