Essex Class Carriers: Toughest Ships of WWII

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington DC) 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.