History of the aircraft carrier

Since their introduction they have allowed naval forces to project air power great distances without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations.

This evolution was well underway by the early to mid-1920s, resulting in the commissioning of ships such as Hōshō (1922), HMS Hermes (1924),[1] Béarn (1927), and the Lexington-class aircraft carriers (1927).

World War II saw the first large-scale use of aircraft carriers and induced further refinement of their launch and recovery cycle leading to several design variants.

The USA built small escort carriers, such as USS Bogue, as a stop-gap measure to provide air support for convoys and amphibious invasions.

A coal barge, USS George Washington Parke Custis, was cleared of all deck rigging to accommodate the gas generators and apparatus of balloons.

He took off from a structure fixed over the forecastle of the US armored cruiser USS Birmingham at Hampton Roads, Virginia and landed nearby on Willoughby Spit after some five minutes in the air.

He took off from the Tanforan racetrack and landed on a similar temporary structure on the aft of USS Pennsylvania anchored at the San Francisco waterfront—the improvised braking system of sandbags and ropes led directly to the arrestor hook and wires described below.

[16] HMS Ark Royal was arguably the first active aircraft carrier, as it carried armed seaplanes for use in combat and military operations.

Since HMS Ark Royal was a seaplane carrier, it had no actual flight deck; the planes that it carried would take off and land on the sea, and would then be hoisted aboard by shipboard cranes.

The United States Navy did not follow suit until 1920, when the conversion of USS Langley, an experimental ship which did not count against America's carrier tonnage, was completed.

[22][23] The design of HMS Hermes (1924) preceded and influenced that of Hōshō, and its construction actually began earlier, but numerous tests, experiments and budget considerations delayed its commission.

Prior to the beginning of the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt noticed that no new aircraft carriers were expected to enter the fleet before 1944, and proposed the conversion of several Cleveland-class cruiser hulls that had already been laid down.

[25] However, the vulnerability of carriers compared to traditional battleships when forced into a gun-range encounter was quickly illustrated by the sinking of HMS Glorious by German battlecruisers during the Norwegian campaign in 1940.

Carriers also played a major part in reinforcing Malta, both by transporting planes and by defending convoys sent to supply the besieged island.

Germany and Italy also started with the construction or conversion of several aircraft carriers, but with the exception of the nearly finished German Graf Zeppelin and the Italian Aquila, no ship was launched.

Subsequently, the US were able to build up large numbers of aircraft aboard a mixture of fleet, light and (newly commissioned) escort carriers, primarily with the introduction of the Essex-class in 1943.

These vessels were an emergency measure during World War II as were the Merchant aircraft carriers (MACs), such as MV Empire MacAlpine which put a flight deck on top of a cargo ship.

Three major post-war developments came from the need to improve operations of jet-powered aircraft, which had higher weights and landing speeds than their propeller-powered forebears.

[27] After these successful tests, there were still many misgivings about the suitability of operating jet aircraft routinely from carriers, and LZ551/G was taken to Farnborough to participate in trials of the experimental "rubber deck".

Despite significant effort toward developing this idea, and some performance advantages due to the removal of the undercarriage, it was found to be unnecessary; and following the introduction of angled flight decks, jets were operating from carriers by the mid-1950s.

During September through December 1952 USS Antietam had a rudimentary sponson installed for true angled deck tests, allowing for full arrested landings, which proved during trials to be superior.

[27] This was a gyroscopically-controlled concave mirror (in later designs replaced by a Fresnel lens Optical Landing System) on the port side of the deck.

[27] The ski-jump ramp at the end of a runway or flight deck allows an aircraft which makes a running start to convert part of its forward momentum into upward motion.

As the Royal Navy retired or sold the last of its World War II-era carriers, they were replaced with smaller ships designed to operate helicopters and the STOVL Sea Harrier jet.

The United Nations command began carrier operations against the North Korean Army on July 3, 1950, in response to the invasion of South Korea.

In the period following World War II through the 1960s, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands employed their carriers during decolonization conflicts of former colonies.

France employed the carriers Dixmude, La Fayette, Bois Belleau, and Arromanches to conduct operations against the Viet Minh during the 1946–1954 First Indochina War.

Royal Navy carriers HMS Ocean and Theseus acted as floating bases to ferry troops ashore by helicopter in the first ever large-scale helicopter-borne assault.

[34] The Royal Netherlands Navy deployed HNLMS Karel Doorman and an escorting battle group to Western New Guinea in 1962 to protect it from Indonesian invasion.

This intervention nearly resulted in her being attacked by the Indonesian Air Force using Soviet-supplied Tupolev Tu-16KS-1 Badger naval bombers carrying anti-ship missiles.