Photos Aircraft Carriers

VF-51 on USS Kitty Hawk 79-80

Lieutenant Commander John D. Price, USN and a mail orderly in front of a Vought VO-1 seaplane (BU# A-6716). The others are unidentified. LCDR Price had just completed a mail trip from Hampton Roads, Virginia, to the Delaware Breakwater. The ship is the USS Saratoga. Date: 10 January 1928.
On April 8, 1925, Price had made a night landing on USS Langley (CV-1), the first on an aircraft carrier, while piloting an aircraft from VF-1. Price eventually reached the rank of vice admiral and was Vice Chief of Naval Operations 1949-50.
Naval History and Heritage Command Catalog #: NH 47241

"What, then, prompted [Japan's] surrender? Was it the atomic bombs or was it Russian entry into war? Neither! Japan who had so easily started the war in December 1941 was desperately striving for a way to quit before the Berlin conference, before either of the events mentioned. Never in any period had a nation so powerfully armed so abjectly surrendered. I will tell you why.

"Her navy was sunk! Her raw materials were exhausted. Her fuel oil and fuel products were gone. Her soldiers and her people were hungry. Her war industries shattered. Her supply lines were completely cut. Atom bomb or no atom bomb, her surrender was inevitable, Russian entry into the war did not shorten it one day. Control of the sea was all ours! In all recorded history, whenever or wherever great nations bounded by the seas have fought, control of those seas has become the dominant factor in deciding the issue.

"How was the extraordinary accomplishment achieved? In early December 1941 Senior American Naval Officers in the Pacific were gravely concerned because the balance of naval strength in the Pacific lay with the Japanese. After that fateful even of 7 December the preponderance favoring the enemy was tremendous.

"Now statistics are usually dull as dish water, but let me give you a few as to what happened to the Japanese Navy that are dynamic. It was not a force or a fleet that was defeated, or damaged, or even sunk. It was the whole Navy that was sunk, a Navy that at the outset was third strongest in the world and more powerful than all the forces we could then muster in the Pacific.

"Give your attention to these figures: Of 12 battleships, 11 were sunk, 1 was heavily damaged and inoperative. Of 26 aircraft carriers, 21 were sunk, 5 were damaged in varying degrees, none were operable. Of 43 cruisers, 38 were sunk, 2 were heavily damaged and out of action in Singapore, the remaining 3 were out of action in Japan.

"All, I repeat all of the foregoing damage was inflicted by the aircraft, submarines and surface ships of the American Navy, except 2 cruisers sunk by British ships and 1 by our own army aircraft. But that is not all. Japan had 179 destroyers. 135 were sunk -- 121 of them by your Navy, 14 by army aircraft. Only two of the 44 that remained afloat were fully operable.

"She had 193 submarines, 129 were sunk. As to the remaining 64, damage, lack of spare parts, destruction of repair facilities, lack of fuel, made only a handful operable. Of her merchant marine, our submarines alone had sent 1042 ships of 4,779,000 tons to the bottom. Navy and Army aircraft and surface vessels -- ships and planes of our allies -- and mines disposed of another 2,800,000 tons.

"Very few ships over 1,000 tons remained to move troops or munitions or to bring to Japan vitally essential food, fuel and raw materials. Remember it was our seapower that brought Japan to her knees. When she surrendered she still had a large army intact and a substantial air force, both more than double the forces she had on December 7, 1941. Our enemy had seen his fleet destroyed, his sea lanes cut off, many of his islands captured or neutralized and his vital supply forces eliminated -- all by our control of the sea -- on it, under it and over it."

-- Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, in a Navy Day speech in Des Moines, Iowa on October 27, 1946, as quoted in Douglas V. Smith's book Carrier Battles: Command Decision in Harm's Way. The numbers of ships sunk by the U.S. Navy and other services and by Allies in World War II is confirmed by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King in U.S. Navy at War 1942-1945, Washington: United States Navy Department, 1946, Appendix A, pp. 233-251, with one exception. The fleet carrier Kasagi was under camouflage in Sasebo, fitting out, and had not yet been commissioned when the war ended.

HMS HERMES (HMS ELEPHANT)
28,000 tonnes Centaur-class aircraft carrier
Commissioned November 1959
Decommissioned April 1984
Sold to India as INS Viraat 1987
Withdrawn 2017

USS Carl Vinson​

USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) is the United States Navy's third Nimitz-class supercarrier. She is named for Carl Vinson, a Congressman from Georgia, in recognition of his contributions to the U.S. Navy. The ship was launched in 1980, undertook her maiden voyage in 1983, and underwent refueling and overhaul between 2005 and 2009.

Besides deployments in Operation Desert Strike, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Southern Watch, and Operation Enduring Freedom, Carl Vinson was involved in a number of notable events. The body of Osama bin Laden was buried at sea in 2011 from the deck of Carl Vinson, and that same year, on Veterans Day, she played host to the first NCAA basketball game on an aircraft carrier, between North Carolina and Michigan State.

USS Carl Vinson CVN-70​