Library Reference Number: 248
Military Aircraft At Sea: Part 3
In this third part of the series, and in addition to Library Entries 174 and 235 describing Military Aircraft at Sea histories, this section is devoted to the United States of America and suggests historical reasons as to why this nation spends more on defence than any other in the World. It starts by explaining how the United States came into existence.
In December 1773, the original thirteen colonies of the United States of America called for 'No taxation without representation' and expressed their dissatisfaction with British rule by tipping cargoes of tea bound for Britain into Boston harbour. Two years later, this protest had become a call to arms resulting in the Wars of Independence. On the 4th July 1776, Samuel Adams presented the 'Declaration of Independence' to Congress and it was approved.
The war officially ended with the 'Treaty of Paris' in 1783 with the new sovereign nation of the United States of America being recognised as a territory extending from Canada in the north to Florida in the South and with a westward boundary represented by the Mississippi River. Not content with this outcome, the cry of 'Go West, Young Man!' was accepted by many and this often led to conflict with the indigenous tribal populations.
In traditional American culture and religious belief, the tribal peoples took what they needed but no more. The death of an animal to provide food, clothing, shelter and tools was regarded as essential act yet undertaken with the strictest of reverence. Prayers were offered in honour of the animal's sacrifice and similar gratitude was extended to forests and rivers. In their eyes, the mass slaughter of bison whose bodies were left to rot to make way for cattle ranches and the destruction of forests to obtain wood for constructional purposes were abhorrent acts of vandalism on a massive scale.
European settlers introduced smallpox to the continent and the American Indians lacked any natural resistance against this plague. Huge numbers of the local population died as a result and made it easier for the settlers to engage in wholesale theft of the land. The pressure to expand the nation was unrelenting! The 'Wild West' era came and went in just fifteen years.
Canada proved well defended by the British and difficult to permit Unionist expansion in that direction but in the South, and where Mexico claimed ownership to extensive tracts of land, a different kind of territorial dispute arose when Texas elected to join the Union in 1835. This led to a sizeable Mexican army led by General Santa Anna to invade Texas in early 1836.
In this conflict, men of differing backgrounds and nationalities fought one of the most hopeless and avoidable battles in human history. After holding out against a vastly larger Mexican force for thirteen days, the defenders of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio were beaten and killed. A few notable figures including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were among the casualties.
Six weeks after the Alamo fell, a hastily recruited militia army trained under the direction of General Samuel Houston fought the Mexican army in a decisive battle lasting less than twenty minutes at San Jacinto and where the Mexicans were soundly beaten. Santa Anna adopted the attire of a regular soldier as a means to escape capture but was betrayed when his men insisted upon saluting him!
Although Texas had won its independence from Mexico, membership of the Union offered the benefit of communal defence and where future adventures by Mexico would be foolhardy. In modern times, the 'lone star' state retains a political right to cede from the Union if the majority of the local population wish to seek independence. It's the only state with such an option.
The subsequent rapid growth and prosperity of the Southern States became highly dependent upon labour intensive industries like the growth and picking of cotton and where the price of labour was an important factor to maintain keen prices. To meet this criterion, a huge number of West African natives were captured and forcibly migrated to the USA and sold as slaves.
Starting in 1808, the British Royal Navy West Africa Squadron was charged with the duty of stopping the transatlantic slave trade. From 1808 to 1860, the squadron freed over 150,000 Africans aboard 1600 ships. Slavery was officially abolished within the British Empire in 1833 albeit with some exceptions but even these last bastions were gone by 1843.
When Abraham Lincoln became the sixteenth president of the Union and proposed abolishing slavery, the Southern States were appalled by the prospect and ceded from the Union in order to establish their own alternate Confederate government. The United States of America was just seventy-eight years old when civil war threatened to divide it. The war between the Union and Confederate states began in April 1861 and it proved unlike any conflict previously fought in the history of mankind.
Many historians regard it as the first 'modern war' in which horse cavalry charges, so often a deciding factor of military strategy in the past, was found wanting when pitched against new technologies like repeating rifles, Gatling guns and more accurate field artillery. 'Trench warfare' became a new adjective and technique applied in this war. The casualty rates on both sides were horrific and beyond former experience.
According to some estimates, about ten per cent of all Northern (Union) males between the age of 20-45 and thirty per cent of all Southern (Confederate) white males between the ages of 18-40 died in the war! Total estimates suggest up to 750,000 casualties.
The war ended with a Confederate surrender in April 1865.
Given the shock and horror experienced during these years, there was a strong political desire to ensure there would never be future battles fought on American soil. The birth of political neutrality and a 'forward defence' policy were put in place.
In 1912, Woodrow Wilson became the 28th President of the United States and remained in office throughout World War One. In 1914, he was firmly against involvement in a 'European War' and worked hard to maintain the stance of neutrality even when a German U-Boat sank the RMS Lusitania in May 1915 with American citizens among the casualties.
All of that changed when he was presented with the 'Zimmerman Telegram' as intercepted and decoded by British Intelligence. It introduced the possibility of Mexico attacking the United States with German support and implying battles would be fought on American soil whilst affirming intent to employ unrestricted submarine warfare placing US ships at risk. In the light of such revelation, the US stance of neutrality was abandoned and the USA joined the war on the Allied side in April 1917 with 14,000 troops landed in France in late June.
One year later, 10,000 US soldiers were arriving in France on a daily basis and eventually over two million Americans served to end the stalemate existing throughout much of the war. Fifty thousand of these US citizens were killed during the conflict.
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the eleventh month of 1918, an Armistice ending the First Global Conflict was signed in principal inside a parked rail carriage at Compiègne in France. Technically, the final surrender and terms didn't actually come into effect until 1919.
In 1917, the US Navy collier 'Cyclops' departed from port at Rio de Janeiro with an 11,000-ton cargo of manganese ore intended for use in munitions manufacture. The port of destination was Baltimore but it never arrived and its loss had far-reaching and long-term consequences.
Progress was slower than usual due to a cracked cylinder in the starboard engine and where the Captain had been advised to return to the better repair facilities of the US. This prompted the ship to head for the Bahamas in need of supplies and where it was noted that the Plimsoll line of the ship was submerged even at rest in harbour and indicating its overloaded state. The regular cargo rating for the vessel was 8,000 tons. Upon leaving port, the ship seen heading southward and then vanished. There were around three hundred passengers and crewman aboard and all attempts to find wreckage and survivors failed. Even today, and writing in 2014, this event remains the largest loss of life endured by the US Navy not involving combat.
German involvement was suspected yet proven unlikely when wartime records from Germany were recovered and failed to mention the incident.
Fifty years later, several authors cited the loss of the USS Cyclops as major proof of a bizarre 'Bermuda Triangle' theory in which many ships and aircraft apparently disappeared in highly mysterious circumstances. It was a fad that caught on for a while until the true examination of the evidence illustrated far more plausible and natural causes. As regards the USS Cyclops, no wreckage was found because the search pattern was probably centred in the wrong place. Without drifting into detail, there is strong evidence to suggest that sulphur erosion from coal had eaten away at the hull and where the ship's overloaded status resulted in hull failure and perhaps split apart and sank quickly. There are perfectly feasible reasons why no wreckage or survivors were found but these lie outside the scope of this article. More important were the consequences arising from the loss of the USS Cyclops.
A key recommendation of the enquiry was to instigate the existence of a 'National Stockpile' in which essential war commodities could be bought in peacetime then stored for use in war. In effect, it was an admission that even a large industrious nation like the United States could be vulnerable and held to ransom by the need to import some essential materials from elsewhere in the World. It suggested that the US Navy was incapable of protecting such supply ships!
Fifty years on, the need and existence for the 'National Stockpile' diminished with the US more able to project major force at great distance from its own shores. In large measure, the Aircraft Carrier Task Force philosophy adopted during World War 2 plays a major part in this. Mercantile fleets of the World carry about ninety-five per cent of all exports and imports!
The case for a strong US Navy began during the 'Civil War' era when General Ulysses Grant (later President Ulysses Grant) assumed an 'island strategy' towards the Confederate States and where they were receiving considerable external support from others. In this, blockades of ships at sea and smaller boats on the Mississippi River were used to deny supplies of food and munitions to the southern rebel states. It turned out to be the crucial factor leading to the Union success!
In a modern World, no nation ever has everything it needs and imports are an essential part in peacetime and in war. To this end, the United States expends a higher proportion of income than any other nation in order to maintain their global interests around the World and where a major part of their 'forward defence' policy rests with a fleet comprising ten aircraft carrier task forces.
Although the first American launch of an aircraft from a warship had taken place in 1910, the concept of adding an aircraft carrier to the US Navy didn't find much favour until 1920. Even then, the decision was to convert a collier rather than build an entirely new ship. The USS Jupiter was taken into dock and subjected to two years of alteration before becoming the USS Langley and was given the designation of 'Carrier Vessel One' or CV1 for short. A further plan to adapt another collier was abandoned in the wake of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1923 and where completion of the battleships Saratoga, Lexington and the additional carrier would have exceeded the limitations of the treaty. Fortunately, both battleships were only about forty per cent complete in early 1923 so it made sense to revise their structure and status to that of aircraft carriers. They became designated as CV2 and CV3 respectively and commissioned in 1927. Whilst USS Langley was quite small at about 13,000 tons, the Lexington and Saratoga were much larger at 37,000 tons.
It's ironic that both Lexington and Saratoga jointly collaborated with 'surprise attack exercises' aimed at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii before the Japanese raid of 7th December 1941 and which drew a reluctant United States into active participation in World War Two. On that date, the Lexington was delivering aircraft to the Midway Archipelago whilst Saratoga was also at sea. In Japan, the architects of the Pearl Harbour raid had expected to find both aircraft carriers at anchor and vulnerable to their aerial attack. Their absence was to prove costly for Japan in the longer term.
Back in 1934, the US Navy commissioned its first fully designed aircraft carrier in the shape of USS Ranger, a vessel only slightly larger than the old Langley and deemed as too slow to serve with the Pacific fleet. It was assigned to duties in the Atlantic throughout its career and was often regarded as disappointing in some quarters.
Learning from these experiences, the next generation 'Yorktown' class was to prove far better and where the lead ship, USS Yorktown, was to prove its worth in the early part of World War Two. Commissioned in 1937, the Yorktown was sufficiently large to include a wider range of available aircraft with fighters, bombers and torpedo attack aircraft. One year later, the second vessel of this class, the USS Enterprise, was commissioned and was equally provisioned with the best American aircraft deemed suitable for carrier operations. On October 20th 1941, the USS Hornet, the last of the 'Yorktown' class was commissioned into service and just a mere forty-eight days before the infamous Japanese raid on Pearl Harbour. Each was about 20,000 tons in size and was designated as CV5, CV6 and CV8 respectively.
The 'missing' CV7 aircraft carrier took the shape of the USS Wasp and which was built at a time when the Washington Treaty and later variants of the treaty began to fail. In pragmatic terms, the ship could not exceed 15,000 tons or 25% displacement of a Yorktown class carrier. To meet this miraculous assignment, USS Wasp had virtually no armour of any kind and was fitted with smaller and lighter engines: features that commended it to application in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea operations during World War Two and in the belief that it would be safer in these waters.
USS Wasp was the first to have a kind of 'side elevator' fitted and where aircraft were moved onto the lift tail first along a metal shaft while the front wheels and main weight of the aircraft fitted neatly on a platform closest to the deck. It was crude by modern standards but it worked.
The United States of America thus entered World War Two with eight aircraft carriers of vastly differing capability and where only three of them eventually survived the conflict. Astoundingly, the USS Ranger (CV4) was one of them. The USS Saratoga (CV3) and USS Enterprise (CV6) survived despite sustaining major damage at different times in their career. Despite this, the USS Ranger was scrapped in 1947 and USS Saratoga became a nuclear test target during that same year. USS Enterprise was decommissioned in 1947 then scrapped in 1960.
On 27th February 1942, the USS Langley (CV1) had been reduced to the role of a seaplane tender and was attacked by Japanese Aichi 'Val' bombers. The attack left the vessel in poor state and so badly damaged that her escort vessels chose to scuttle the ship. The USS Lexington (CV2) endured severe damage amid several battle campaigns in the Pacific War before being sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea on the 8th May 1942.
The USS Yorktown received major battle damage in the Coral Sea campaign and returned to Hawaii for repairs only to receive immediate notice that it was needed back at sea again within a few short hours and in anticipation of a Japanese strike and invasion of the Midway Isles. It returned to sea with engineers still aboard trying to repair the damage. The USS Enterprise and the USS Hornet were close behind.
Details of this encounter are more fully explained in Library Reference 174 on this website and won't be repeated here suffice to say that the Yorktown (CV5) was lost on the 7th June 1942 having suffered several major attacks by Japanese aircraft. By contrast, the Japanese lost the aircraft carriers Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu and Kaga - all of which had been major component parts of the raid on Pearl Harbour in 1941 and had subsequently been applied as a powerful task force with raids ranging from Trincomalee in Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka), to aerial raids on Darwin, North Australia. It was a blow of ill fortune from which the Japanese Navy was unable to recover from.
The poorly armoured USS Wasp (CV7) survived until the 15th September 1942.
USS Hornet (CV8) was sunk on 27th October 1942 during a battle for the Santa Cruz Islands. In its career, it played a major part of the aerial raid led by USAAF General 'Jimmy' Doolittlle raid of 18th April 1942 and where sixteen B25 Mitchell bombers, launched from the deck of the carrier, bombed several targets in Japan close to Tokyo to prove that the nation of Japan was not beyond American response. On this mission, return to the aircraft carrier was impossible and the Doolittle flight continued into China until their fuel ran out. One made it into Soviet territory before it crash-landed. In response, an infuriated Japanese occupation force hunted for the crews of these aircraft and killed many innocent Chinese people as a consequence.
Even before the raid on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto had rightly predicted the 'waking of a sleeping tiger' and where it might take a year or so before the US industrial strength could be applied to a wartime environment. His assertions proved to be essentially correct but the crucial element behind the Japanese strategy was to bring the two opposing fleets together in a battle like that of Jutland of World War One vintage.
Whilst the attack on Pearl Harbour was undoubtedly a Japanese success, the absence of the US carriers was a bitter disappointment. The Battles of the Coral Sea and at Midway offered chances to redress this but whilst evenly matched in many areas, the Americans were luckier.
It's from about this point that technology advances began to take effect in the Pacific War and ultimately in Europe too. While Japan retained building the Mitsubishi Zero fighter aircraft throughout the war, the US government invited mass production pioneers like Henry Ford to generate new aircraft designs in large numbers.
In two brilliant articles written by Jack Burgess on this web site, Library References 167 and 203, we're reliably informed that a Liberator bomber aircraft was composed of 100,000 parts and yet could be assembled in less than an hour. The logistical conclusion of this statement prompts the automatic need for an aircraft engine to be built, tested and ready for installation every fifteen minutes!
At the start of the war, the Mitsubishi A6 Zero had been a well-designed and superior aircraft but it remained virtually unchanged throughout the war whilst increasingly challenged by newer US designs applied against them. The 'Marianas Turkey Shoot' of June 1944 (see Library Reference 174) was an aerial battle in which the Mitsubishi A6 Zero seemed poorly armoured and underpowered. Although he didn't live long enough to see it, Yamamoto's wise advice and predictions came to pass and where the US Military Industrial links largely determined the outcome of the war.
To some degree, the United States had already begun responding to the 1936 failure to renew the arms reduction plans refused by Italy and Japan. In wartime, the British permitted many formerly classified secrets like aircraft designs for the Spitfire to be shared with their American cousins. Upon receipt of such bounty, America began to introduce a new fighter aircraft within six weeks while UK schematics related to RADAR and ASDIC (Sonar) technology were seized on and applied with gusto!
Of necessity, details about development of atomic bomb research remained a closely guarded secret but even as the war ensued, the US Navy made plans for a longer-term future in which a new design of Essex class aircraft carriers would be core elements of several task forces with 'forward defence' capacity and capabilities.
Thirty-Two carriers of this design were initially ordered with twenty-four being completed and the remainder cancelled. Two types known as the 'short hull' and 'long hull' variants emerged.
Nine ships completed to the original specification began service in 1942 and the new carriers were sixty feet longer and ten feet wider than the former Yorktown class and one third heavier. Among several new features, they were fitted with a more useful side elevator as pioneered on the USS Wasp.
Although the Essex aircraft carrier design became the largest class of heavy warships in the World, a record that remains to this day, none were lost during the conflict although a few came close. On 19th March 1945, a successful Kamikaze suicide attack on the USS Franklin left the carrier blazing from bow to stern and largely on account of its wooden flight deck. On 11th May 1945, the USS Bunker Hill suffered from a double kamikaze attack, in which both suicidal pilots used 550lb bombs to hit the vessel before crashing their planes into the flight deck and resulting in substantial fires and a major loss of life. Despite this, both vessels returned to dockyards by means of their own engines and the latter was still undergoing repairs when the war ended. Both ships were decommissioned in 1947 while most others of the class were scrapped in the 1960s and 1970s.
Beginning with the USS Ticonderoga CV14 and subsequently, the Essex class carriers were fitted out in the 'low bow' or 'long hull' fashion to allow fitment of anti-aircraft guns in the bow area. This has prompted some writers to consider these as a separate 'Ticonderoga' class but the US Navy never made that distinction. In a similar way, the USS Oriskany CV34 has been considered as a one ship class by some writers but again still listed as a long bow variant of the Essex class by the US Department for Defence.
Overall, it's fair to say that most of the Essex class aircraft carriers were subject to constant improvements, revision and modification during their service with the US Navy and especially during the Second World War, Korean War and Vietnam War. It's probably true to say that every one of the ships ended up somehow different to others of the same class and where more specialist roles were assigned to some. ID banners changed to that of CVA-Attack Carrier; CVB-Large Aircraft Carriers etc. Some became Anti-submarine-warfare (ASW) ships else committed to roles involving the Army Marine Corp or else bearing the CVE Escort carrier identification.
The US Navy continued to receive new Essex class carriers after the Second World War with the last being the USS Philippine Sea CV45, USS Valley Forge CV47 in 1946 and the USS Oriskany in 1950, and with the latter enjoying a far better fate than most.
The USS Oriskany was close to 31,000 tons with a length of 904 feet and capable of carrying up to one hundred aircraft. Within her hull were moving escalator stairways akin to those of a shopping department store and the very latest of operational technologies. In many ways, the Oriskany was substantially different from most other Essex class ships yet based on the same hull design. It was deployed in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
On 26th October 1956, human error concerning accidental ignition of a magnesium parachute flare caused a major fire killing 44 veteran pilots and where catastrophe was narrowly averted. The ship was sailed back to San Diego for repairs.
On 26th October 1967, Lieutenant Commander John McCain (a later Republican nominee for US President and Senator for Arizona in 2013) flew off from the USS Oriskany on his 23rd bombing mission aboard an A4 Skyhawk but was shot down and remained a prisoner of war until January 1973.
Following a quarter century of service, the USS Oriskany was decommissioned in 1976 yet kept in reserve albeit in very poor condition and never likely to be employed again. Plans to preserve the ship fell through time after time and eventually, the ship was towed to Corpus Christi and stripped down so it could be sunk in the Gulf of Mexico to create an artificial reef.
As planned and using carefully placed explosives, the Oriskany was sunk whilst retaining its vertical attitude. It's wreck structure is now popularly referred to as the 'Great Carrier Reef' among the scuba diving fraternity and where the island structure, at around 70 feet deep, is a 'safe dive' for sport divers but where the remainder of the hull, including the flight deck, would necessitate special equipment, skill and experience. Despite this, the 'London Times' reported that scuba diving on the Oriskany was one of the best in the World two years after the sinking.
Definitely a better fate than met by her sister ships!
Back in 1941, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (often referred to FDR for short) was concerned that no new fleet aircraft carriers were expected before 1944 and proposed to alter and convert some of the many cruisers then being built. This was to result in a class of nine vessels of modest size capable of carrying around thirty aircraft inherited from the cruiser design. These became CV22-CV30 with one, the USS Princeton, being sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf during the closing stages of World War 2.
Born in wartime, most of these ships had short careers. Three were 'farmed out' on loan to France and Spain on a lease basis but when returned to the USA, they were scrapped soon afterwards. The Saipan class CV48 and CV49 were heavier variants of cruiser conversions but then quickly reassigned to 'command ship' assignments.
Commissioned just one week after World War Two ended, the USS Midway became the first ship deemed too large to transit via the Panama Canal and the biggest ship in the World for a decade afterwards. It was a revolutionary new design to replace the Essex class and based on the Montana class battleships then in planning. She was employed during the Vietnam War and selected as flagship during the 1991 Iraqi 'Desert Storm' campaign. Overall, it remained in service for forty-seven years before being decommissioned in 1992 and relinquished into the care of the Midway Museum of San Diego in California. Six ships of this class were planned but only three were actually built. Plans for a further eight US aircraft carriers (CV50-CV58) were cancelled where the majority would have been based on the 'long bow' Essex design.
Even before the Second World War ended, it was emminently clear that World peace was not likely to be easily achieved. The idealogies of 'Pax Occidentalis' as advocated by the United States was rejected by the opposing philosophy of 'Pax Sovietica' as advocated by the USSR. Caught in the middle, some countries favoured one or the other and where the sane middle ground of neutrality was virtually impossible to achieve.
In 1947, the USA favoured India's proposal of independence and actively supported it. Their wish was granted and the 'London Treaty' followed in 1949 and which effectively ended the 'British Empire' in favour of a weaker structure known as the Commonwealth. On 17th March 1948, Britain, France and the Benelux countries of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands generated a contract of mutual defence. In 1949, this was massively expanded to include the United States, Canada and more to form the origins of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) still in current operation. Under this provision of communal defence, Britain came to be regarded as an unsinkable aircraft carrier conveniently located near Europe and able to offer airfields, army bases and navy facilities for exclusive US use. In 1955, seventeen countries of the Soviet block responded by forming the 'Warsaw Pact' with equal commitment to communal defence.
By then, both sides had proven their ability to develop and explode atomic bombs but one of the greatest challenges for NATO became public knowledge on 4th October 1957.
In any history of traditional warfare, it has always been that 'standing on higher ground' offered major advantages to bowmen and artillery. In such advantageous positions, bowmen could fire volleys of arrows over greater distance while their counterparts could not match them. It's the reason why so many castles were built atop hills but on the 4th October 1957, the 'higher ground' became orbital and higher than the tallest mountain on the planet!
Sputnik was a small 58cm polished metal ball rocketed into a low earth orbit and containing a simple 'bleeping' radio transmitter. Its batteries lasted 22 days and then the artificial satellite burned up upon re-entry to Earth in 1958. Just months later, the USSR launched a stray dog named Laika (the name means 'barker' in Russian) into orbit but it died just a few hours into the flight. Most western experts wrongly assumed the canine had suffocated rather than the actual cause of heat exhaustion.
Naturally, public interest about the satellite and the 'space dog' took premier stage in the news but within NATO military circles, there was deep concern and disquiet about the R-7 launch vehicle employed to deliver such feats. Principally, there were worries about whether such a missile might be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead into orbit and then aimed towards any target in the World. Such devices didn't have to be especially accurate in order to wreak major havoc! More disturbing was the absence of any kind of effective defence.
NATO responded by investing in research of missile technology but the first attempts were highly embarrassing failures.
In one case, the rocket fell over on the launch pad, split open and spilled its highly volatile fuel before exploding in spectacular fashion. Others launched then tipped over before crashing to the ground or else exploded in mid air. One Chicago journalist called these 'Putnik' and the name stuck for a while before more and more successful launches were achieved.
In 1961, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became immortalised as being the first human being ever to enter outer space aboard a Vostok 1 capsule and completed a singular orbit before the ship was safely returned to the Earth. In 1963, the first woman in space was Valantina Tereshkova.
Taken together, it seemed the communist USSR had leapfrogged ahead and was proving to be more advanced and far more capable than their counterparts in the western democratic regions of the west. For a decade or more, there were alleged experts who described aviation miracles of the USSR and whose influence prompted the western military industrial complex to expend huge sums of money in research to catch up! In reality, however, the Soviets were losing the technological race while NATO was overcompensating for challenges that did not actually exist!
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev started his tenure starting in 1953 and it lasted until 1964. During that time, he had close contact with Sergei Pavlovich Korolev most commonly referred to as the 'chief architect' rather than by name in Russian history books. More than anyone else, Korolev was the genius at the core of the Soviet Space Program.
Under increasing pressure to deliver more publicity stunts for Khrushchev, Korolev did what he could and his achievements included the first two men in space aboard a singular capsule mission and then three men using a similar modified design. In the latter case, none wore any kind of space suits due to the extremely tight and cramped conditions and were lucky to survive the encounter. In 1965, Alexey Leonov conducted the first 'Extra Vehicular Activity' or EVA in space. Although Korolev never maintained any interest in weapons, his knowledge of ballistic missile and rocket technology was undoubtedly influential during his lifetime. Korolev died while still a young man during a routine hospital operation in 1966.
In his absence, the Soviet Union scored another first in 1967 when Vladimir Komarov, a tried and proven veteran of several previous space flights, became the first 'space pilot' fatality when the parachute of his Soyuz 1 capsule failed to deploy correctly and it crashed to the ground at high speed.
Far fewer high altitude records have ever been set since that time. What constitutes the height of the atmosphere and determines a flight into outer space has become blurred. The entire history of all manned space flights have been conducted within a distance known as 'Low Earth Orbit' with the notable and singular exceptions of the Apollo Moon Landing Missions. At this time of writing and decades after the last 'moon mission', there are still many who believe the events were carefully staged and faked but whether human pilots ever went to the Moon is moot under the scope of this text.
More important is how Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev placed his faith in missile technology as the best defence strategy for the USSR but his confidence was costly. Regular expenditure budgets normally allocated to the USSR Army, Air Force and Navy were slashed in order to sustain expansion of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) program and with long-term consequences. Even the design of Russian warships reflected this emphasis for missiles. When the USSR built four Kiev class ships of substantial size with angled flight decks, the Russian description was that of 'aircraft cruisers' rather than aircraft carriers and where large areas of the foredeck area were given over to missile launchers. Ostensibly, the Kiev class was supposedly a response to the US 'Kitty Hawk' class of aircraft carriers but the design characteristics between the two couldn't have been more different.
During the 1950s, spy planes often crossed Soviet borders with impunity and without incident but that changed in 1960 when a US built U2 spy plane equipped with eight cameras specially designed by Eastman-Kodak was shot down while flying over Sverlovsk. The US pilot, Francis Gary Powers, survived the crash but was quickly captured and the wreckage of his aircraft was dutifully examined by Soviet experts. Powers was eventually repatriated to the US but after a time when maximum publicity and embarrassment had been gleaned by the USSR on a global media stage.
In 1959, Fidel Castro assumed Presidency of Cuba, an island group of about 11 million people located just 93 miles from the US mainland and where formerly friendly political relationships between the US and Cuba worsened rapidly. In 1960, all US businesses and properties within Cuba were forcibly seized on orders of the government and the US government responded with a trade embargo excluding foodstuffs and medical supplies.
In total secrecy, US President and former Army General of 'D-Day' fame, Dwight Eisenhower directed Allan Dulles of the Combined Intelligence Agency (CIA) to recruit and train Cuban exiles for an armed invasion of Cuba. The invasion plan was still in a state of planning when John F. Kennedy succeeded Eisenhower as President and Kennedy approved its continuance and application.
This US led invasion began on 17th April 1961. Three days later, the invasion faltered, stalled then failed completely. Prisoners were repatriated after interrogation and the 'Bay of Pigs' fiasco was hailed as proof of American vulnerability by many South American countries.
In August 1962, a U2 spy aircraft flew high over Cuba and photographed the presence of Soviet missiles being made ready for installation. Given Cuba's close proximity to the US mainland, President John F Kennedy warned USSR Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev that if any missile attack should originate from Cuba then the US would view this as a direct military action originating from the USSR. In his angry exchange of words, the phrase of ''Mutually Assured Destruction' was used for the first time and the policy of MAD has remained central to NATO policy ever since. On 23rd October 1962, the US initiated a total air and sea blockade while Premier Nikita Khrushchev considered his reply.
After five days, Khrushchev suggested a compromise in which the missiles in Cuba would be withdrawn providing the US removed its recent missile installations from Turkey. Both sides agreed and complied. The prospect of Nuclear Armageddon and Genocide had been avoided.
In October 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was deposed and was succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev.
Khrushchev ended his days in luxury and his memoirs were smuggled and published in the West. He died in 1971 following a heart attack.
In Khrushchev's era, Russian military aviation had assumed modest priority yet still capable of dazzling western 'experts' when they saw 'Foxbat' jet fighters and 'backfire bombers' allegedly capable of major miracles allegedly beyond emulation by NATO countries. During 'May Day' parades, the 'experts' saw what they perceived to be hundreds of bomber aircraft without ever considering that several of these bomber prototypes had been ordered to turn around and repeat several flights over 'Red Square'.
On 6th September 1976, the mythology about superior Soviet aviation began to unravel when Soviet pilot Vicktor Balenko defected to the west by flying a MIG25 Foxbat aircraft to Hakodate in Japan. It afforded an opportunity for western nations to examine the aircraft in detail for the very first time and where a lot of secrets were revealed.
The fuselage was made of basic steel rather than titanium and the navigation system used a number of thermionic electronic valves rather than transistors and integrated circuits. It was a more basic defence response aircraft than previously imagined in the west. For a brief time, a few correspondents tried to defend their former posture by pointing out that thermionic devices were less impervious to the effects of 'electro-magnetic pulse' as radiated by a nuclear bomb but this carried less weight when others pointed out that the aircraft had no bomber capability. Detailed revelations about the aircraft generated major embarrassment for the Soviet Union and it was eventually returned to them in the form of twenty cargo crates.
It was the beginning of the end. Western aircraft designers had been chasing 'ghost designs' that never existed and it came at a time when internal politics within the USSR began to exert uncontrollable influences and pressures ultimately leading to a declaration of dissolution.
The Soviet Union ceased to exist on Christmas Day 1991 and effectively ended the Cold War.
There has never been a major battle fought on British soil since that of Drumossie Moor in 1746 or by the name of Culloden as it is better known. There has never been a major battle fought on the soil of the United States since 1865. Despite this, there have been many battles fought using troops and soldiers from both nations in far off locations. Just one century ago, any successful campaign fought on foreign soil typically meant superior sea power and the ability to deliver and regularly supply ammunition, food and water to the troops stationed within these combat zones and without adverse intervention by an enemy.
In more recent times, the additional requirement has been that pertaining to air power in order to prevent enemy aircraft assuming aerial supremacy within the battle zone or being capable of attacking the supply echelon.
What this means in practice is an ability to carry the best aircraft in sufficient numbers towards the front line and this is perfectly fine if there are airfields in the vicinity with long runways able to launch high performance jets at full bombing load and long runways able to receive them on return. At sea, there are similar requirements i.e. service hangers and the longest possible runway but integrated within the hull design of a ship! In many ways then, the ideal aircraft carrier is determined by the kind of aircraft it can operate. Being obvious, any major campaign is unlikely to succeed with turbo-prop aircraft akin to that used in World War Two if the enemy is likely to deploy sophisticated jet aircraft against them!
The principal drawback of carrying jet aircraft on a carrier as opposed to helicopters and turbo prop aircraft is the necessity for higher speeds both in take off and in landing and hence the need for longer decks for this purpose. In addition to this feature, 'parking areas' on the deck can maximise the number of planes that can be carried.
As mentioned earlier, the USS Midway was the largest ship in the World for a brief time in 1945 when it entered service at 45,000 tons but after refit with an angled flight deck and more, it weighed in at 64,000 tons when decommissioned in 1992. Other ships of the Midway class were the 'Franklin D. Roosevelt', which was scrapped in 1978, and the 'Coral Sea', which was scrapped in 2000. More of this class were planned but never made it beyond the architect's drawing board.
In 1948, President Harry Truman approved the building of five 'supercarriers' of about 68,000 tons unloaded with the first being the 'USS United States' but the project was cancelled just five days after the keel was laid down. Building the other four ships was also cancelled.
Consequently, the USS Forrestal (CV59), commissioned in 1955, became the first aircraft carrier in the US Navy to be fitted from the outset with an angled flight deck and in a similar fashion to that of the British 'HMS Ark Royal' launched just a few months earlier. She was the first to be described as a super carrier on account of her size and the picture shows how a C130 Hercules Heavy Transport aircraft was actually capable of landing on this huge deck. Others of this class; USS Saratoga, USS Independence and USS Ranger were built according to similar specifications. Upon her decommissioning in 1993, she was made available as a museum but all attempts in this failed and Forrestal was scrapped in 2014 at a Texas yard. All others of this class have been decommissioned and likely to be scrapped in the near future.
In 1961, the launch of the 'USS Kitty Hawk' prompted a 'knee-jerk' response within the Soviet Union and prompted the building of four Kiev class 'aircraft carrying cruisers'. The American vessel was 62,000 tons and capable of 33 knots. Her sister ship, the 'USS Constellation' was an important component in the 'Dessert Storm' campaign and was decommissioned in 2003 and sold for scrapping. The 'USS America', launched in 1965, was eventually scuttled and used for target practise. By contrast, the "USS Kitty Hawk" was decommissioned in 2009 and placed in reserve until 2015.
In theory, the 'USS John F Kennedy' ought to have been considered as a subset of the former 'Kitty Hawk' class but there were many substantial modifications and differences as to award it a singular ship class status. Like the 'Kitty Hawk' it was of similar displacement and is quite memorable for a collision with another US ship and the loss of an aircraft carrying missiles off the coast of Scotland. The latter incident resulted in a race to recover these missiles before Soviet attempts to retrieve them could succeed. The ship's motto was 'Date Nolite Rogare' in Latin meaning 'Give, be unwilling to ask' or in a wider sense, 'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.' Sound familiar? It was commissioned in 1968 and decommissioned in 2007.
At present, the future of the 'USS John F Kennedy' is technically 'on hold' while the option of a buyer exists with intent to create a museum dedicated to the last oil-fired aircraft carrier in the US Navy. Ironically, it was actually planned to be the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier in history but that award passed to another on economic grounds.
Years behind the original schedule and with costs escalating rapidly, even the US Congress were shocked to discover what the eventual costs of building the USS Enterprise would be. It prompted some senators to suggest cancellation but the project seemed too far advanced for that to be a serious option. Instead, the project was permitted to continue. Such major doubt prompted revision concerning the build of the 'USS John F Kennedy' following a similar route.
Consequently, the USS Enterprise became a unique one-ship design with unique features never to be repeated on later US aircraft carrier designs. It was the first carrier to bear the 'CVN' pennant indicating its nuclear aircraft carrier status.
Eight Westinghouse A2W nuclear reactors were fitted in four pairs to drive four shafts. Four rudders steered the 93,000-ton craft at a maximum of 34 knots where it could boast launching over ninety aircraft within thirty minutes using four steam catapults. In regular service, the ship normally sailed with around sixty aircraft. To service the needs of this Colossus, the total crew including airmen was close to six thousand.
Commissioned in 1961, the USS Enterprise has repaid what it cost to build in fine measure. To list the number of campaigns and voyages it has undertaken would fill a book on its own and range from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. In a service period exceeding a half-century, the Enterprise has seen many high performance jet aircraft types come and go in differing proportions. Decommission of the ship in 2012 has presented technological issues as regards radioactive material but in current times and as per this time of writing in 2014, there are large gaping holes in the superstructure, rendering it ineligible for reserve status, and where the act of scrapping the vessel has begun.
The name lives on however since current plans for CVN80 built to the new 'Gerald R Ford' class standards will be christened 'USS Enterprise'.
In 1967, the US Navy ordered a new class of aircraft carrier and this became known as the 'Nimitz' class named after Admiral Chester Nimitz of 'Battle of Midway' fame. At 110,000 tonnes and close to eleven hundred feet in length, the lead ship, USS Nimitz (CVN-68) is one of the largest and most famous warships in the World. Typically, it carries ninety fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft and has a complement including the air wing crews of 5600 people. Flank speed exceeds thirty-one knots in ideal conditions thanks to its two A4W reactors built by Westinghouse and four shafts driving the propellers. In theory, the vessel can remain at sea without need for refuelling for over a period of twenty-five years and was refuelled in 2001. It has an anticipated lifespan of fifty years. The picture shows HMS Ark Royal (R09) and which was the largest ship ever commissioned into the British Royal Navy docked beside the USS Nimitz.
To give some illustration as to the size of the carrier, it visited the Firth of Forth in Scotland in September 1975 but could not dock at the Royal Navy base in Rosyth since its superstructure would have collided with the Forth Rail Bridge! Putting it mildly - that's enormous!
In July 1997, the USS Nimitz participated in a Joint Task Force exercise in South California to demonstrate how an aircraft carrier and its embarked air wing could project carrier-based air power into littoral warfare. In the four days of this exercise, F18 Hornets made up the bulk of the 'strike force' flying hundreds of missions and definitely proved the point. It was judged that the ship could have continued this frantic pace for another day if needed and where fatigue of the pilots and crew were deemed as limiting factors.
It hasn't always been plain sailing though.
On 26th May 1981, a fuel critical Marine Corp EA-6B Prowler missed its first approach then crashed onto the deck in the subsequent attempt and killed fourteen crewmen and injured forty five others. Fire and explosions destroyed or damaged eleven other aircraft. It's a notable event because subsequent autopsy examination of the deck crew bodies (not the crew of the aircraft) tested positive for marijuana and this led to a blanket 'Zero Tolerance' drug policy across all US armed services with regular testing.
At this time of writing in 2014, the USA operates ten aircraft carrier task forces with all carriers powered by nuclear energy and all of the same hull design as the USS Nimitz. In addition to nuclear powered escort vessels, the United States has finally achieved the long-term objective of a 'forward defence' capability.
In addition to USN efforts, the United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) has shown how it is now capable of striking long-range targets without need of refuelling points and influence of other nations. The principals of 'Shock & Awe' as applied to Baghdad didn't quite measure up to the notions of 'Blitzkrieg or "lightning war" as applied in World War 2 but the objectives were pretty similar.
In this article, I have no plans to describe specific details of each carrier in this class since a simple list will adequately suffice showing pennant ID, Name and date of commission. It's enough to realise that over thirty years of advancing technology lies between the first ship of the class and the latest variant.
CVN 68, USS Nimitz, 1975
CVN 69, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1975
CVN 70, USS Carl Vinson, 1982
CVN 71, USS Theodore Roosevelt, 1986
CVN 72, USS Abraham Lincoln, 1989
CVN 73, USS George Washington, 1992
CVN 74, USS John C. Stennis, 1995
CVN 75, USS Harry S. Truman, 1998
CVN 76, USS Ronald Reagan, 2003
CVN 77, USS George H. W, Bush, 2009.
From a political standpoint, the US need for friends in far off places has declined over many years. Bases like Faslane on the Clyde that used to service US submarines isn't what it used to be and many US bases deemed important during the Cold War have been closed. There is much less intent or commitment to support European Union aspirations than before. Forward Defence Strategies with American interests at the forefront are centre point and with excellent reasons as to why. Proportions of expenditure on defence in a majority of European Nations has been paltry when compared to that expended by the USA.
Despite this, it's obvious that the USA is determined to retain a very strong global policy for the long-term future and where the new generation of aircraft carriers and revolutionary aircraft aboard them will form a significant core of the long-term objectives.
In pursuit of these objectives, the 'Gerald R Ford' class of aircraft carrier is the first truly new and unique design of US aircraft carrier in decades and like those of the 'Nimitz' class, the new design is expected to last for fifty years!
It's already unusual in that the named individual was still alive when told the new carrier would carry his name but died soon afterward. New ideas and new technology have been included in the design but not always according to expectation.
Writing in 2014 and with the hull launched and undergoing fitment, the EMALS electric linear motor variant of a proven steam catapult launch system has proved costly yet subject to major failure on too many occasions. The Advanced Arrest Gear (AAG) has also raised concerns as regards reliability. One expects these defects to be eradicated before the commissioning date in 2015 arrives. It may become the first aircraft carrier fully equipped with the F35 Lightning II carrier variant in place of the F-22 Raptor currently regarded as the best all-weather stealth fighter aircraft available in the World.
Even before these difficulties have been fully worked out, there are advanced plans for two more US carriers of this class namely (CVN79) John F. Kennedy and (CVN80) Enterprise with each being introduced at five-year intervals until 2025.
When I first began this project, I thought it might be quite restrictive, simple and merited a single article of a few pages. I was wrong since it proved to be a more complicated subject of enormous scope and hence the three separate Library entries written over several months. It would have been an even greater project if detailed information about the aircraft, past and present and gone, had been included in the text.
In the final part of this series, and in an effort to make the series more complete, the fourth part will be exploring the future and where some aspects are already obvious in the present. It isn’t ‘rocket science’ to realise that most aircraft carriers in service or recently constructed will be around or the next fifty years. Those still in building will be here farther into the future and likely to continue proving that aerial superiority demands the existence of large carriers. In that respect, several nations like the United Kingdom, United States of America and France can be assured to have such capability in the long-term future. For many other countries, the ability to project ‘forward defence’ is becoming more dependant on smaller and lower cost ‘Helicopter Landing Decks’ (LHD) or ‘Command Ships’ better designed to an assault role and where the design aspiration is land highly equipped soldiers, tanks, trucks, ammunition, food and more in an instant.
They aren’t aircraft carriers in the strictest tradition but the helicopter has developed greatly in the last half-century and these are typically the ideal mode of transport in many cases. ‘Jump Jet’ technology of the AV8 Harrier is still employed by some navies but the development of the Lockheed-Martin F35b Lightning 2 with it’s highly sophisticated stealth and STOVL capability makes for an excellent replacement albeit at highly escalated costs.
One can joke about how the latest ‘Gerald R Ford’ class of aircraft carrier will carry fewer ratings and how they will be compelled to eat meals in a singular mess deck rather than the five formerly included in the Nimitz class – but such economics is an important part of aircraft carrier planning. Like I said, we’re talking about the operational value of a component with an expectant lifetime of fifty years.
In closing, nobody can ever predict the future with precision or exactitude. Shakespeare called it the ‘undiscovered country’ and it remains in that fashion today. In seeming contradiction to that statement, the roots of tomorrow exist in the present. Part Four of this series will be based on this premise.