Global InformationAtlantic Theater aircraft carrier operations during World War II information
World War II was the first war where naval aviation took a major part in the hostilities. Aircraft carriers were used from the start of the war in Europe looking for German merchant raiders and escorting convoys. Offensive operations began with the Norwegian campaign where British carriers supported the fighting on land.
Carriers were important to the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre where they were used to resupply Malta's aircraft and so keep it viable in preventing resupply of Axis forces in North Africa.
Later in the war small escort carriers built on civilian cargo hulls took over convoy protection.
Naval historians such as Evan Mawdsley, Richard Overy, and Craig Symonds concluded that World War II's decisive victories on land could not have been won without decisive victories at sea.[1][2][3] Naval battles to keep shipping lanes open for combatant's movement of troops, guns, ammunition, tanks, warships, aircraft, raw materials, and food largely determined the outcome of land battles. Without the Allied victory in keeping shipping lanes open during the Battle of the Atlantic, Britain could not have fed her people or withstood Axis offensives in Europe and North Africa.[4] Without Britain's survival and without Allied shipments of food, materiel and industrial equipment to the Soviet Union,[a] her military and economic power would likely not have rebounded in time for Russian soldiers to prevail at Stalingrad and Kursk.[5][1][6][7][8]
Allied operations in the Atlantic and Pacific war theaters were interconnected because they frequently competed for scarce naval resources for everything from aircraft carriers to transports and landing craft.[9] Effective transport of troops and military supplies between the two war theaters required naval protection for shipping routes around the Cape of Good Hope, through the Suez canal, and through the Panama Canal. In both theaters, maritime dominance enabled combatants to use the sea for their own purposes and deprive its use by adversaries. As naval historian Admiral Herbert Richmond stated, "Sea power did not win the war itself: it enabled the war to be won".[10]
Aircraft carriers played a major role in winning decisive naval battles,[11] supporting key amphibious landings, and keeping critical merchant shipping lanes open for transporting military personnel and their equipment to land battle zones.
- ^ a b Mawdsley 2019 p478
- ^ Overy, p. 61
- ^ Symonds, p. 641
- ^ Overy 1995, pp18–19
- ^ Overy pp. 19, 254, 321
- ^ Baranov, Sergey (14 Mar 2018). "Lend-Lease: How American supplies aided the USSR in its darkest hour". Russia. Science & Tech. Retrieved 29 Aug 2019.
- ^ Hill, Alexander (July 2008). "Did Russia Really Go It Alone- How Lend-Lease Helped The Soviets Defeat The Germans". History.net. Retrieved 28 Aug 2019.
- ^ Toland, John (1965). The Last 100 Days. New York, NY & Toronto, Canada: Bantam Books. p. 102. ISBN 0-553-34208-8.
- ^ Symonds, WWII at Sea, pp. xi–xii
- ^ Mawdsley, pp. xxxix, 477
- ^ Symonds, p. 268
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