Enterprise joined the Pacific fleet in April 1939, then based in San Diego, California.
At that time, carriers were not the glamorous, news-making, head-turning ships they were to become just a few years later. Their officers were derided as "brown shoe Navy" (referring to the uniforms of naval aviation officers). Their crewmen were dismissed as "flattop sailors", though in a few years that would become a term of respect and pride. Carriers were "barn doors on bathtubs". Theodore Mason, in his memoir "Battleship Sailor", recalls sailing for the west coast with the battleship California BB-44, in the company of Enterprise:
"As [Enterprise] pitched and rolled arthritically in the freshening seas, the flattop reminded me of a huge but decrepit old man with an entourage of bodyguards. If some seer had told me then that the Enterprise would steam to glory on one of the most brilliant combat records of any ship in the history of the navy, I would have given him the pitying smile one reserves for fools. From where I stood, it looked like she might have trouble reaching the West Coast."
In most Navy circles, strategic thinking held that carriers were to be used in support of ships-of-the-line: scouting, range-finding, and defensive air cover. The battleship, since coming of age at Jutland in 1916, was indisputably ruler of the seas. However, a few forward-thinking American officers, and many of Japan's naval leaders, saw the carrier as an offensive weapon, its air groups as potent weapons with many times the range of the huge 14" and 16" guns mounted by the fleet's proud battleships.
- Joel Sheperd
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