5 Facts You May Have Not Known About US Aircraft Carriers During WWII

Here are the five facts that you might have not known about US aircraft carriers during the Second World War: 

1. The Lexington carriers were the only US carriers designed to be armed with guns to fend off air attacks in WW2

After being converted from two uncompleted hulls into aircraft carriers in 1927, both the Lexington and the Saratoga were equipped with eight 8-inch 55 caliber guns fitted in four twin turrets. After realizing how impractical they were, these guns were removed in April 1942 by the Navy before it sank at the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942.

2. The Ranger CV-4 had hinged smoke stacks for flight operations

If you look closely at the Ranger, the US Navy’s first keel-up designed aircraft carrier built in the 1930s, there are six smoke stacks at the flight deck’s rear. 

Since the design originally didn’t include an island structure, the smoke stacks from the boilers were vented to six stacks that were on hinges and set upwards when operating normally and to the sides of the deck during flight operations. 

3. The WASP had an innovative aircraft elevator design

The WASP was purely designed to fulfill the remaining US carrier tonnage of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1936. It had a deck edge aircraft elevator on the port-side where the plane would sit in a cradle and then be brought up to the flight deck on a swinging system.  

4. There are Hangar Deck Aircraft Catapults in carriers

The original Yorktown class ships were built in the 1930s and were equipped with two flight deck catapults to launch aircraft. A third catapult was also integrated into the hangar deck to launch fighters perpendicular to the flight deck. 

5. The famous WWII Essex class carriers actually had two subclass designs

This was known as short hull and long hull Essexes- the only significant distinction between the ships when commissioned. 14 Essex class carriers saw service during the war but only four of these were long hull types.