Type Designators

Manufacturers’ Codes

(Note: the same letter was often allocated to more than one manufacturer.)

INTRODUCTION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF NAVAL AVIATION TO 1945

In the modern world the most powerful navy is that of the United States, a mantle it inherited from Britain’s Royal Navy in the course of World War II. At the heart of its ability to support the nation’s political policy with military force deployed flexibly and promptly, is its fleet of large aircraft carriers, each carrying an air wing of over eighty aircraft. These range from agile, high-performance fighters to strike aircraft capable of delivering massive ordnance loads with pinpoint accuracy hundreds of miles away from the parent ship. These aircraft are every bit as capable and potent as their land-based counterparts and make no concessions to the fact that they operate from the relatively restricted confines of a carrier flight deck. This is a situation that has now existed for almost fifty years and the techniques employed to safely operate such aircraft have only changed in detail over that period. Heavily laden aircraft are thrown into the air by powerful but smoothly accelerating steam catapults (even aboard the nuclear-powered carriers) and on returning to the ship the pilot is guided home by electronic navigation aids, making a safe approach with visual cues supplied by a stabilised mirror landing sight. As he touches down the aircraft’s hook engages the arrester wires and it is brought to a rapid stop. However, in the event of missing the wires, the pilot only has to guide the aircraft along the offset angled flight deck, engines already set at full power on touchdown just in case of such an eventuality, and lift off for a further circuit and landing.

Compare this with the state of the art in 1945. Aircraft were launched by less powerful hydraulic catapults with harsh acceleration or, if heavily laden, made a rolling take-off along the full length of the fore and aft orientated flight deck. Although some electronic navigation aids were available to guide the pilot back to the ship, the final approach was carried out under the guidance of batsmen who stood at the port edge of the flight deck and attempted to give indications to the pilot by means of coloured or illuminated bats. This required an enormous amount of teamwork and trust between those involved. If the aircraft missed the arrester wires the inevitable result was an engagement with the wire and webbing crash barrier whose prime function was to stop the landing aircraft running into other aircraft parked forward, rather than to save the aircraft or pilot. In the worst case scenario the landing aircraft might bounce over the barrier or stall after an unsuccessful attempt to go around from a baulked landing and crash into the deck park.

The change in these strikingly different methods of operation occurred in the decade immediately after World War II and by the late 1950s new carriers were entering service with all the equipment required for modern carrier flying. The pace of change was forced by the new aircraft themselves, which as well as growing ever larger and heavier, were also powered by the then still revolutionary jet engine. The characteristics of these new aircraft were entirely different from their propeller-driven predecessors and the learning curve for the British and American navies was steep and difficult. This book tells the story of this dramatic decade, which had a backdrop of the onset of the so-called Cold War with the nightmare threat of atomic warfare and a real hot shooting war in Korea where carrier aviation played a vital role and naval jet aircraft were used in combat for the first time. The coming of the jets also coincided with the ultimate developments of piston-engined aircraft and the two operated side by side during much of the period under review.

The story will be told with reference to three main strands. First a look at the ships themselves and how they were adapted to operate the new breeds of combat aircraft, then a review of the last generation of piston-engined aircraft (some of which stood up well in comparison with the early jets), and last a look at how the jet engine evolved and was applied to the early generations of naval jet combat aircraft. Although the main narrative will inevitably concentrate on the British and American navies who between them were responsible for all the major steps forward, it should not be forgotten that other navies operated aircraft carriers during the period 1945 to 1955 and benefited from the advances described in this book. However, the only one to produce indigenous naval aircraft, at least in prototype form, was the French Navy, which today operates a modern nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.

Before looking at the post 1945 developments, it is perhaps relevant to look briefly at the history of naval aviation, which began within a decade of the Wright brothers’ first successful powered flight at Kitty Hill in December 1903. As early as 1908 the US Navy was actively examining the possibility of using aeroplanes for observation and scouting missions. The Royal Navy was also aware of the potential advantages of aerial observation but initially put its efforts into developing airships and some of these did prove useful in carrying out anti-submarine patrols in World War One. In 1909 Louis Bleériot made his famous flight across the English Channel, graphically illustrating that a potential enemy now had a new way of reaching and attacking the British mainland. As far as ship borne naval aviation was concerned, the most significant event took place on the other side of the Atlantic in the form of Eugene Ely’s brave flight from the foredeck of the cruiser USS Birmingham. Subsequently he made a further flight to land aboard the USS Pennsylvania off San Francisco, and later made the return flight to the shore. British developments began in 1911 when Lt Samson became the first British pilot to fly off the deck of a ship in January 1912. At the time the ship was at anchor as in the American experiments but in May 1912 Samson flew a Short S.38 floatplane off the bows of the battleship HMS Hibernia while the ship was underway. After the outbreak of war in 1914, the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) expanded rapidly and seaplanes were later regularly carried aboard battleships and cruisers for scouting purposes and also for defence against Zeppelin attacks.

A more significant line of development was the conversion of several merchant ships, mostly cross Channel ferries, to act as seaplane carriers. Typically, these could carry between three and six aircraft, which generally took off from a platform over the bows and on return landed in the sea alongside, to be hoisted aboard by cranes. With modifications, the aircraft complement was slightly increased later in the war and on the largest and best known, HMS Campania, eventually carried up to eleven seaplanes. This method of operation was cumbersome and severely restricted tactical flexibility, while the ships themselves were slow compared with regular warships. In 1917 the large cruiser HMS Furious, then still under construction, was altered by the removal of the forward 18 inch gun turret, which was replaced with a hangar and flying-off deck. After the ship commissioned, Squadron Commander EH Dunning experimented with a Sopwith Pup fighter fitted with a normal wheeled undercarriage. Flying off from the forward flight deck, he flew round the ship and approached up the port side before side-slipping back onto the deck where handlers were ready to grasp specially fitted toggles attached to the wingtips. This was the first time that such a feat had been accomplished and it paved the way for carrier aviation as we know it today. Unfortunately, Dunning was killed only a few days later when he experienced an engine failure while carrying out further trials. Nevertheless it was already realised that his pioneering method was not suitable for normal operational use and Furious was withdrawn for further modifications. She emerged from refit in 1918 with her after gun turret also removed and again this was replaced with a hangar, the roof of which constituted a flying on deck. Although this was a great improvement it was not the complete answer. This arrived in the shape of HMS Argus, the world’s first proper aircraft carrier with a full-length unobstructed flight deck, which had been converted from an uncompleted Italian liner, Conte Rosso. She was equipped with a balanced air group consisting of eight Sopwith Camel fighters and twelve Sopwith Cuckoo torpedo bombers - the sort of numbers that the Royal Navy subsequently struggled to achieve in the interwar years due to the fact that control of the squadrons and their aircraft was naively passed to the fledgling Royal Air Force in 1918. Despite this, the Royal Navy commissioned several carriers in the following decade, including the rebuilt Furious and her sister ships, Courageous and Glorious, the latter pair capable of accommodating up to forty-eight aircraft.

Another large carrier was HMS Eagle, converted from an ex-Chilian battleship and distinguishable by its twin funnels. In 1923 the world’s first aircraft carrier which had been designed from scratch for the role commissioned in the shape of HMS Hermes, although she was considerably smaller than the others. Thus by 1930 the Royal Navy had no fewer than six carriers in service while the rival United States Navy could muster only three, one of which was a converted collier, although the other two, Lexington and Saratoga, were 33,000-ton converted battlecruisers, which were to give sterling service in World War II.

As the threat of war loomed in the 1930s, Britain’s naval rearmament began to accelerate. An early project was the laying down of the 22,000-ton aircraft carrier Ark Royal in 1934, which was completed in 1938 and was capable of carrying up to seventy-two aircraft. She was followed by four Illustrious class carriers, of which the first three commissioned in 1940/41, and the slightly modified Indomitable also followed in 1941. Initially these were designed to operate thirty-six or forty-eight aircraft, although wartime modifications eventually boosted this to fifty-four. Although similar in size to the earlier Ark Royal, the smaller aircraft complement was explained by the fact that these ships were the first carriers to incorporate an armoured flight deck, an innovation that saved them from being sunk in action on more than one occasion. Illustrious was heavily hit by German dive bombers in the Mediterranean in June 1941 and was out of action for over a year while both Formidable and Indomitable were hit by kamikaze attacks in the Pacific in 1945. The latter were only briefly out of action before resuming flying operations and remaining on station. Two further carriers, Implacable and Indefatigable, were commissioned in 1944 and could initially operate fifty-four aircraft (later raised to eighty-one), this increase being due to the incorporation of two hangar decks.

Unfortunately, this build up of the Royal Navy’s carrier fleet in the period between the wars was not matched by the development and procurement of effective aircraft in anything like the numbers required. The reason for this was that control of the Fleet Air Arm was, as already mentioned, in the hands of the Royal Air Force during this vital period. While the junior service took its responsibilities very seriously and attempted to build on the high standards set by the RNAS during World War I, there was nevertheless a lack of clear thinking and direction in respect of formulating the precise requirements and specifications for naval aircraft. Even when the Royal Navy eventually regained control of the Fleet Air Arm in 1937, it was too late to have any major impact immediately and the service went to war with a motley collection of aircraft that fell well below the performance of similar land-based types. Its main torpedo strike aircraft was the Fairey Swordfish biplane, which had a top speed of less than 100 knots when carrying a torpedo. Nevertheless, such was the spirit of the Royal Navy aircrews that even with such limited equipment they achieved some spectacular successes - notably the attack on Taranto. This crippled the Italian battle fleet in November 1940 and sent out a strong message that carrier-based aviation was now the arbiter of naval warfare. In May 1941 it was Swordfish from the carrier Ark Royal that succeeded in crippling the German battleship Bismarck so that the pursuing surface forces were able to intercept and sink her.

Despite Britain’s initial lead in terms of carrier numbers, the US Navy had retained its own air arm and was able to develop aircraft, procedures and tactical doctrine using the two carriers Lexington and Saratoga from 1927 onwards. These imposing ships were characterised by a single massive funnel, which was separated from the main island superstructure, and their cavernous hangars and large flight deck enabled them to operate up to eighty aircraft. In terms of displacement they remained the largest carriers ever built until overtaken by the Midway class, which were not completed until after World War II. In the 1930s America continued a steady, if modest by later standards, programme of carrier construction starting with the 14,500-ton USS Ranger, which was completed in 1934. This was the US Navy’s first purpose-designed carrier and it could carry up to seventy-six aircraft despite being less than half the Lexington’s displacement. She was followed by Yorktown and Enterprise, which could operate around eighty aircraft on a displacement of 20,000 tons and the smaller 14,500-ton USS Wasp, which, despite a reduction in size due to Treaty tonnage limitations, could still operate the same number of aircraft. The last pre-war carrier to commission was the Hornet, which was basically a repeat of the Yorktown and was laid down after the Treaty restrictions had expired. By the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor the US Navy could boast a force of seven fleet carriers approximately equal to that of the Royal Navy at the time. However, the vital difference was in the numbers and types of aircraft, flown and operated by a cadre of experienced and well trained aircrew. Strike aircraft mainly comprised the Devastator and Dauntless, all-metal monoplanes, backed up by the sturdy Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter. These, and subsequent types, were all designed and built specifically for naval use and incorporated the experience gained by intensive flying operations and exercises over the previous decade.

By December 1941, the war in Europe had been raging for almost two years and hostilities with Japan had been anticipated to some degree. With all naval Treaty restrictions now no longer applicable, the US Navy was able to start the construction of a new class of large carriers, which would ultimately form the core of the great naval task forces that were to be the deciding factor in the Pacific War. The first of the new 27,000-ton Essex class carriers was laid down in April 1941 and commissioned in December 1942, a remarkably short construction time for such a large and complex ship. A further sixteen were completed before the end of World War II, while a total of twenty-four were eventually built. The nominal capacity of these ships was eighty aircraft, more or less the same as the preceding classes, but these figures disguised the fact that the Essex class would be able to operate the larger and heavier naval aircraft that were then about to enter service. Unlike the contemporary British carriers, they did not have armoured flight decks and consequently several were seriously damaged and put out of action for considerable periods when subjected to attack by Japanese kamikaze aircraft, although none were actually sunk.

The early war years saw the loss of many of the pre-war carriers, including Lexington, Yorktown, Hornet and Wasp, and they could not immediately be replaced by the Essex class then still under construction. In anticipation of a potential shortage of carriers, an emergency programme was instituted in 1941 to convert several Cleveland class cruiser hulls, then under construction, to light aircraft carriers. The original hull and machinery were retained, a hangar deck was built onto the hull and this was the covered by a narrow flight deck. Funnel uptakes were angled to starboard and a small island superstructure was mounted forward of these. The resulting Independence class eventually numbered some nine ships and, crucially, all commissioned before the end of 1943. The design was obviously something of a compromise and only thirty aircraft could be carried for operational purposes, although when employed in the aircraft ferry role, they could stow up to 100. Their great virtue was a speed of 32 knots, which allowed them to take their place in the fast carrier task groups forming for the great sweep across the Central Pacific.

The last major US carriers laid down in World War II were the three Midway class, which now followed British practice with significant armour protection to both the hull and flight deck. On a full load displacement of around 60,000 tons, they would be capable of carrying up to 137 aircraft. However, although work began in 1943, none of the three laid down were to be in service before the end of the War and their subsequent story is described in Chapter 3.

During World War II, Germany and Italy both attempted to build and commission aircraft carriers but none were completed. Consequently, the initial role of the Royal Navy carriers was to operate in conjunction with surface ships to locate and run down German surface raiders and also to support the abortive land operations in Norway. Early losses included HMS Courageous, which was torpedoed while hunting for submarines, and HMS Glorious, which was sunk by gunfire from the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norway. In the Mediterranean there were some successes, such as Taranto, and HMS Formidable played an important part in the Battle of Matapan. Subsequently Illustrious was badly damaged by air attack in June 1941 and was out of action for almost a year, while Formidable was also out of action from May 1941 for six months. The much loved Ark Royal was torpedoed and sunk in November 1941. Nevertheless, the Royal Navy was able to field no fewer than four carriers (Indomitable, Victorious, Eagle and Argus) in support of Operation Pedestal, a valiant attempt to resupply the vital island of Malta in August 1942. Despite grievous losses, enough ships got though to keep the island going although Eagle was sunk and Indomitable was severely damaged. However, this action marked the turning of the tide and by the end of the year German forces were being swept out of North Africa and in 1943 Sicily and then Italy were successfully invaded. This released the battered carriers and their worn out air groups for much needed refits and reequipping before being sent out to the Far East where they were eventually able to join with their American cousins for the final push against Japan.

In the meantime the US Navy had suffered setbacks of its own before eventually turning the tide of the Pacific War in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Prior to that the USS Lexington had been lost in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, the first time that the action had been entirely between the two carrier air fleets with ships never coming in visual contact with their opponents. At Midway, US naval aircraft sank four Japanese carriers for the loss of the Yorktown, although the USS Wasp was subsequently lost in operations around Guadalcanal in September 1942 and the USS Hornet was sunk at the Battle of Santa Cruz in the following month. The remaining carriers, Saratoga and Enterprise, were both damaged and undergoing repair by the end of 1942 and to help hold the ring the British carrier HMS Victorious was dispatched to the Pacific, teaming up with the USS Saratoga for a few months in 1943. From that time onwards the new Essex class rapidly passed into service, backed up by the smaller Independence class so that the push across the Pacific could begin.

New aircraft were also coming into service, including the Grumman F6F Hellcat and Chance Vought F4U Corsair fighters, while the Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber and Curtiss Helldiver dive bomber made up the strike forces. The first three of these were supplied in considerable numbers to the Royal Navy where they largely replaced British-designed aircraft aboard the fleet carriers. By August 1945 the only British-made aircraft deployed in significant numbers with the British Pacific Fleet was the Seafire Mk.III and there were also a few squadrons of the Fairey Firefly strike fighter, which had made its combat debut over Norway in 1944. When the Pacific War ended in August 1945, almost the entire Royal Navy carrier fleet was deployed in the Far East, including five out of six fleet carriers (Illustrious was at home refitting) and four new light fleet carriers of the 11th ACS (Venerable, Colossus, Glory and Vengeance) whose air groups each comprised twenty-one Corsair fighters and eighteen Barracuda torpedo bombers. The fleet carriers made up the 1st ACS and became designated Task Force 37 with approximately 255 aircraft embarked. However, it is an indication of the relative status of the two navies at this stage of the war when it is realised that the US Navy Task Force 38 comprised over 1,200 aircraft embarked on no fewer than eight Essex class and six Independence class carriers.