Airfields at Sea: The Washington Naval Conference

» dougwood - The Washington Naval Conference

First off: Billy Mitchell's bombers sank those captured German warships in July of 1921. In January 1929, during Fleet Problem IX, the USS Saratoga launched a 70 plane strike against the Panama Canal - Jimmy Doolittle was nowhere in sight.

The Washington Naval Conference was held in late 1921 to defuse an intensifying naval arms race between the US, Japan and Britain. The resulting treaty limited the amount of tonnage for capital ships to the ratio of 5:5:3 (US, Britain & Japan). Instead of scrapping all ships over the treaty limitations, the three naval powers converted several of them into aircraft carriers.

-- posted by dougwood