Who convinced the admiralty that aircraft carriers were the future of naval warfare?

Question

I can't recall the name very well, but he was an admiral, and he proved the carrier's worth by sinking some captured vessels with a successful air raid.

Answer 1

I believe it was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.  

He planned the Pearl Harbor attack and it was his this attack that led most nations to conclude the future of Naval power to be in force projection through the air rather than through the battleship, as had been the previous line of thought.

Answer 2

Col. James (Jimmy) Doolittle.

Answer 3

He was a Brigadier General in the US Army -- Billy Mitchell.  And he failed.  The Navy said the expiraments were rigged and that a vessel underway, able to defend itself would never have been sunk.

It was the German battleship (and some lesser vessels) Ostfriesland off the coast of North Carolina in the early 1920s.

Eventually he was proven correct, after he was court martialed and resigned his comission.  There was also a Naval treaty limiting the tonnage of ships, except the carrier.  This caused the US, Japan and Britian to build a few, as opposed to battleships [because carriers are lighter, you could get more bang for the ton than with a battlewagon].

When the IJN put the US Fleet on the bottom 7 December, the carriers were all that was left.