U.S. Navy Carriers (WWII)

[captain_wright]

Can someone tell me how many carriers the united states had in 1941? How were they deployed?

-JDW-

[LWD]

Here's a list of US CVs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ai ... tates_Navy
If you follow the links for the ones of interest it will tell you what they were doing in 41.

[captain_wright]

As an aircraft carrier how many planes did Langley(CV-1) have in her airwing? The wikipedia gives 2 different totals 34 & 55!

JDW

[R Leonard]

USS Langley was converted to a seaplane tender in 1937. She was not an aircraft carrier in WWII. That being said, whilst still an aircraft carrier she could carry a maximum of 55 aircraft. The number of planes in her air group could vary over her years of carrier service, primarily influenced by evolving doctrine and, then, the relative sizes of the aircraft involved.

[Takao]

Here are some pictures of the USS Langley as a collier and as AV-3.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/02/0203.htm

Oh and let us not forget the USS Long Island (AVG-1/ACV-1/CVE-1)
http://www.navsource.org/archives/03/001.htm

[FireFoxy]

Well, 7 december 1941 the U.S Navy had seven Aircraft Carriers and 1 Auxlliary vessel.
With these 8 ships being deployed,the keels of 5 Aircraft carriers had been laid.
By the end of 1944 -1945 U.S had deployed more ships than any other country!

[Ironmachine]

You can find the seven aircraft carriers and the aircraft escort vessel available in 1941, plus the five CVs whose keels had been laid, in this page: http://bluejacket.com/ww2_12-07-41_carriers.html
You will find name, numeral, composition of the air group, some details of their deployment,... I think this is what you wanted.

[mescal]

As I did for the US Navy cruisers (here : http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 6&t=147340), I'm doing a study of the availability of the carriers of the main ww2 navies.

Below is the first part for the US Navy (the fleet carriers - the CVE will come shortly, it's almost finished).

Color code :
Green : Pacific/Indian
Light green : Atlantic/Mediterranean
Red : sunk
Orange : combat damage
Light blue : shakedown/training
Purple : dockyard/repair/refit/overhaul/ post-repair training = unavailable
grey : building

US_CV01.jpg (50.51 KiB) Viewed 3011 times

US_CV02.jpg (57.52 KiB) Viewed 3013 times

The damage requiring less than one month of repair are generally not shown, as the routine refit lasting less than one month.

[mescal]

And here is the second part of my list of carrier availability - the CVEs.

I have a lot less data on the record of movements for those ships than for the fleet carriers, and it's done to the best of my knowledge, but may contain errors or approximations.

The color code remains the same as before.

US_CVE_01.jpg (81.33 KiB) Viewed 2971 times

US_CVE_02.jpg (119.9 KiB) Viewed 2965 times

US_CVE_12.jpg (85.48 KiB) Viewed 2966 times

[maxs75]

Good work!
CVE Core was in the Atlantic during most of WW2, you probably put the color code on the wrong line.

Max

[mescal]

Thanks for the input.
The date of overhaul are correct for USS Core, it's indeed a color inversion.

I will correct the picture (but before doing that I will wait a little more, to see if there is more feedback -- so as to do the fixing in only one time .

[captain_wright]

Thank you Mescal for the charts! I was going to ask how many Essex class carriers earned battle stars during World War II but the charts you posted shows which Essex class ships earned battle stars for World War II service

JDW

[nebelwerferXXX]

Nice ! Color coding charts for USN carriers...