Fourteen Essex-class aircraft carriers experienced combat in WWII.
Yet, none were lost to enemy fire, a surprising statistic given the casualty rate experienced by the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater.
In total, 24 Essex-class carriers were the foundation of the U.S. Navy for decades prior to the arrival of supercarriers like the USS Enterprise in the 1960s.
24-Ship Strong Essex-Class
The Essex class could even be thought of as a foundational element of the U.S. Navy for decades, throughout a generation of wars, which not only includes WWII but also extends to the Korean War, Vietnam, and Cold War events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to a defining work on the Essex class written in the 1990s by Andrew Faltum.
Faltum’s Essex-class carriers text also describes how an Essex-class carrier, the USS Ticonderoga, reportedly played a vital role in attacking North Vietnamese torpedo boats during the Vietnam War.
Looking at the historical contributions and decades-long service of the Essex-class, it makes sense to interpret the ships as critical to defining, influencing, and shaping the carrier-based maritime warfare posture embraced by the U.S. Navy in recent decades.
The Essex class provided the foundations of U.S. Naval power projection through three or more major wars, suffered casualties, yet enabled a wide sphere defining combat operations. In total, 24 Essex-class carriers were built, forming a large force as a Naval foundation for a generation of sailors and warriors.
Evolving Threat Environment
The threat environment is certainly quite different today than during the WWII-era, yet the Essex carriers undoubtedly impacted strategic thinking regarding current concepts of operation with the Carrier Strike Group.
The survivability of Essex carriers during WWII certainly created a lasting impression among war planners, strategic thinkers, and weapons developers.
In areas such as the Pacific, for instance, there is simply no way to project power or launch air attacks against enemy targets without a carrier.
Even if the U.S. Navy and Air Force were able to forward station fighter jets in Japan, Guam, and other U.S. territories and friendly areas throughout the Pacific, there would simply be no way to attack coastal areas in the Pacific with any kind of impactful power projection without carrier-launched attack planes.
Essex-class Aircraft Carrier. Image: Creative Commons.
USS Wasp. Image: Creative Commons.
USS Wasp. Image: Creative Commons.
The carriers are also mobile in that they can reposition as needed as events unfold or threats change in war.
The last Essex carrier served through 1991 during the Gulf War, as it was used as a training platform for years after the carriers were no longer in service. The large flat carrier deck of the Essex carriers may have influenced the creation of the larger Ford-class deck space which enables a 33-percent increase in sortie rate as compared to Nimitz class.
A kamikaze aircraft explodes after crashing into Essex’s flight deck amidships 25 November 1944.
Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
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