Battle Stations II
Pacific
aircraft carriers
Essex-class
carrier
Launched 1942-45
Number in class 24
Aircraft 100
Complement 3,500
Displacement CV9 27,100 tons, CV14 (long-hulled)
36,000 tons
Dimensions CV9 872ft (265m) x 93ft (28.4m), CV14 888ft
(270m) x 93ft (28.4m); mean draught 28ft 6in (8.58m)
Machinery 4-shaft geared turbines producing shp
150,000
Speed 32 knots
Armament 8 x 5in (4 x 2) and 4 x 5in (4 x 1),
17 x 4 40mm AA, 35 x 2 40mm AA, 55 x 20mm AA
On 7 December 1941, aircraft of the Japanese Imperial Fleet, flying from carriers, sank or immobilised eight of the US Pacific Fleet's battleships at Pearl Harbor. At a stroke, the Japanese had settled the argument within the US Navy over the respective importance of the battleship and the aircraft carrier.
The entire course of the naval war in the Pacific was itself settled shortly afterwards at the battles of the Coral Sea (May 1942) and Midway (June 1942). The Coral Sea was a draw, but Midway proved to be a great US victory, in which American code-breakers also played a vital role.
Battleships played no part in these battles. In the vast Pacific, the aircraft carrier, with its ability to project power over great distances, was to become the decisive capital ship. And the United States, with its almost limitless industrial might, was assured of a hard-won victory over Japan.
By the summer of 1943, the US Pacific Fleet had been transformed. Its cutting edge was no longer the battleship but a new generation of carriers: light carriers of the Independence class, converted from fast cruisers; and the Essex-class fleet carriers.
The latter were equally fast, carried 100 aircraft and were heavily armed with 5in, 40mm and 20mm anti-aircraft guns. Radar arrays gave coverage reaching up to 100 nautical miles against high-level and, to a lesser extent, low-level attacks. They also enhanced the operational control of each carrier's own aircraft, which were in radio contact at all times with the mother ship.
By October 1943, there were six Essex-class carriers at Pearl Harbor ready to spearhead Admiral Chester W Nimitz's Pacific Fleet. On the approach to the Philippines, in nine atoll landings, these carriers were to be at the heart of 'fast carrier taskforces', protecting the newly built 'fast attack transports' – on which landing troops and craft embarked – and their destroyer, cruiser and battleship escorts.
In World War II, the Essex class was a symbol of American industrial power. In 1945, the US deployed a vast fleet in the Pacific: 12 battleships, 50 aircraft carriers (almost half of them Essex class), 50 cruisers, 300 destroyers and 200 submarines – the largest navy that has ever existed.
