1200 Hours, 27 December 1942, Washington, DC – The late 1942 Allied Naval Staff Planning talks in Washington, DC wrapped up two days after Christmas. Naturally, aircraft carrier and battleship dispositions along with the allocation of amphibious shipping dominated the sessions. The crippling of the battleship Tirpitz eased the pressure on the Royal Navy but the Admiralty was not yet ready to release capital warships from duty with the Home Fleet. The Germans still had the battleship Scharnhorst working up in the Baltic Sea, the exact status of the battleship Gneisenau was not known, and the Admiralty was concerned the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was close to achieving operational capability. This meant the Admiralty still wanted to maintain two modern battleships and two modern aircraft carriers with the Home Fleet for the time being. Additionally, the upcoming invasion of Sicily (OPERATION HUSKY) planned for July of 1943 would draw at least two modern battleships from the Home Fleet along with cruisers and destroyers and possibly one aircraft carrier. There was still some debate regarding whether or not the smaller and older carriers with Force H, HMS Eagle and HMS Argus supplemented by escort carriers would satisfy the requirement for naval air cover for the invasion fleet or if one of the Home Fleet’s modern carriers would need to be detached to the Mediterranean as well.
Similarly, the Americans preferred to keep two modern carriers and at least two modern fast battleships in the South Pacific, supporting operations on Guadalcanal and guarding against additional moves by the Japanese. With USS Enterprise under repair in Bremerton and USS Yorktown, USS Ranger, and HMS Indomitable all underway for the United States for their own refits, late 1942 represented something of a nadir for the carrier fleets of the US and Royal Navies. This meant that among other things, the Eastern Fleet was going to have to make do with HMS Hermes and whatever escort carriers could be spared for the foreseeable future.
However, contrary to what many general histories claim, Somerville’s fleet was not considered a backwater nor was it a forgotten fleet. The Admiralty was keen to strengthen Somerville’s forces and they had an ally in Ernest J. King who recognized the benefits a strong Eastern Fleet provided to US efforts in the South Pacific. The British representatives at the talks proposed to send two aircraft carriers to the Indian Ocean as soon as they were available, most likely when HMS Indomitable’s refit was complete and HMS Illustrious was no longer needed in the South Pacific. Additionally, while none of the King George V class battleships would be going to the Indian Ocean for at least a year, the Admiralty did plan to send the battlecruiser HMS Renown and the modernized battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth to the Eastern Fleet as soon as their refits were complete. The Americans at King’s direction agreed to retain a task force built around USS Ranger and the battleship USS Alabama in the Atlantic to serve as a reserve for the Home Fleet for at least the first half of 1943 in order to afford the Royal Navy more flexibility in terms of how its assets were deployed.