Aircraft Carriers: From Primitive Ships to Assets of Modern Warfare
Early Beginnings
The concept of launching and recovering aircraft from a ship is almost as old as aircrafts themselves, with the first ever recorded take-off from a ship being done by a Eugene Ely in 1910, jumping to the intebellum era of the 1920s - 1930s with world powers converting conventional oilers or other merchant vessels into the first-ever flattop aviation ships that would later be termed as ‘Aviation ships’ and later to what we call Aircraft Carriers.
HMS Furious would go on to be the first official aircraft carrier-conversion, followed by HMS Hermes being the first-ever ship designed from the keel up as an aircraft carrier. The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty’s ratification between the growing naval powers of the early-to-mid twentieth-century heavily encouraged the conversion of older merchant ships into aircraft carriers and would indirectly be the reasons that ships like the USS Langley, the JS Hōshō, the previously mentioned HMS Hermes and even the cancelled Battlecruiser class turned Aircraft Carriers, the American Lexington-class (USS Lexington & USS Saratoga).
Most carrier conversions would come primarily from cargo ships, cruisers, and even battleships. Experimentation with these conversions would lead to carriers being built from the ground up with the American, British, and Japanese navies as the Italians and even the Germans had began to experiment with them in the late 1930s near the start of the second World War.
Further Development and World War 2
Despite a rather ‘stale‘ era of history (in terms of aircraft carriers and their infancy) in the interbellum era, the first major front to utilize aircraft carriers would be the pacific front of World War II, with the Japanese offensive and subsequent surprise attack on Pearl Harbor catching the U.S force offguard and devastating the American pacific fleet.
Further redesigning, improvements and refinement of techniques led to a plethora of different designs, such as the American small ‘escort carriers’ like the USS Bogue and the subsequent class of small escort carriers after it, that served as a stop-gap to provide aerial coverage and aid in anti-submarine operations and protection against them; which brought up a whole additional design coined as the ‘Light Carrier’ or ‘Light Aircraft Carrier’ such as the Independence-class which were made off the same hull as the American Cleveland-class light cruiser as a “beefed up” version of the Escort Carrier idea.
The British furthered the idea of the Carrier as an offensive weapon in 1940 when HMS Illustrious launched strikes on the Italian naval fleet during the battle of Taranto, where they employed 21 biplane torpedo bombers that heavily damaged and caused a 30,000 ton Dreadnought battleship to run aground, and halved the Italian Navy in a single day. Other feats such as the sinking of the Bismarck, the sinking of the Japanese super battleships Musashi & Yamato, all were done or made possible by aircraft carriers and naval aviation as Aircraft Carriers were proven to replace the Battleship as a nation’s flagship by the end of WWII.
The post-war and intro into the Cold War Of East vs West saw another massive leap and what would become the modern day aircraft carrier as we know it, would begin to take shape. The introduction of an angled flight deck would significantly reduce the amount of incidents on carriers as incoming aircrafts no longer had to risk crashing into a recently landed copilot, or another taking off as they landed.
Examples of ships modified to have angled flight decks after they were initially built are ships such as the HMS Triumph and the USS Midway, along with the USS Antietam which took it further with a sponson installed and had the first ever fully-arrested landing of an aircraft onto it’s flight deck. The HMS Ark Royal would be the first aircraft carrier designed and built with all the aforementioned as it was constructed and not added-on in a refit.
Post World War 2 - The Modern Era of Aircraft Carriers
Large Aircraft Carriers and the coined term of ‘Supercarriers’ started right after the end of World War II in 1945, with the proposed (and cancelled) United States-class ‘Supercarrier’ built around a concept of carrying 18 specialized long range naval bombers for nuclear attacks and another 24 jet-powered fighters, would quickly be scrapped by the Truman administration in 1949. The American Forrestal-class would be the first to be coined as ‘Supercarriers’, touting a 25% increase in tonnage from the Midway-class as it sat at 75,000 tons and carried a massive wing of 100 jet fighters.
The nuclearization of aircraft carriers was postponed from the cancelling of the previously mentioned United States-class aircraft carrier to the late 1950s with the introduce of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the first-ever nuclear powered aircraft carrier, followed by the first serial production of nuclear powered aircraft carriers, the American Nimitz-class of 10 Supercarriers.
While expensive but highly capable and room for modernization, the world has only 1 carrier outside the U.S that is nuclear powered, the French carrier, the ’Charles de Gaulle’, although the USSR did have one roughly 40% complete at it’s collapse in the 1990s.
The post-world war II scene saw the further development of helicopters and their capability to fill short ranged gaps in a carrier for air surveillance, reconnaissance, anti-submarine operations, etc. Which further enhanced capabilities with ‘Helicopter carriers’ as many older carriers were repurposed to carry only helicopters, and some new such as the Invincible-class from the British were built.
Helicopter Carriers quickly became a thing of the past just as fast as they were discovered, as they were replaced by specialized amphibious warfare vessels like Landing Helicopter Assault ships (LHAs), Landing Helicopter Dock ships (LHDs) with the development of Short-Take off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) and Vertical Take-off and Launch/Recovery (VTOL) aircrafts like the Harrier jump jet.
Aircraft Carriers have prevailed further and further and have stuck with us into today, and will likely stay relevant for decades to come, as a staple piece in a nation’s navy, a source of pride for a nation’s military or a simple display of might.