US Carrier War: Design, Development and Operations

606 Pages·2012·15.43 MB·English

by  Kev Darling

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
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Pen & Sword Books Ltd
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Copyright © Kev Darling 2011
9781783033393

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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Preface
CHAPTER ONE - Origins and Development
CHAPTER TWO - Neutrality and Atlantic Crossings
CHAPTER THREE - War in the Pacific: Attack and Fightback
CHAPTER FOUR - War in the Pacific: Turning Point to
Victory
CHAPTER FIVE - War in the Pacific: Battles and Defeats
CHAPTER SIX - War in the Pacific: The Setting of the Rising
Sun
CHAPTER SEVEN - Police Action in Korea
CHAPTER EIGHT - Further Korean Carrier Operations
CHAPTER NINE - Vietnam–A Long-Drawn-Out Affair
CHAPTER TEN - From Desert Storm to the Future
APPENDIX ONE - Primary Carrier Aircraft of the US Navy
APPENDIX 2 - US Navy Aircraft Carriers
Bibliography
Index
Preface
When you look at the progress of US Navy aircraft carrier
design over the past eighty years, the development is nothing
short of amazing. Allied to the development of the vessels
themselves are the aircraft that flew from them. The first US
Navy carrier was a converted collier that would become the
USS Langley, featuring a flight deck of 524 feet. Within five
years the next carriers were beginning to show a consistent
trait: that of larger hulls and flight decks that were capable of
operating a reasonable number of aircraft. After the
Lexingtons, built on the hulls of cancelled battlecruisers, came
the Yorktowns, of a similar size but built as carriers from the
outset. By 1941 the service achieved consistency in carrier
design when the Essex class was commissioned. Eventually a
total of twenty-four ships would enter the Navy List and would
serve through the Pacific campaign, the Korean war and on to
the Vietnam war.
While the Essex class as built had a flight deck of 860 feet, it
would come as no surprise to find that the Midways were even
longer, at 932 feet, in order to cater for any increase in aircraft
size and capability. Just after the end of the Second World War,
the plan to build carriers of an even greater size were derailed
slightly when the USAF opposed their construction. These
vessels would have been the United States class, and their
cancellation caused a rift between the Navy and Air Force. The
latter was determined to be the service to carry the nation’s
nuclear weapons, and it managed to gain the funding for the
Convair B-36s to carry them, even though the Navy managed to
prove eventually that the carrier was a more flexible and viable
platform.
Although the United States class had been cancelled, the
design work that had gone into it would have a profound effect
on the ships that followed. The first to benefit would be the
Forrestal class, whose flight deck had grown to over 1,000 feet.
The extra length plus an angled deck and deck extensions
meant that this new breed of carrier could operate more than
eighty modern aircraft. It would be the launch of the USS
Enterprise in 1960 that would introduce another new and
important feature to the carrier fleet–that of nuclear power.
From that point on the US Navy would invest in nuclear-
powered carriers only, with their conventional cousins going
out of service throughout the 1990s. Over the next few years
the US Navy will be introducing carriers that border on science
fiction in their use of technology.
It should also be remembered that the US Navy would invest
in the smaller escort, or jeep, carriers as there was a desperate
need for flight decks to support the war in the Pacific. The
quickest way to produce such a vessel was to take a standard
merchant hull and add aviation capabilities. The resultant ships
were gainfully employed in both the Atlantic and the Pacific,
although they were quickly disposed of at the end of the
Second World War, except for a handful that remained in
service as transports.
Matching the progress of carrier development was that of the
aircraft that operated from them. Like the rest of the world’s
navies that operated aircraft carriers, the initial aircraft types
operated were biplanes, although the monoplane was just
starting to appear. When the United States entered the war
after Pearl Harbor, the manufacturers rose to the occasion by
providing a range of fighters and attack aircraft that were big,
powerful, well armed and capable of delivering and taking
great punishment. At the pinnacle of this effort was the
Grumman Corporation, which would create most of the
carriers’ fighters, the line ending with the F-14 Tomcat. The
current fighter attack aircraft is the Boeing Super Hornet,
although this will soon be joined by the Lockheed Martin F-
35C.
35C.
Given the history of the US Navy aircraft carriers, it should
come as no surprise to find that this book is very much a
primer for the history of this service. Even so, it could not have
been assembled without the help of my good friend Dennis R.
Jenkins, who assisted with the US Navy, the Library of
Congress and the National Archive and Records Agency. I
would also like to thank Rick Harding, Trevor Jones and John
Ryan for their help in tracking down those elusive photographs.
CHAPTER ONE
Origins and Development
On 25 November 1917 the four vessels of Battleship Division
Nine, accompanied by the destroyer USS Manley as escort,
departed from Lynnhaven Roads, Virginia, bound for the
anchorage of the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow in the Orkney
Islands. Regarded as an uneventful transit, it was complicated
by storms that increased in ferocity as the voyage continued.
After battling through the weather, Battleship Division Nine
arrived at Scapa Flow on 7 December.
Having survived their introduction to the Atlantic, the four
battleships were assigned to the Sixth Battle Squadron of the
Grand Fleet. While their role would be one of blockade, one
thing did impinge itself thoroughly upon the US Navy officers,
was the number of aircraft being carried aboard the ships of
the Royal Navy. Not only were the battleships and
battlecruisers complete with a range of aircraft, the fleet’s
cruisers also carried aircraft, and even the destroyers were
capable of launching aircraft, although these smaller vessels
towed their aircraft for launching on lighters.
The irony is that the US Navy was the pioneer in launching
aircraft from naval vessels. The first attempt was courtesy of
Samuel P. Langley, whose model of the ‘Aerodrome’ was
undertaking successful flight trials in 1896. Such was their
success that the US Government would issue a contract in
1898 for a full-scale version of the ‘Aerodrome’. While Langley
was building his aerial machine, the US Army and the Navy
convened a joint board to study the future of flight in both
services. Unfortunately for both, the Langley ‘Aerodrome’
failed its flight trials from the Potomac river at the end of 1903.