Aircraft Carriers
Flat Tops · Escort Carriers · Flight-Deck Operations
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The aircraft carrier replaced the battleship as the heart of the fleet in the Pacific war.
These pages follow the carriers through their hardest years — the launching of a new
Lexington, the loss of Wasp, Langley and the gallant
Hornet, the raids on Japan, the rise of the small escort carriers, and on into the
postwar nuclear fleet. Drawn from the Navy’s own All Hands magazine, 1942–1969,
with modern flight-deck video.
✈ Building the Carriers — 1942
- New Lexington Launched — All Hands, October 1942
- 104-Day Continuous Cruise — All Hands, October 1942
- USS Wasp and USS Langley — All Hands, December 1942
✈ Carriers at War — 1942–1945
- Field Day for ‘Fighting 6’ — All Hands, December 1942
- The Part Carriers Played Off North Africa — All Hands, February 1943
- ‘Hornet’ Takes a Heavy Toll — All Hands, February 1943
- Revealed: Tokyo Bombed From ‘Hornet’ — All Hands, May 1943
- The Story of Auxiliary Carriers — All Hands, May 1943
- Navy Planes Hit Japan; Marines Invade Iwo — February 1945
- Yanks Land on Luzon as Navy Planes Sweep China Coast — February 1945
- 1440 Saved from USS Princeton — 1945
- They Ran But Won — All Hands, November 1945
- The ‘Big E’ of the Fleet — All Hands, November 1945
✈ Postwar & Modern Carriers