Casablanca-class escort carrier

Casablanca-class escort carriers were standardized throughout the class. They were long overall, had a beam of , and a draft of . They displaced standard, with a full load. They had a long hangar deck and a long flight deck. They were powered by two Skinner Unaflow reciprocating steam engines, which drove two shafts, providing , thus enabling them to make . They had a cruising range of at a speed of . Their compact size necessitated the installation of an aircraft catapult at the bow, and there were two aircraft elevators to facilitate movement of aircraft between the flight and hangar deck: one each fore and aft. One /38 caliber dual-purpose gun was mounted on the stern. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by eight Bofors anti-aircraft guns in single mounts and twelve Oerlikon cannons mounted around the perimeter of the deck. By the end of the war, Casablanca-class carriers had been modified to carry thirty Oerlikon cannons and sixteen Bofors guns; the doubling of the latter having been accomplished by putting them into twin mounts. Sensors onboard consisted of a SG surface-search radar and a SK air-search radar. Although Casablanca-class escort carriers were intended to function with a crew of 860 and an embarked squadron of 50 to 56, the exigencies of wartime often necessitated the inflation of the crew count. They were designed to carry 27 aircraft, but the hangar deck could accommodate more during transport or training missions. A typical aircraft complement for a Casablanca class CVE was 16 Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters, and 12 Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo-bombers. ==Naming==

The Casablanca class initially continued the US Navy's policy of naming escort carriers after bays and sounds, in this case the numerous inlets of the Alexander Archipelago that form the southeast coastline of Alaska, though several were subsequently renamed to carry on the US Navy's tradition of naming aircraft carriers after battles. Those ships that appear to be named after islands, seas, straits or cities actually commemorated battles fought at those locations. Several had their original "Bay" names changed to battle names while under construction, and two of them, Midway (CVE-63) and Coral Sea (CVE-57), lost their battle names mid-career to new s, becoming and respectively. Unlike the larger and s, none were named to commemorate historical naval vessels. == Production time and Navy refusal ==

Although Essex-class aircraft carriers were completed in 20 months or less, 1941 projections on the basis of the 38-month average pre-war construction period estimated no new fleet carriers could be expected until 1944. Kaiser had reduced construction time of cargo ships (Liberty ships) from more than a year to less than 90 days, and proposed building a fleet of 50 small carriers in less than two years. The US naval authorities refused to approve construction of the Kaiser-built ships until Kaiser went directly to the President's advisers. The Allies were in desperate need of carriers to replace early war losses. Kaiser produced the small carriers as rapidly as planned and resistance to their value quickly disappeared as they proved their usefulness defending convoys, providing air support for amphibious operations, and allowing fleet carriers to focus on offensive air-strike missions. Unlike most other large warships since , the Casablanca-class ships were equipped with uniflow reciprocating engines instead of steam turbines. This was done because of bottlenecks in the gear-cutting industry, but greatly limited their usefulness after the war. ==Service==

Although designated as convoy escort carriers, the Casablanca class was far more frequently used in large fleet amphibious operations, where speed was less important and their small airgroups could combine to provide the effectiveness of a much larger ship. Their finest hour came in the Battle off Samar, when Taffy 3, a task unit composed of six of these ships and their screen of three destroyers and four destroyer escorts, gave battle against the Japanese main battle force ("Center Force"). Their desperate defense not only preserved most of their own ships, but succeeded in turning back the massive force with only their aircraft joined by aircraft from Taffy 1 and 2 consisting of additional Casablanca-class carriers, machine guns, torpedoes, depth charges, high-explosive bombs, and their own 5-inch/38-caliber guns. Tasked with ground support and antisubmarine patrols, they lacked the torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs to tackle a surface fleet alone. Taffy 3 was to be protected by Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet with carriers and battleships. But the Third Fleet had left the scene to pursue a decoy carrier fleet, inadvertently leaving Taffy 3 the only force between the massive Japanese fleet and undefended landing forces at Leyte Gulf. The lightly armed vessels each had only one 5-inch/38 cal gun mounted aft, yet two of their number, and , became the only US aircraft carriers to ever record a hit on an enemy warship by its own guns. St. Lo hit a Japanese destroyer with a single round and Kalinin Bay damaged a with two hits. In addition, the gun crew on may have struck the cruiser Chōkai, with up to six 5-inch shells. One of these rounds may even have caused a large secondary explosion – probably from one of Chōkais own torpedoes – on the starboard side that proved fatal to the heavy cruiser. White Plainss gun crew claimed to have put all six 5-inch rounds into Chōkai from a range of , near the maximum effective range for the 5-inch/38 gun. However, Japanese sources attributed the loss of Chōkai to bomb damage from an air attack. Another noteworthy achievement of the Casablanca class was when , under command of Captain Daniel V. Gallery, participated in the first capture-at-sea of a foreign warship by the US Navy since the War of 1812 when a crew of volunteers from boarded after Gallery's Guadalcanal-centered hunter-killer group forced it to the surface with depth charges. Guadalcanal also earned the distinction of being the only aircraft carrier in history to conduct flight operations with a captured enemy vessel in tow. ==Notable incidents==

Of the eleven United States aircraft carriers of all types lost during World War II, five were Casablanca class escort carriers: • 'CVE-56 Liscome Bay''''' Sunk 24 November 1943. Submarine torpedo launched from IJN I-175 SW off Butaritari (Makin). • 'CVE-73 Gambier Bay''''' Sunk 25 October 1944. Concentrated surface gunfire from IJN Center Force during Battle off Samar. • 'CVE-63 St. Lo (ex-Midway ex-Chapin Bay)' Sunk 25 October 1944. Kamikaze aerial attack during Battle of Leyte Gulf. • 'CVE-79 Ommaney Bay''''' Sunk 4 January 1945. Kamikaze aerial attack in the Sulu Sea en route to Lingayen Gulf. • 'CVE-95 Bismarck Sea''''' Sunk 21 February 1945. Kamikaze aerial attack off Iwo Jima. ==Post war==

Some ships were retained postwar as aircraft transports, where their lack of speed was not a major drawback. Some units were reactivated as helicopter escort carriers (CVHE and T-CVHE) or utility carriers (CVU and T-CVU) after the war, but most were deactivated and placed in reserve once the war ended, stricken in 1958-9 and scrapped in 1959–61. One ship, , was heavily modified into an amphibious assault ship (LPH-6), but was scrapped in 1966. Originally, half of their number were to be transferred to the Royal Navy under Lend-Lease, but instead they were retained in the US Navy and the Batch II s were transferred instead as the (the RN's Batch I Bogues were the Attacker class). ==Ships of the class==

All ships of the Casablanca class were built in Vancouver, Washington, at the Kaiser Shipbuilding Company's Vancouver Shipyard. The following ships of the class were constructed. ==See also==