How many us carriers were sunk at the beginning WW ll?

Answer 1

The US lost only four large fleet carriers during the war. The shortage of carriers was due to the fact that the US had completed only eight carriers when the war began, and it took about two years to build one, before wartime accelerations.

Of the eight US carriers (CV-1), the USS Langley, had been built on a converted collier, the USS Jupiter. In 1936 the Langley was converted to a seaplane tender (AV-3). She was in the southwest Pacific in February 1942 when she was so badly damaged by Japanese bombs that she was abandoned and sunk by her escorts.

The next two carriers were the USS Lexington (CV-2) and the USS Saratoga (CV-3). These sisters were laid down as battle cruisers, and would have been scrapped uncompleted after the Washington Naval Treaty of 1923. Instead they were completed as aircraft carriers. They were the only US carriers to ever have armored hulls, because they had been finished almost up to the weather deck when the conversion was ordered.

USS Lexington was the first US aircraft carrier sunk. She was badly damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, May 8, 1942, and abandoned. A US destroyer finished her off with two torpedoes.

The first ship designed and built from the keel up as a US aircraft carrier was the USS Ranger (CV-4). She was an experiment, and small, too small for use as a fleet carrier. She spent most of the war in non-combat roles. She, along with Saratoga and USS Enterprise, were the only three pre-war carriers to survive the war. Ranger was scrapped in 1947, Saratoga was expended as a nuclear target in the Operation Crossroads bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, and Enterprise was, unforgivably, scrapped in 1959. Enterprise was the only US carrier to serve in all the major carrier battles in the Pacific.

USS Yorktown (CV-5) was sunk at the Battle of Midway, June 1944. Badly damaged during the Battle on June 4, she was taken under tow, but Japanese submarine I-168 got a torpedo into her and she sank June 7.

USS Enterprise (CV-6) survived the war, but was scrapped when efforts to peserve her as a memorial failed.

USS Wasp (CV-7) was sunk by Japanese submarine I-19, September 15, 1942, in waters near Guadalcanal. This was probably the luckiest spread of torpedoes ever fired - four hit the Wasp and one traveled about ten miles and scored a lucky hit on the USS North Carolina (BB-55) at the very end of its range.

USS Hornet (CV-8) was badly damaged in the fourth great carrier battle of 1942, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, on October 24, 1942. She had been at Midway and had launched the Doolittle raiders in April. After absorbing a colossal amount of damage in the battle, US forces attempted to scuttle her. She absorbed nine US torpedoes and over 400 5-inch shells without sinking. Japanese destroyers finished her off with four more torpedoes on October 27, 1942.

By this time US shipyards were completing carriers at an ever increasing pace. The first of the new Essex class, USS Essex (CV-9) was commissioned in December 1942.

Some US fleet carriers were badly damaged during the rest of the war, notably USS Franklin (CV-13), by a Kamikaze. By the heroic exertions of her crew she was saved and made it back to the US. The light carrier USS Princeton (CVL-23) was sunk in October 1944 in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Some escort carriers were also lost, but these were really small ships, mostly made by converting Liberty cargo ship hulls, and capable of embarking only about twenty or so aircraft, for anti-submarine, convoy escorting duties.

So the only US fleet carriers sunk in the war remain the four pre-war ships lost in 1942, the Lexington (CV-2), Yorktown (CV-5), Wasp (CV-7) and Hornet (CV-8). Later carriers were named Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp and Hornet.