- The US Navy’s aircraft carriers are some of the most imposing vessels ever put to sea.
- But the carriers the Navy has now are the just latest on a long line ships that dominated during World War II and continue to project US might around the world.
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Few weapons have made an impact on warfare like the aircraft carrier. Just a few decades after the first purpose-built carrier was commissioned by the Japanese in 1922, they became essential instruments of naval warfare.
US carriers played pivotal roles in World War II naval battles and in nearly every war or conflict the US has been involved in since.
“When word of a crisis breaks out in Washington, it’s no accident that the first question that comes to everyone’s lips is: ‘Where’s the nearest carrier?'” President Bill Clinton said on the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt in 1993.
With decades of hard experience, the US Navy has mastered carrier warfare, fielding some of the most impressive vessels in history.
Starting small
The first operational class of carrier was the Lexington class.
Both ships of the class, Lexington and Saratoga, were intended to be battlecruisers but were converted after the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which limited the number of battleships and cruisers the US Navy could have. They were 880 feet long, had a crew of over 2,000, and could carry up to 90 aircraft.
They were also originally fitted with eight 8-inch guns in four turrets in front of and behind the carrier island, because early carrier doctrine dictated that aircraft alone were insufficient armament.
The two ships were commissioned in 1927. They were two of three carriers in the Pacific Fleet when Pearl Harbor was attacked but, luckily, were at sea and avoided being destroyed.
Both saw action in the Pacific. Aircraft from Lexington helped sink the Japanese carrier Shōhō and prevent a Japanese invasion of Port Moresby at the Battle of the Coral Sea, but it was scuttled after sustaining too much damage.
Saratoga saw action at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, where its aircraft sank the carrier Ryūjō. It served in four campaigns and was damaged at the Battle of Iwo Jima. After the war it was sunk as a target ship during the Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1949.
The first true carriers
The US Navy’s first purpose-built carriers were the Yorktown class. It had three ships: Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet. They were over 800 feet long, had a crew of 2,900, and could carry 80 to 90 aircraft.
The armament included eight 5-inch guns, 16 1.1-inch anti-aircraft guns in four quad mounts, and up to 24 .50-caliber machine guns. The 1.1-inch guns and .50-caliber machine guns on Enterprise were later replaced with 40 40-mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns and 50 20-mm Oerlikon cannons.
The Yorktown class is famous for bearing the brunt of US carrier action during the early months of World War II — part of Enterprise’s air group was present at Pearl Harbor during the attack and engaged Japanese aircraft, and it was the ship that carried the Doolittle Raid bombers to Japan.
Two Yorktown-class ships were sunk by enemy action: Yorktown at the Battle of Midway and Hornet at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.
Enterprise fought in almost every major action of the Pacific and became the most decorated US ship of World War II. Its planes and guns shot down 911 enemy planes,…
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