On November 14, 1910, pilot

Eugene Burton Ely Eugene Burton Ely (October 21, 1886 – October 19, 1911) was an American aviation pioneer, credited with the first shipboard aircraft take off and landing. Background Ely was born in Williamsburg, Iowa, and raised in Davenport, Iowa. Having ...

took off in a Curtiss plane from the bow of and later landed a

Curtiss Model D The 1911 Curtiss Model D (or frequently "Curtiss Pusher") was an early United States pusher aircraft with the engine and propeller behind the pilot's seat. It was among the first aircraft in the world to be built in any quantity, during an era ...

on on January 18, 1911. In fiscal year (FY) 1920, Congress approved a conversion of collier into a ship designed for launching and recovering of airplanes at sea—the first aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. More aircraft carriers were approved and built, including , the first class of aircraft carriers in the United States Navy designed and built as aircraft carriers from the keel. The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

declared war on Japan following the attack of December 7, 1941 on

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the R ...

. The two nations revolutionized naval warfare in the course of the next four years; several of the most important sea battles were fought without either fleet coming within sight of the other. Most of the fleet carriers were built according to prewar designs, but the demand for air protection was so intense that two new classes were developed: light carriers (designated CVL), built on modified cruiser hulls, and escort carriers (CVE), whose main function was to protect Atlantic

convoy A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...

s from German

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare ro ...

s. During the postwar period, carrier technology made many advances. The angled flight deck was adopted in 1955. The first "

supercarrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a n ...

" was commissioned in 1955 (although an earlier plan had been canceled by the Secretary of Defense), and the first nuclear-powered carrier in 1961, all during the Cold War. Also, a record for crossing the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

was set by a U.S. Navy carrier during the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. Carriers recovered spacecraft after

splashdown Splashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft by parachute in a body of water. It was used by crewed American space capsules prior to the Space Shuttle program, by SpaceX Dragon and Dragon 2 capsules and by NASA's Orion Multipurpose Crew ...

, including the

Mercury-Redstone 3 Mercury-Redstone 3, or ''Freedom 7'', was the first United States human spaceflight, on May 5, 1961, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard. It was the first crewed flight of Project Mercury. The project had the ultimate objective of putting an as ...

and

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, ...

missions. The lead ship of a new class, the , was launched in 2013 and was commissioned in 2017. The last conventionally powered (non-nuclear) US Navy carrier was decommissioned in 2007.

Pre–World War II

On November 14, 1910, a 24‑year‑old civilian pilot,

, took off in a 50

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...

Curtiss plane from a wooden platform built over the bow of the cruiser ; later, on January 18, 1911, Ely landed a

on a platform aboard . The Naval Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1920 provided funds for the conversion of into a ship designed for the launching and recovery of airplanes at sea—the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

's first aircraft carrier. Renamed , she was commissioned in 1922. Commander Kenneth Whiting was placed in command. In 1924, ''Langley'' reported for duty with the

Battle Fleet The United States Battle Fleet or Battle Force was part of the organization of the United States Navy from 1922 to 1941. The General Order of 6 December 1922 organized the United States Fleet, with the Battle Fleet as the Pacific presence. This f ...

, ending two years as an experimental ship. In 1922, Congress also authorized the conversion of the unfinished battlecruisers and the as permitted under the terms of the

Washington Naval Treaty The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was a treaty signed during 1922 among the major Allies of World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington Nav ...

, signed in February 1922. The keel of , the first American ship designed and constructed as an aircraft carrier, was laid down in 1931, and the ship was commissioned in 1934. Following ''Ranger'' and before the entry of the United States into World War II, four more carriers were commissioned. was essentially an improved version of ''Ranger''. The others were the three ships of the .

World War II

The

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrend ...

struck

on December 7, 1941, but none of the Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers were in the harbor. Because a large fraction of the navy's battleship fleet was put out of commission by the attack, the undamaged aircraft carriers were forced to become the load-bearers of the early part of the war. The first aircraft carrier offensive of the U.S. Navy came on February 1, 1942, when the carriers Enterprise and Yorktown, attacked the Japanese bases in the

Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia * Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Islands * Marshall Islands, an i ...

and Gilbert Islands. The Battle of the Coral Sea became the first sea battle in history in which neither opposing fleet saw the other. The

Battle of Midway The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under ...

started as a Japanese offensive on Midway Atoll met by an outnumbered U.S. carrier force, and resulted in a U.S. victory. The Battle of Midway was the turning point in the Pacific War. In 1943, new designations for carriers were established, limiting the CV designation to , , and the . The new designations were CVB (Aircraft carrier, large) for the carriers being built, and CVL ( Aircraft carriers, small) for the class built on

light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to th ...

hulls. The same directive reclassified

escort carriers The escort carrier or escort aircraft carrier (U.S. hull classification symbol CVE), also called a "jeep carrier" or "baby flattop" in the United States Navy (USN) or "Woolworth Carrier" by the Royal Navy, was a small and slow type of aircraft ...

as combatant ships, and changed their symbol from ACV to CVE. By the end of the war, the Navy had access to around 100 carriers of varying sizes. On September 2, 1945, Japan signed the surrender agreement aboard , ending World War II.

Training ships

During World War II, the United States Navy purchased two

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...

side-wheel

paddle steamer A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses we ...

s and converted them into freshwater aircraft carrier

training ship A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house class ...

s. Both vessels were designated with the hull classification symbol IX and lacked hangar decks,

elevators An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They are ...

armament A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...

s. The role of these ships was for the training of pilots for carrier take-offs and landings. Together ''Sable'' and ''Wolverine'' trained 17,820 pilots in 116,000 carrier landings.

Cold War

Aircraft carrier technology underwent many changes during the Cold War. The first of the 45,000-ton carriers, was commissioned eight days after the end of World War II, on September 10. A larger ship was planned, and in 1948, President

Harry Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

approved the construction of a "

", a 65,000-ton aircraft carrier to be named ; however, the project was canceled in April 1949 by the Secretary of Defense. The Navy's first supercarriers came later, in 1955, with the . 1953 saw the first test of an angled-deck carrier, . The "N" suffix was added to the designation system to represent

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced ...

ed carriers in 1956. The first carrier to receive this suffix was , commissioned in 1961. The last conventionally powered carrier, , was commissioned in 1968 and was decommissioned in 2007. The

began June 25, 1950, and the need for planes and troops was urgent. Returning from Korea, made a record trip across the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

—7 days, 10 hours, and 36 minutes. In 1952, all carriers with designations "CV" or "CVB" were reclassified as attack carriers and given the sign "CVA". As the

mission ended, recovered Commander Alan B. Shepard, the first American in space, on May 5, 1961. Another aircraft carrier , recovered the

astronauts after their

. Apollo 11 was the first manned landing mission to the moon, and was composed of astronauts Neil Armstrong,

Buzz Aldrin Buzz Aldrin (; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module ''Eagle'' pilot on the 1969 A ...

, and Michael Collins. In 1975, the first was commissioned; the ''Nimitz'' class are the largest warships in the world; and is the only aircraft carrier class in commission with the U.S. Navy (except for , which, though still technically in commission as of August 2013, is currently being dismantled). Construction and commissioning of the ''Nimitz'' class continued after the Cold War. Also, in 1975, the U.S. Navy simplified the carrier designations—CV, CVA, CVAN, CVB, CVL—into CV for conventionally powered carriers and CVN for nuclear-powered carriers.

After the Cold War

When the Cold War ended in 1991, the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

had conventionally powered carriers from the , , and classes active, along with ; and the nuclear and ; however, all of the conventional carriers have been decommissioned. Construction of the ''Nimitz''-class continued after the Cold War, and the last ''Nimitz''-class carrier, , was commissioned in 2009. The next class of supercarriers—the —launched the first ship in 2017. The new carriers will be stealthier, and feature A1B reactors, electromagnetic

catapults A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of store ...

, advanced arresting gear, reduced crew requirements, and a hull design based upon that of the ''Nimitz'' class. Ten carriers are planned for the ''Gerald R. Ford'' class.

Escort carriers

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the

built escort carriers in large numbers for patrol work, and scouting and escorting

s. Escort carriers, based on merchant ship hulls, were smaller than aircraft carriers; escort carrier crews referred to the ships as "Jeep carriers", the press called them "baby flat tops". The escort carriers had lighter armor than aircraft carriers, were slower, had less defensive armament, and less aircraft capacity compared to aircraft carriers. This smaller variant of carriers was designated "CVE"; a common joke amongst crews was "CVE" meant "Combustible, Vulnerable and Expendable". Early in the war,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

submarines and aircraft were interfering with shipping. The worst losses occurred far at sea—out of the reach of land-based air forces—leading the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

to experiment with catapult-launching fighter aircraft from merchant ships, a somewhat successful approach. However, the number of planes was still limited, so the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

appealed to the

for help. Before World War II started, the U.S. Navy had contemplated converting merchant ships to small aircraft carriers for this purpose, so the quick solution was to build escort carriers on merchant ship hulls. The first escort carrier, , was converted from a freighter. A shortage of merchant ship hulls caused four escort carriers—, , , and —to be built on

oil tanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined cru ...

hulls. In total, 78 escort carriers were built and launched from June 1941 to April 1945.

References

External links

* {{Lists of aircraft carriers

Aircraft carrier classes An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

*United States Navy Aircraft carrier classes list *