My Father and Uncle were radiomen on the Cowpens. Epic story. They and their fellow crew, and all the other crews were so brave and heroic and saved the world.
Also two Former Presidents served onboard this class of Ships. President Ford was on the USS Monetary. President Bush on the USS San Jacinto. Semper Fi
My junior high math teacher was an officer aboard the Princeton. He was detached to Washington during the Leyte campaign to lobby for an automatic fire extinguisher system. He told his students that Betty bombers would attack the his carrier task force at night flying so low that anti-aircraft crews would avoid firing in fear of raking other ships in the task force. In frustration, he pulled out his side arm revolver and fired a few shots at one bomber as it passed near the Princeton. Apparently at the same time the low flying bomber crashed into the ocean. As result he was credited with a kill. RIP Mr. Phaler, thank you for your service.
My father saw extensive service in the Pacific, starting at Pearl Harbor (he was a junior gunnery officer on the USS Phoenix). One day, back in the 70s or so, we were watching something on TV about the war in the Pacific. The scene on the tube at the moment was of some low-flying Japanese aircraft attacking a task force. The ocean was churned up from all the AA fire the ships were directing at the attacking aircraft. Suddenly, the camera pans past a cruiser that's holding station about 1000 yards abeam. I said to my Dad, "Wow, the ship handling of the task force must be exceptional to maintain a safe distance from one another during an attack and not end up getting so close to one another that they shot the crap out of each other". Dad sat there for a second and quietly said "No, it happens".
At the time of the decision to build this classified carrier, the US Navy was so low on carriers, a British carrier was transferred to the Pacific. It was imperative to get these ships built and in service as soon as they could.
My favorite class of improvised ships. Despite their limitations, these CVLs were fast enough to keep up with the big carriers, a very important quality. Escort carriers were much slower and, therefore, not as useful for launching MTOW aircraft.
It was a good way to recover the use of over treaty limit cruiser hulls that would have been scrapped. They provided Avengers and Hellcats right where they were needed.
fuckin cool, those Cleveland class cruisers were fast an hd awesome lines, but these fighter-carriers were bad fuckin ass...they sure couldn't take a torup, but they sure were maneuverable enuf to dodge one..a.a.was decent, but ag kamikaze attack. ..belleau wood, boys
gequitz - Well, CVEs had many tasks: anti-sub, invasion assault, protect slow BB during invasion, invasion fleet cover. The only thing CVEs could not do was keep up with fast carrier ops.
