When the framers of the Constitution of the United States met in the sweltering heat of Philadelphia to draft the documents that is the framework of American democracy, they defined the specific powers of the respective branches of government. The first duty of the President of the United States was as Commander in Chief of the armed forces (at that time the Army and Navy), and over two centuries later that remains one of the most honored and sacred obligations of the American Presidency.
With the airplane a twentieth century invention, the direct connection between the nation’s chief executives and naval aviation has been relatively recent, perhaps the first significant involvement coming with men named Roosevelt before they even entered the White House. In addition to sharing a last name, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt both possessed an affinity for the naval service, which manifested itself in their service as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. It was while in this post that Theodore Roosevelt expressed the Navy’s first official interest in flight, on 24 March 1898, recommending to the Secretary of the Navy that he appoint two officers of “scientific attainments and practical ability” to examine Professor Samuel P. Langley’s aerodrome. Two decades later, his cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt confronted the increasing pressure for a unified air force by defending the uniqueness of naval aviation. “It will readily be seen,” he wrote in 1919, “that only men whose training must be controlled by the Navy can be depended upon to carry out the work of naval aviation and expect any measure of success.”
President Calvin Coolidge, in a bit of sarcastic wit, once responded to the pleas of the military for more training planes with the words, “Why can’t we buy one plane and let the aviators take turns flying it?” Yet, it was his administration that convened the famous “Morrow Board” in 1925, that established the post-World War I foundation for naval aviation’s growth, which continued even during the trying times of the Great Depression. Among the programs of now-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, shipbuilding under the provisions of the National Industrial Recovery Act included the construction of the famed aircraft carriers Yorktown (CV 5) and Enterprise (CV 6)).
FDR served as Commander in Chief during World War II, in which naval air power came of age and supplanted the battleship as the primary offensive weapon of the Navy. Among the thousands of personnel who filled the ranks of naval aviation during that time were future presidents Gerald Ford, who served as a member of ship’s company in the light carrier Monterey (CVL 26), and George H.W. Bush, who flew combat missions from the deck of the light carrier San Jacinto (CVL 31). Ashore, future president Richard M. Nixon served at Naval Reserve Aviation Base (NRAB) Ottumwa, Iowa, with South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command in the Solomon Islands, and later assigned to Fleet Air Wing Eight and the Bureau of Aeronautics.
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