Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier

by Tom Clancy

It goes without saying that institutions as large, diverse, and powerful as naval aviation do not just happen overnight. They evolve over time, and are the product of the forces and personalities that impact upon them. In fact, naval aviation grew to maturity surprisingly quickly, and most of the critical events and trends that shaped it happened in the roughly five decades stretching from 1908 through the mid-1950’s. During that time, the basic forms and functions that define carriers and their aircraft today were conceived and developed. Let’s take a look at a few of the most critical of these events and trends. We’ll start with the first act in the birth of the world’s most powerful conventional weapons system.

  Eugene Ely’s Stunt

  Our journey begins in 1908, just five years after the Wright brothers’ first flight, when Glenn Curtiss, an early aerial pioneer, laid out a bombing range in the shape of a battleship, and simulated attacking it. Though the U.S. Navy took notice of Curtiss’s test run, it took no action. Several years later, after word reached America of a German attempt to fly an airplane from the deck of a ship, the U.S. Navy decided to try a similar experiment. They built a wooden platform over the main deck of the light cruiser Birmingham (CL-2) and engaged Eugene Ely, a stunt pilot working for Curtiss, to fly off it. At 3 P.M. on the afternoon of November 14th, 1910, while Birmingham was anchored in Hampton Roads, Virginia, Ely gunned his engine, rolled down the wooden platform, and flew off. He landed near Norfolk several miles away. A few months later, Ely reversed the process and landed on another platform built on the stern of the armored cruiser Pennsylvania (ACR-4), which was then anchored in San Francisco Bay. Soon afterward, Congress began to appropriate money, the first naval aviators began to be trained, and planes began to go to sea with the fleet. It was a humble beginning, but Eugene Ely’s barnstorming stunt had started something very much bigger than that.

  The First Flattop: The Conversion of the USS Langley (CV-1)

  Stunts were one thing, but making naval aviation a credible military force was something else entirely. During World War I, U.S. naval aviation was primarily seaplanes used for gunnery spotting and antisubmarine patrols. However, the British achieved some fascinating results using normal (wheeled) pursuit aircraft (fighters) launched from towed barges, and later from specially built aircraft carriers converted from the hulls of other ships. These aircraft attacked German Zeppelin hangars and other targets.6 The benefits of taking high-performance aircraft to sea were so obvious to the British that the Royal Navy rapidly set to converting further ships into aircraft carriers. This move did not go unnoticed by other Naval powers after World War I. By 1919, the Japanese were also constructing a purpose-built carrier, the Hosho. Meanwhile the British continued their program of converting hulls into aircraft carriers, and began work on their own from-the-keel-up carrier, the Hermes.

  Eugene Ely flies off of the USS Pennsylvania at 3 P.M. on November 14th, 1910. This was the moment of birth for naval aviation.

  OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO

  These programs spurred the General Board of the U.S. Navy to start its own aircraft carrier program. In 1919, the board allocated funds to convert a surplus collier, the USS Jupiter, into the Navy’s first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley (CV-1)—nicknamed the “Covered Wagon” by her crew. For the next two decades, the little Langley provided the first generation of U.S. carrier aviators with their initial carrier training, and offered the fleet a platform to experiment with the combat use of aircraft carriers. When World War II arrived, the slow little ship was converted into a transport for moving aircraft to forward bases, and was sunk during the fighting around the Java barrier in 1942. However, the Langley remains a beloved memory for the men who learned the naval aviation trade aboard her.

  The Washington Naval Treaty: The Birth of the Modern Aircraft Carrier

  While the Langley was primarily a test and training vessel, her initial trials led the Navy leadership to build larger aircraft carriers that could actually serve with the battle fleet. The problem was finding the money to build these new ships. The early 1920’s were hardly the time to request funds for a new and unproved naval technology, when the fleet was desperately trying to hold onto the modern battleships constructed during the First World War. The solution came after the five great naval powers (the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy) signed the world’s first arms-control treaty at the Washington Naval Conference of 1922. Though the treaty set quotas and limits on all sorts of warship classes, including aircraft carriers, a bit of fine print provided all the signatories with the opportunity to get “something for nothing.”

  The USS Langley (CV-1), the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier. She was converted from the collier Jupiter. She served as a floating laboratory for U.S. naval aviation into the 1930s, and was subsequently sunk in 1942 during the Battle of the Java Sea.

  OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO FROM THE COLLECTION OF A. D. BAKER

  At the end of the war, several countries were constructing heavy battleships and battle cruisers,7 which were still unfinished in the early 1920’s. Meanwhile, the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty set limits on the maximum allowable displacement and gun size of individual ships, as well as a total quota of tonnage available to each signatory nation (the famous 5:5:3 ratio).8 Even after scrapping older dreadnought-era battleships, the nations within the agreement were left with no room for building new battleships and battle cruisers (which were classed together because of gun size). However, the treaty allowed the signatories to convert a percentage of their allowable carrier tonnage from the hulls of the uncompleted capital ships. What made this especially attractive was that the new carriers could be armed with the same 8-in/203mm gun armament as a heavy cruiser. Thus, even if the aircraft carriers themselves proved to be unsuccessful, those heavy cruiser guns would still make the ships useful.

  The British had already converted their tonnage quota with the Furious, Courageous, Glorious, and Eagle, while the Japanese converted their new carriers from the uncompleted battle cruiser Akagi and the battleship Kaga. The American vessels, however, were something special. The U.S. Navy wanted its two new carriers to be the biggest, fastest, and most capable in the world. The starting points were a pair of partially completed battle cruiser hulls. Already christened the Lexington and Saratoga, they were converted into the ships that the fledgling naval air arm had always dreamed of. When commissioned in 1927, the Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3) were not only the largest (36,000-tons displacement), fastest (thirty-five knots), most powerful warships in the world, (most important) they could operate up to ninety aircraft, twice the capacity of the Japanese or British carriers.9 The Lexington and Saratoga also featured a number of new design features (such as the now-familiar “island” structures, which contained the bridge, flight control stations, and uptakes for the engineering exhausts), which greatly improved their efficiency and usefulness. The treaty-mandated gun turrets were placed in four mounts fore and aft of the island structure.

  The aircraft carriers Saratoga (CV-3, in the foreground) and Lexington (CV-2, in the background) together near Diamond Head, Hawaii. At the time this was taken, the two converted battle cruisers were the largest, fastest, and most powerful warships in the world.

  OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO FROM THE COLLECTION OF A. D. BAKER

  With the commissioning of the Lexington and Saratoga (and parallel rapid strides in naval aircraft design), the U.S. Navy took the world lead in naval aviation development. Virtually all of the American leaders who commanded carriers and air units during the Second World War served their early tours of duty aboard the two giant carriers. In addition, the series of fleet problems (war games) involving the Lexington and Saratoga led to the tactics America would take into the coming Pacific war with Japan.

  The Taranto Raid and the Sinking of the Battleship Bismarck

  Always leaders in the development of naval aviation technology and tactics, the British had planned for and assimilated the aircraft carrier into their fleet long before the open
ing of the Second World War. This was not merely institutional integration, for there were also plans for potential wartime carrier operations. One of these plans, devised in the 1930s, involved a surprise strike against the Italian battle fleet based at Taranto harbor in southern Italy: A carrier force would approach at night, launch torpedo bombers, and sink the Italian battleships at their moorings.

  The opportunity to implement the plan came soon after the Italian declaration of war on Great Britain (in June of 1940) and the fall of France (later that summer). Despite the highly aggressive efforts of the British Mediterranean Fleet under their legendary commander, Fleet Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, the fleet was in trouble from the start. It was outnumbered and split by Fascist Italy, since the Italian peninsula more or less bisects the Mediterranean. By the fall of 1940, Italy had six modern battleships, while Cunningham only commanded a pair. His only real advantages were a few ships equipped with radar, the British intelligence ability to read Axis cryptographic (code and cipher) traffic, and a pair of aircraft carriers—the old Eagle and the brand-new armored deck flattop HMS Illustrious. Doing what he could to make the odds more even, Cunningham ordered his staff to plan a carrier aircraft strike on the Italian fleet base at Taranto. Though they had no real-world experience to work from, and only sketchy data from old fleet exercises about how to proceed, with typical British aplomb they began training aircrews and modifying their aerial torpedoes so they would run successfully in the shallow water of Taranto Harbor. Meanwhile, a special flight of Martin Maryland bombers began regular reconnaissance of Italian fleet anchorages. By November of 1940, they were ready to go with Operation Judgment.

  Though the original Operation Judgment plan called for almost thirty Swordfish torpedo bombers from both Eagle and Illustrious, engine problems with Eagle and a hangar fire on Illustrious cut that number considerably. In the end, only Illustrious, along with an escort force of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, set out to conduct the attack. On the night of November 11th, Illustrious and several escorting cruisers broke off from the main force, and made a run north into the Gulf of Taranto. Later that night, Illustrious launched a pair of airstrikes using twenty-one Swordfish torpedo bombers (only a dozen of which carried the modified shallow-water torpedoes). The two strikes sank three of the six Italian battleships then in port and damaged several smaller ships and some shore facilities.10 In just a few hours, the brilliantly executed strike had cut the Italian battleship fleet in half, and changed the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean.

  While most of the world’s attention was focused at the time on the Battle of Britain, the eyes of naval leaders were turned on Operation Judgment. Even before the Italians began salvage operations, naval observers from around the world began to pour into Taranto to view the wreckage, and write reports back to their home countries. Most of these reports were quietly read and filed away, or else were read and discounted (such was still the potency of the battleship myth). In Tokyo, however, the report of the Japanese naval attaché was read with interest. This report eventually became the blueprint for an even more devastating carrier raid the following year, when over 360 aircraft launched from six big carriers would make the strike. The target would be entire U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Out of the tiny strike on Taranto emerged the decisive naval weapon of the Second World War.

  Less than six months after the Taranto raid, battleship enthusiasts got a shocking dose of reality with the sea chase and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck, one of the most powerful warships in the world. After the Bismarck broke out of the Baltic Sea into the North Atlantic, she sank the British battle cruiser HMS Hood. Outraged at this defeat (and humiliation), Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the Bismarck to be sunk at all costs. Though she was damaged enough during her fight with the Hood to need repairs in port, and her British enemies were in hot pursuit, Bismarck was still a dangerous foe, and was able to slip away from her pursuers and make for a French port.

  She might well have escaped, but for the efforts of two British aircraft carriers. A strike by Swordfish torpedo bombers from the carrier Victorious slowed down the German monster, while another strike from the carrier Ark Royal crippled her. The following day, Bismarck was finally sunk by shellfire from the British battleships King George V and Rodney. In the celebration that followed, the contributions of the Swordfish crews from Victorious and Ark Royal generally went unnoticed—again. However, naval observers took note and wrote their reports home; and naval professionals around the world began to wonder if aircraft from carriers might do more than just hit ships in harbor. One of the most modern and powerful ships in the world had been crippled by a single torpedo dropped by a nearly obsolete, fabric-covered biplane in the open ocean.

  Before the end of 1941, further proof that the age of battleships had passed came with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking a few days later of the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse by land-based aircraft. While battleships would continue to play an important part in World War II, it was naval aircraft flying from carriers that would win the coming naval war. The strike on Taranto and the crippling of the Bismarck had seen to that.

  Task Force 34/58: The Ultimate Naval Force

  Now that the new weapon was proven, the next stage in its evolution was to work out its most effective use. This came during 1943. That year saw a period of rebuilding for both the United States and Japan. After the vast carrier-verses-carrier battles (Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, and Santa Cruz) that had dominated the previous year’s fighting, the two navies had reached something like stalemate and exhausted their fleets of prewar carriers. Meanwhile, in the Solomons, on New Guinea, and in the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific, Allied ground forces were conducting their first amphibious invasions on the road to Tokyo.

  On January 1st, 1943, the first of a new generation of American fleet carriers, the Essex-class (CV-9), was commissioned. Over the next two years, almost two dozen of these incomparable vessels came off the builder’s ways. Utilizing all the lessons learned from earlier U.S. carriers, the Essex-class vessels were big, fast, and built to take the kinds of punishment that modern naval combat sometimes dishes out. Their designs also gave them huge margins for modifications and systems growth. So adaptable were Essex-class ships that a few were still in service in the 1970’s, flying supersonic jets armed with nuclear weapons!

  The ships of the Essex-class were just the tip of the America carrier production iceberg in 1943, for the U.S. Navy also approved the conversion of nine cruiser hulls into light carriers (with a complement of thirty-five aircraft). Though small and cramped, they were fast enough (thirty-three knots) to keep up with their Essex-class siblings. Known as the Independence class (CVL-22), they served well throughout the remainder of the war.

  Along with the fast fleet carriers, the United States also produced almost a hundred smaller escort, or “jeep,” carriers. Built on hulls designed for merchant vessels, they could make about twenty knots and carry around two dozen aircraft. While their crews joked wryly that their ships were “combustible, vulnerable, and expendable” (from their designator: CVE), the escort carriers fulfilled a variety of necessary tasks. These included antisubmarine warfare (ASW), aircraft transportation, amphibious support, close air support (CAS), etc. This had the effect of freeing the big fleet carriers for their coming duels with the Imperial Japanese Navy.

  As the new fleet carriers headed west into the Pacific, they would stop at Pearl Harbor for training and integration into carrier forces. Together with a steady flow of fast, new battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and other support ships, they would be formed into what were called “task groups.” Experience gained during raids on various Japanese island outposts in 1943 showed that the optimum size for such groups was three or four carriers (additional carriers tended to make the groups unwieldy), a pair of fast battleships, four cruisers, and between twelve and sixteen destroyers.

  On thos
e occasions when larger forces were called for, two or more task groups were joined into a “task force.” These were commanded by senior Naval aviators, and were assigned joint strike missions, refueling assignments, and even independent raids. Though it took time to pull this huge organization together and find the men capable of leading it, by the winter of 1943/1944, what became known as Task Force 34/58 was ready for action.11 Task Force 34/58, the most powerful naval force in history, put the lid on the Japanese Navy’s coffin, and nailed it shut.

  The ships of the fast carrier force at Ulithi Atoll in 1944.

  OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO FROM THE COLLECTION OF A. D. BAKER

  In February of 1944, now composed of four task groups with twelve fast carriers, Task Force 58, under Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, raided the Japanese fleet anchorage at Truk, wrecking the base and driving the Imperial Fleet out of the Central Pacific. Mitscher, a crusty pioneer naval aviator, aided by his legendary chief of staff Captain Arleigh Burke, ran Task Force 58 like a well-oiled machine. By the end of May, preparations had been completed for an invasion of the Marianas Island group, just 1,500 nm/2,800 km from Tokyo (thus within range of the new B-29 heavy bombers). Since these islands were essential to the defense of the home islands, the Japanese had to fight for them. The largest carrier-versus-carrier fight of the war resulted.

  As soon as the invasion forces of Admiral Spruance’s 5th Fleet hit the beaches of Saipan in early June, the entire Japanese battle fleet sortied from their base in northern Borneo to counterattack. When they arrived on June 19th, the nine carriers of the revitalized Japanese carrier force (three large, three medium, and three light fleet carriers) got in the first strike, launching their planes against Task Force 58 (now with seven large and eight light fleet carriers). That was their final hurrah; for the Japanese strike simply fell apart against the radar-directed fighters and antiaircraft fire of the American task groups. Of the 326 Japanese planes launched against the American fleet, 220 were shot down. Not a single U.S. ship was sunk or seriously damaged.