Full Steam Ahead!

FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MD, UNITED STATES

12.01.2022

Story by Petty Officer 2nd Class Zachary Bender 

All Hands Magazine

Since the invention of the aircraft
carrier, the United States carrier fleet has
been the largest in the world. The U.S. Navy
currently has 11 aircraft carriers and nine
amphibious assault carriers, nearly as many
as every other country in the world combined.
Since the beginning, aircraft carriers were
built for a specific time and place but often
saw use well beyond their intended lifespan
and purpose.
The first full-length flat-deck ship used
to launch aircraft was HMS Argus, a Royal
Navy aircraft carrier built in 1918 on a converted
merchant-ship hull. The concept was an
evolutionary improvement on earlier seaplane
carriers, which used cranes to place sea or float
planes for takeoff from the sea. Seaplanes were
heavier than wheeled-land planes, so engineers
designed a flat-deck ship to take advantage
of the better performance of lighter, wheeled
planes. World War I ended before Argus saw
action, but the U.S. and Japanese navies soon
followed the British example. The first U.S.
carrier was a converted collier renamed USS
Langley (CV 1), completed in March 1922 and
followed closely by the Japanese carrier Hosho,
which was the first purpose-built carrier and
entered service in December 1922.
Although Britain, the U.S., and Japan
were limited by arms control treaties in the
1920-30s, all three navies built additional
aircraft carriers, with each fielding about half-a-
dozen carriers by the start of World War II.
Other than some combat operations in
China by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), no
one had much wartime experience operating
fast carriers. Following the outbreak of war
in Europe in 1939, and especially after the
Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, all
that changed.
By delivering devastating attacks on
enemy ships and bases by aircraft based on
mobile bases at sea, aircraft carrier strikes
transformed naval warfare at sea.
On May 4, 1942, the Battle of the
Coral Sea commenced, which was the first
carrier-to-carrier naval battle in history, and
the first naval engagement where neither fleet
came within sight of or fired directly upon the
other. The Japanese were turned back by the
allies for the first time during the war after a
4-day engagement.
Coral Sea was followed one month later
by what is considered to be the most important
naval battle in the Pacific during World War II;
the Battle of Midway. Japan intended to occupy
Midway and lure the American carriers into a
trap, but American cryptographers were able to
uncover the plot and forewarn the fleet. During
the battle, the Japanese lost four of six carriers.
The U.S. lost one carrier; USS Yorktown (CV
5). This was a decisive victory for the U.S. and
a turning point in the war.
The first Allied counter-offensive took
place around Guadalcanal starting in August
1942. The battles in and around the Solomon
Islands sank most of the pre-war aircraft
carriers on both sides but American industrial
capacity rose to the challenge and built 26
replacement fleet carriers by the end of 1945,
h e l p i n g t o fi r s t o v e r w h e l m a n d t h e n d e f e a t
the IJN.
Following the end of the war, the U.S. continued
to deploy carriers during the early years of the
Cold War and they played a critical role in
the Korean War and in crises all around the
world. With the advent of nuclear technology,
engineers designed nuclear-powered ships
that could remain at sea indefinitely. In 1961,
the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
commissioned; USS Enterprise (CVN 65). On
October 3, 1964, Enterprise, USS Long Beach,
and USS Bainbridge completed Operation
Sea Orbit; the first circumnavigation of the
globe by fully nuclear-powered ships in 65
days without stopping for fuel or provisions.
With this technology, newly designed CVNs
had the freedom to better utilize space aboard
for new weapons systems and aircraft and
refuel and restock at sea whenever necessary.
Carriers continued to evolve and saw use in
crises across the globe, including the Vietnam
War, the Persian Gulf, and the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Today, wherever it is needed in the
world, the U.S. carrier fleet, escorted by its
carrier strike groups, is effectively patrolling
the entire world’s oceans, keeping the peace
and ready to deliver whatever deterrent force
is needed. In the modern era, the future of
the carrier platform is uncertain, but who is
to say that technology has advanced so far as
to render these behemoth, floating nuclear-powered
airport cities obsolete? For the time
being, the U.S., aided by its floating mega-fortresses,
continues to dominate the sea.

• Date Taken: 12.01.2022
• Date Posted: 12.28.2022 13:50
• Story ID: 435986
• Location: FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MD, US