Several nations operated flat-deck ships from which they flew aircraft during World War I, but it wasn’t until 1922 that the U. S. Navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley (CV-1), which had been converted from a collier.
The Langley, known as the “Covered Wagon,” was the ship that wrote the book on aircraft carrier operations. Her men developed a long list of things still in use today: flight deck procedures, colored jerseys, landing signal officers, arresting gear, launch and recovery routines, air control, scouting, combat air patrol, long-range strike, amphibious support, and a variety of tactics. More important, a number of the men who later served in the fast carrier forces of World War II as task group commanders, carrier skippers, air officers, and air group commanders learned their business in the Langley. Among them were Pete Mitscher, Mel Pride, Ralph Davison, Gerry Bogan, Don Felt. Others of her company led the postwar Navy into the nuclear age: Arthur Radford, Don Griffin, and Jim Russell.
For two decades, from the dawn of the aircraft carrier to the middle of the greatest naval war ever, largely a naval air war, the Langley served well her country and her men, dying a warrior’s death in the Pacific at the hands of an enemy later themselves defeated by forces spawned in the early years of the “Covered Wagon.”
Sharing some of the Langley's, limelight in the years between wars were the Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3), large aircraft carriers built on battle cruiser hulls in the 1920s. Where the Langley was limited in speed and the number of aircraft she could carry and operate, 35 to 40 being about the practical maximum, CV-2 and CV-3 could carry up to 90. Not only could they carry more aircraft, they could carry more fuel and ordnance for those aircraft and had no problem staying with the battle line, the then-accepted tactical philosophy for fleet operations. Even while that philosophy still prevailed, the two ships demonstrated during fleet problems the effectiveness of aircraft carriers as offensive weapons and thus laid the foundations for the fast carrier forces of World War II. Both ships have namesake successors serving with the fleet today.
The other early carriers—Ranger (CV-4), Yorktown (CV-5), Enterprise (CV-6), Wasp (CV-7), and Hornet (CV-8)—were built in part to help lift the nation out of its Depression-era doldrums. They had the benefit of being built from the keel up as aircraft carriers and incorporating some of the lessons learned from the operations of their converted predecessors. All of these ships helped hold the line in the early part of World War II. Three of the ships were lost in the fighting of 1942. The Enterprise fought with distinction throughout the war; she was probably the most noteworthy of all U. S. warships during the conflict. All of these second-generation ships contributed mightily to the concepts, doctrine, and tactics which were carrier aviation in World War II . . . and today.
After the early carriers came the class synonymous with victory in the Pacific and with naval aviation ever since: the Essex (CV-9). Seventeen of them were in commission before the end of the war and not one was ever lost to enemy action, a tremendous tribute to their designers, their builders, and the men who sailed them. They were supplemented by the Independence (CVL-22) class of light carriers built on light cruiser hulls. Though less capable than the ships of the Essex class, they had the speed to steam with the fast carrier forces and increased the number of aircraft available for strikes in the Central Pacific offensive. One survivor of that class, the Cabot (CVL-28), is featured in this issue.
Building during the war but not commissioned in time to take part were the three ships of the Midway (CVB- 41) class. These “battle carriers” arrived on scene just when the Navy needed a large deck from which to prove a capability to launch aircraft armed with nuclear weapons. (A planned successor to the class was the flush-deck carrier United States (CVA- 58), which was canceled soon after construction began in 1949. Her demise was a key action in the Navy’s war with postwar bureaucrats over the B-36 bomber: “The Revolt of the Admirals.”) Meanwhile, the Midway and her sisters operated the new jets and trained a generation of pilots who would fly in Korea and Vietnam.
Some have said that the Midway- class ships were the most beautiful carriers ever built. Beauty notwithstanding, they were formidable in their damage control design. Built with the lessons of early World War II in mind, they had thick armor plate, 12 separate firerooms, and were so compartmented that to go from one space below decks to another, one had always to go by way of an upper damage control deck. The increased size of the flight deck and the subsequent incorporation of angled landing platforms made these ships substantially better at operating aircraft than their predecessors.
As good as the Midways were in the postwar years, it was obvious that to operate the large, new jet aircraft then on designers’ drawing boards, and to operate them day and night and in the worst weather, a new and even larger aircraft carrier would be required. Thus was born the Forrestal (CVA-59) class, which was a refinement of the ill-fated United States. Today, 35 years after first commissioning, the Forrestal and her three sisters, Saratoga (CV-60), Ranger (CV-61), and Independence (CV-62) still ply the oceans of the world in support of the national strategy. They and their follow-on cousins, Kitty Hawk (CV-63), Constellation (CV-64), America (CV-66), and John F. Kennedy (CV-67) are second only to their nuclear-powered relatives in the demonstration of mobility, flexibility, and global reach which are the strength and the hallmarks of the modem navy.
Mobility, flexibility, and global reach, the capabilities brought to a nation by a naval force, reach their epitome with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The marriage of aviation at sea with a ship’s power plant is free from the tether of fossil fuel and versatile beyond imagination. It is based on a hull large enough to ignore all but the worst of seas and weather wrought by nature and the heaviest of ordnance wrought by man. It is the most capable weapon system ever put afloat. The new type began with the commissioning in 1961 of the Enterprise (CVAN- 65), namesake of the World War II legend. The tradition has been carried on and refined in the aircraft carrier Nimitz (CVN-68) and her sisters; the newest of these, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), was commissioned just last year, and more are on the way, including one to be named the United States (CVN-75). These ships are the center- pieces of the modem carrier battle group, the centerpieces of the Navy, the centerpieces of the defense of the United States.
Whether one sees a Nimitz-class carrier for the first time or the hundredth, whether one sees her close up at a pier, on board and under way, or off on the horizon, one cannot help but be impressed. Yet more impressive by far are the history, the men, and the events that led up to this marvelously efficient instrument of man, this instrument designed to take aviation to sea.
Aviation at sea, on station around the world today, not dependent on foreign shore bases, not needing foreign permission to fly in airspace over international waters, ready to support allies, gain and maintain control of the air above or the sea beneath and ready to project power ashore or at sea are the Navy’s aircraft carrier battle groups. Direct descendants of the “Covered Wagon,” the old “Lex,” and the old “Sara,” they are the guarantors of freedom from war for the United States and the visible support for peace-loving peoples everywhere. There are none better.
