Great post. I had no past knowledge of this. Wow.
Jeep carriers FTW!
Also, Taffy 3 ping!
On top of the 24 Essex carriers, 9 Independence class light carriers, 19 Commencement Bay class escort carriers and 45 Bogue class escort carriers.
Make ‘em cheap.
Stack ‘em deep.
L
Thanks for posting this. It was a good read for me, as my father served on a Casablanca class aircraft carrier in the Atlantic. According to the article, 50 of these ships were built!
But, wow. ‘The National Interest’ sure is polluted with ads. I guess that’s the price you pay for getting a free article..
My dad was on a destroyer during the battle of Leyte Gulf. Just curious, how did they come up with the name Casablanca for the type of carriers? Was it because of the movie?
The carriers also had a 5” main gun, same as the gun on a modern destroyer, but with a shorter barrel than used now.
Excerpt:
The U.S. escort carrier USS Anzio (CVE-57) rolling heavily while trying to maintain course and speed during a typhoon east of the Philippines, 17 December 1944. Note the casual attitude of the deck crew. A Grumman TBF (or TBM) Avenger is visible on the left, a Grumman F4F (or FM) Wildcat is tied to far end of the deck.
The “Casablanca Class” light/jeep carriers definitely had an important role to play in WWII, but they complimented the Essex Class fleet carriers and could not have been a replacement for them. The Casablana’s carried all their aircraft on the flight deck and did not have a hangar deck. An improved Casablanca class, did have a small hangar deck. The Casablanca’s carried up to 20 aircraft, while the Essex’s carried 60+.
Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945 (an average of three ships every two days), easily the largest number of ships ever produced to a single design.