Striking the Hornets' Nest provides the first extensive analysis of the Northern Bombing Group (NBG), the Navy's most innovative aviation initiative of World War I and one of the world's first dedicated strategic bombing programs. Very little has been written about the Navy's aviation activities in World War I and even less on the NBG. Standard studies of strategic bombing tend to focus on developments in the Royal Air Force or the U.S. Army Air Service. This work concentrates on the origins of strategic bombing in World War I, and the influence this phenomenon had on the Navy's future use of the airplane. The NBG program faced enormous logistical and personnel challenges. Demands for aircraft, facilities, and personnel were daunting, and shipping shortages added to the seemingly endless delays in implementing the program. Despite the impediments, the Navy (and Marine Corps) triumphed over organizational hurdles and established a series of bases and depots in northern France and southern England in the late summer and early fall of 1918. Ironically, by the time the Navy was ready to commence bombing missions, the German retreat had caused abandonment of the submarine bases the NBG had been created to attack. The men involved in this program were pioneers, overcoming major obstacles only to find they were no longer needed. Though the Navy rapidly abandoned its use of strategic bombing after World War I, their brief experimentation directed the future use of aircraft in other branches of the armed forces. It is no coincidence that Robert Lovett, the young Navy reserve officer who developed much of the NBG program in 1918, spent the entire period of World War II as Assistant Secretary of War for Air where he played a crucial role organizing and equipping the strategic bombing campaign unleashed against Germany and Japan. Rossano and Wildenberg have provided a definitive study of the NBG, a subject that has been overlooked for too long.

Charles Stark Draper, often referred to as 'The Father of Inertial Navigation', was the moving force behind the development of the floated gyroscope in the United States. He was an engineer, a scientist, and an inventor; an inspiring teacher; and a dynamic leader responsible for creating the laboratory that brought inertial navigation to fruition for operational use in submarines, aircraft, and space vehicles. But Draper also created and ran the famous laboratory, now bearing his Name, that helped make MIT into one of the nation's leading research centres for government research. The story of Draper's life and his accomplishments cannot be separated from those of the Instrumentation Laboratory, which are one and the same. Thus, this biography of Charles Stark 'Doc' Draper, is also a chronological accounting of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory and its contributions to the nation. Draper's personality, drive, and intellectual curiosity, where at the heart of the success of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. But Draper's success was also due to his association with MIT, a place that provided the resources, funding, and environment that enabled Draper to achieve greatness. The presence of the Institute's engine laboratory and the research fellowship that drew him back to MIT to pursue a graduate degree laid the ground work for his doctoral dissertation and the development of both the Engine Indicator and the MIT-Sperry Apparatus for Measuring Vibration. For those who are interested in naval history, three of Draper's accomplishments stand out: the Mark 14 lead-computing gunsight, the Submarine Inertial Navigation System, and the inertial guidance systems designed and engineered by Draper's laboratory for the Polaris, Poseidon, and Trident ballistic missiles. The Mark 14 was the first of several Draper gunsights and directors that revolutionised anti-aircraft gunnery in World War II. Close to eighty percent of all enemy aircraft shop down by the U.S. Navy ships in the Pacific during the period from October 1944 thru January 1945 were brought down by Draper equipped anti-aircraft guns. Draper's relationship with the Navy has continued to this day. Draper, the research institution bearing his Name that evolved from the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, continues to be the Navy's sole source for Trident's Mk-6 guidance system.

When Billy Mitchell returned from WWI, he brought with him the deep-seated belief that air power had made navies obsolete. However, in the years following WWI, the U.S. Congress was far more interested in disarmament and isolationist policies than in funding national defense. For the military services this meant lean budgets and skeleton operating forces. Billy Mitchell’s War with the Navy recounts the intense political struggle between the Army and Navy air arms for the limited resources needed to define and establish the role of aviation within their respective services in the period between the two world wars. After Congress rejected the concept of a unified air service in 1920, Mitchell and his supporters turned on the Navy, seeking to substitute the Air Service as the nation's first line of defense. While Mitchell proved that aircraft could sink a battleship with the bombing of the Ostfriesland in 1921, he was unable to convince the General Staff of the Army, the General Board of the Navy, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or Congress of the need for an independent air force. When Mitchell turned to the pen to discredit the Navy, he was convicted by his own words and actions in a court-martial that captivated the nation, and was forced to resign in 1925. Rather than ending the rivalry for air power, Mitchell’s resignation set the stage for the ongoing dispute between the two services in the years immediately before WWII. After Mitchell’s resignation, the rivalry for air power between the two services resurfaced when the Navy's plans to procure torpedo planes for the defense of Pearl Harbor and Coco Solo were brought to the attention of the Army. The book concludes with a description of the events surrounding the Air Corps' abysmal performance at Pearl Harbor and Midway followed by a critical assessment of how the development of aviation was pursued by the Army and the Navy after WWII.

On 4 June 1942, three squadrons of U.S. Navy Dauntless dive bombers destroyed Japan's carrier force sent to neutralise Midway, changing the course of the war in the Pacific. As Thomas Wildenberg convincingly demonstrates in this book, the key ingredient to the navy's success at Midway was the planning and training devoted to the tactic of dive bombing over the previous seventeen years. Examining how political, economic, technical, and operational factors influenced the development of carrier airpower between 1925 and 1942, he shows why dive bombing became the navy's weapon of choice over all other methods of aerial warfare and finally brought to bear to stop the Japanese advance. The title reflects the essence of the story; the development of carrier air power in the U.S. Navy was driven by an unwritten understanding that the years spent on experimentation, training, and innovations were destined to bring success in a future battle. As part of this work, the author introduces newly discovered information showing that the outcome at Midway was actually predicted by naval aviators years before the battle took place. Destined for Glory sheds new light on the navy's preparations for war, demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt the effectiveness of U.S. naval planning before Pearl Harbor. About the Author Thomas Wildenberg is a historian specialising in the development of naval aviation and logistics at sea. He is the author of several books on naval history and the co-author of Howard Hughes: An Airman, His Aircraft and His Great Flight. He lives in Burtonsville, MD.

During the 1920s and 1930s Adm. Joseph Mason Reeves (1878-1948) emerged as the most important flag officer in American naval aviation. He took command of the U.S. Navy's nascent carrier arm during a critical period and, imagining the aircraft carrier's possibilities as an offensive weapon, transformed it from a small auxiliary command in support of the battle line into a powerful strike force that could attack far in advance of the fleet. All the Factors of Victory is the first full-length biography of this eminent naval officer, whose story makes an important contribution to our understanding of not only the development of carrier warfare, but also how intraservice rivalries and the development of new technologies affected the Navy's mission.