I'm no navy pilot, but I believe SSD is correct about the USN's practice. Probably most of us have seen that tape of the jet fighter going too low on the glidepath, to which the LSO responds by radioing "power ... power ... POWER! Eject! Eject!" (pilot punches out and a/c slams into the stern of the ship). If he thought that the airplane was too low and in danger of crashing, I can't see why he would want to increase the speed; so presumably he wanted to arrest the rate of sink.
Personally speaking, I always use the stick to control airspeed, and throttle/spoilers to control sink. But then, all of my experience has been in saiplanes and light airplanes.
Here are two related articles that may be of interest:
http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182210-1.html
http://www.mwenda.com/stick.htm