Aircraft Carrier Use in the Battle for Europe

He didn't really specify.
The British carriers were used in the North Sea, just out of range of Axis fighter range.

ASW? Sure, and it was used for that.

Ground support? They were used to support the Torch landing, but every other instance (Overlord, Husky etc) they within range of Allied ground based fighters

Bomber escort? They were used for this, in the missions in Norway against German naval ships. In other areas it could be done by RAF fighters, or else was away from the coast

 

Was it? I'm not convinced. Surely they could launch raids that big but launching one as a counter strike to a carrier raid is much more complex. First of all the planes have to be in reach of the carriers when they are detected and the raid has to get off the ground fairly quickly and find the carriers, I can't think of many times during the war that the Germans could afford to have 1,000 planes just sitting around waiting for a carrier raid.
Consider a number of historical precedents for instance:
The battle of the Philipine Sea where the Japanese had ~750 planes (according to wiki) and had a good idea what was coming and when yet accomplished very little.
Or the invasions of Sicily and the Italian main land especially Anzio where the Germans had a target that was arguably more important than a carrier and was predictable and pinned to the invasion beaches. Yet they never managed such a raid.

This reference: Aircraft Carriers - Google Books
mentions Ranger taking part in a raid vs Norway in 43.

According to this one: The official chronology of the U.S ... - Google Books
it was 4 October and the only such operation of the war. Page 185 if it doesn't come up on that page.

 

It seems to me that the simplest answer is best, they could have been used, but they were better used in the Pacific.

 

No one wanted Ranger getting anywhere near a serious threat, which is why she did all her fighting in the Atlantic.

 

On the other hand, today the US Navy has its battle groups which is built around an aircraft carrier in just about every ocean in the world. Has the nature of threats from potential enemies changed?

 

IMHO everybody's underestimating both the IJN/IJAAF here and just how good the USN had to be taking them on. Once again the Luftwaffe used 109's to escort bombers attacking British convoys heading towards Malta . The RN CV fighters like the Fulmars managed to inflict some pretty good losses on the attacking bombers despite said bombers having '109 escort simply because those 109's were having to check their fuel guagers just a bit much. Now those same RN CV fighters were/would have been decimated by Zero's/Oscars escorting IJAAF/IJN bombers.

Now as to 1,000 plane Luftwaffe attacks just what airfields are they going to stage out of? Luftwaffe fighters basede very far inland aren't going to have the range to escort their bombers very far out over the North Sea. If they can't concentrate they wil be decimated piecemail by Allied CV fighter vectoring . A USN CV task force woud have an even easier time agaisnt this attack then what happened at Phillipine Sea simply because they wouldn't have to worry about a true surface fleet furthermore as per sub attacks Allied landbased aircraft could furnish support also and don't forget the USAAF based in the UK could also provide land based fighters to help out or imagine all those Luftwaffe fighters running desperately low on fuel heading back to base only to find long range land based Allied fighters hovering over their airfields.

 

Jaeger, aircraft from the USS Ranger (CV-4) were involved in combat over Norway in 1943. Here is an excerpt from wiki:

Ranger departed from Scapa Flow with the Home Fleet on 2 October to attack German shipping in Norwegian waters (Operation Leader). The objective of the force was the northern Norwegian port of Bodø. The task force reached launch position off Vestfjord before dawn on 4 October completely undetected. At 06:18, Ranger launched 20 SBD Dauntless dive bombers and an escort of eight Wildcats. One division of dive bombers attacked the 8,000 long tons (8,100 t) freighter LaPlata, while the rest continued north to attack a German ship convoy. The bombers severely damaged a 10,000 long tons (10,000 t) tanker and a smaller troop transport. They also sank two of four small German merchant ships in the Bodø roadstead.
A second attack group from Ranger, consisting of 10 TBF Avenger torpedo bombers and six Wildcats, destroyed a German freighter and a small coastal ship, and bombed a troop-laden transport. Three of the aircraft were lost to anti-aircraft fire. On the afternoon of 4 October, Ranger was located by three German aircraft; her combat air patrol shot down two of the enemy planes and chased away the third.


I remember digging for this information in a similar thread over on the talk a few years ago. One of the members there started a row when he claimed the the USS Ranger was involved in the sinking of the Tirpitz while it was in Norwegian waters. I had forgotten about this information until coming across this thread.

 

Today a carrier air wing is close to the size of a minor power air force, in WW2 carriers were smaller and air forces larger, the big advantage of the modern carrier is that it's self contained and carries it's own logistics, it's much easier to move a task force than to redeploy half a dozen combat squadrons.

 

But the planes were smaller as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_(CVN-68)
Lists the airgroup of the Nimitz as 90 fixed and rotary wing aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Essex_(CV-9)
Lists Essex as carrying 90-100 aircraft.

While the CV's were much better used in the Pacific they could have had some significant impact in the Atlantic. Certainly a lot of CVE's were used there although mostly for ASW work.

 

Spot on correct. http://ehistory.osu.edu/wwii/USNCV.cfm

U 505 was kept submerged for 60 hours straight before she was depth bombed and forced back to port. (The most heavily damaged U-Boat to make it back in.)

Her very next voyage was the one where surrendered along with her treasure trove of Enigma secrets to aircraft from the carrier Guadal Canal.
Photos from the Chicago Musuem. http://www.pbase.com/larryrz/u505

List of Escort Carriers by country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_escort_carriers_by_country

 

USS Princeton (one bomb) sunk.
USS St. Lo (Kamikaze) sunk. I call that a bomb of the guided variety.
USS Franklin (two bombs) out of the war not sunk.

 

You are correct, I was not specific enough, I should have said "Fleet Carrier". I came across this fact some time ago when trying to ascertain why the Ranger was never used in the Pacific. The Navy's online history mentioned that one of the factors was inadequate torpedo protection and went on to state that no CV was lost to bomb damage alone. In fact they went into great detail describing the damage caused by bombs and how each would have survived, save for the torpedo hits. I'm glad you brought up the Franklin, while severely damaged she managed to sail back to Pearl Harbor at 14 knots and then onto the U.S. East Coast to be repaired. The Bunker Hill was severely damaged by bombs and kamikazes in May of 1945, managed to sail back to Bremerton via Pearl Harbor and was back in action by September and participated in Operation Magic Carpet.

 

This reminds me of the Army-Navy game just a week prior to Pearl. The program for the event had a photo of the USS Arizona with a caption that read something along the lines of "despite claims of air enthusiasts, no battleship has ever been sunk by bombs." One week later............


Also while no US CV was permanlty put out of action by the Japanese, the same can not be said for the reverse. The Japanese lost Mdway from mostly bomb damage. While the Japanese put them under the waves with finishing torpedoes, the ships themselfs were worthless by that point. The bombs had gutted the ships and left them practicly empty shells.

 

Very good and interesting point.