aircraft carriers

aircraft carriers are warships which operate aircraft from their decks. In January 1910 Commander Charles Samson RN flew off a Short biplane from a platform constructed on HMS Africa. In November that year the American aviator Eugene Ely, also using a specially built platform, performed the same feat from USS Birmingham. Then in January 1911 he landed on USS Pennsylvania after a landing platform and primitive arresting gear had been constructed over her aft guns. Though aircraft were regularly flown off numerous British warships during the First World War (1914–18)—and, in 1917, a Sopwith ‘Pup’ aircraft was landed on the flight deck superimposed on the forecastle of HMS Furious—it was not until Furious had a landing deck built abaft her bridge that regular attempts to land on her were made. These were in the main a failure and it was not until HMS Argus was built in 1918 with an unobstructed deck over her whole length that the problem of landing was satisfactorily solved. Argus dispensed with any superstructure or funnel by incorporating a hydraulically raised and lowered bridge, and by discharging her boiler smoke and gases over the stern.

Argus was followed in 1920 by HMS Eagle, converted from an uncompleted battleship, which had a superstructure and funnels offset on the starboard side of an otherwise unobstructed flight deck. This design was followed by HMS Hermes, completed three years later, the first ship to be built as a carrier from the keel up. These were known as ‘island’ carriers. The Furious emerged in her final form in 1925, a flush-deck carrier like the Argus.

The US and Japanese navies had meanwhile commissioned their first small carriers in 1922, the Langley and the Hoshi respectively. These were flush decked with funnels to one side which could be lowered horizontally during flying operations. No further carriers were built until after the conclusion of the Washington Treaty in 1922, when, by the treaty, the US and Japanese navies were each allowed to select for conversion to aircraft carriers two capital ships due to be scrapped. These were the US battlecruisers Lexington and Saratoga and the Japanese battlecruiser Akagi and battleship Kaga. These were all island carriers (i.e. carriers with the bridge structure offset to the side) of some 36,000 tons, though the superstructure in the Japanese ships was comparatively small as it did not incorporate the funnels. Instead, these projected horizontally over the side, a feature common to the majority of Japanese carriers.

The British selected two smaller ships, Courageous and Glorious, originally sister ships of the Furious, for conversion to island carriers. However, from 1937, when the British laid down the first of their post-Washington Treaty carriers, HMS Illustrious, their design differed from that of other navies in the incorporation of armoured flight decks and hangar sides which increased their resistance to bomb attack but reduced the number of aircraft they could operate. The Second World War (1939–45), in which aircraft carriers played a vital part, particularly in the Pacific, proved the necessity for such increased protection, and both the Americans and the Japanese adopted it for fleet carriers laid down after 1942. Three main types were used, 1939–45: large fleet carriers operating up to 100 aircraft; light fleet carriers, operating about 40; and escort carriers, converted from merchant ships, which operated up to 35 aircraft. None of the last type remained in service after the war, and most light fleet carriers were relegated to auxiliary roles. The US Navy was the only navy to continue operating large carriers in any number and it currently has nine Carrier Battle Groups, each having a nuclear-powered 80,000-tonne carrier of the Nimitz class which operate around 100 aircraft. It now (2004) has a new class under development and these carriers will have larger flight decks and very powerful nuclear power plants.

The British and other European navies opted for smaller carriers after the war. The British ones operated jump jets during the Falklands War (1982), and showed that carriers were still a vital asset for any navy in modern warfare. The British have two new ones on order as has the French Navy.

See also warfare at sea.