Moffett, Mitchell, and the politics of aircraft ferrying

The escort-carrier idea also belonged to the interservice argument between William Moffett's naval-aviation establishment and Billy Mitchell's campaign for an independent air service. Naval officers rejected the claim that a technically demanding service built around steam engineering could not support aircraft. The proposed Pacific ferry program also demonstrated that long-range air power depended on maritime logistics. By offering to move Army Air Corps aircraft safely and in volume, the Navy could support the Army while exposing the limits of claims that bombers had made naval power obsolete. Capability planning served an institutional and political purpose at the same time.