Mitchell's theories were only proved correct when it became possible to field enough aircraft on target to swamp the target's defenses. Sinking ships with carrier planes, strategic bombing and vertical envelopment only worked because the technology evolved to produce planes in enormous quantities, the means to get them where they were needed, and to supply them in the field. Wihthout a navy to secure the sea lanes to obtain and move materials, none of it would have happened.
Those events happened despite the submarine and the airplane, or have we forgotten the Battle of the Atlantic or the fact the US Navy sunk 60% of the Japanese merchant fleet, effectively shutting down Japanese industry?
Air power is a great thing, but it doesn't get every job done.
Today's ships are much more capable of extended operations and with underway replenishment (UNREP) it is possible to keep a ship at sea indefinately. That capability, by the way, also requires surface ships to move the cargoes and protect them.
Also, I want to remind people that the ageof the great carrier on carrier battles lasted little more than two and half years, from Pearl Harbor to the battle of the Phillipine sea (1941-1944). The last major carrier vs carrier battle had empty Japanese carriers being used as bait at Leyte Gulf.
I's also like to point out thatwhen I was a Squid, there was a little something called REFORGER, which were xercises designed to simulate getting men and equipment across the Atlantic in the event the Soviets poured through Fulda Gap.
Many of the troops (in fact almost all of them) were moved by plane. The tanks, trucks, supplies, engineer equipment, and three-thousand other things too heavy for a plane, were moved by sea. The point of the execises was to move the boots, beans and bullets through a North Atlantic that would be swamped with upwards of 300 Soviet sunbmarines.
You can't do any of that without surface ships.
Actually Mitchell's theories were never proven correct, as no battleship, underway with AA manned, was ever sunk by level bombing from altitude with unguided bombs.
Most of the sinking of the Japanese merchant fleet, was done by our submarince fleet, not our surface fleet. I don't think that example does much to refute Mr. Jeeves points.
I would commend Silent Victory to you.