9 photos of WWII escort aircraft carriers, the US Navy's small but effective hunter-killers that defeated Germany's U-boats
When German U-boats began sinking convoy ships in the beginning of the war, Great Britain asked the US for help, which responded by building escort carriers. The first escort carrier was the USS Long Island, which was built from an old freighter and launched in January 1940.
The US then built four more from oiler hulls, including the Chenango, which were sent to help with landings in North Africa, where they proved extremely successful in anti-submarine warfare. This led to the building of dozens more and deployments to the Pacific.
In total, the US built and launched 78 escort carriers between 1941-1945.
Source: US Navy
Escort carriers had initially been used to protect convoys, ferrying planes, among other duties. But by 1943, the US had evolved its tactics to hunt and kill U-boats.
Source: US Naval Institute
In may 1943, the USS Bogue scored the first escort carrier kill of a German U-boat after spotting the surfaced U-231 and sent a Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber after it, which released four depth bombs and took it out as it tried to submerge.
Source: US Naval Institute
Grumman TBF Avengers were torpedo dive bombers that could drop bombs and torpedoes. The escort carriers launched them with a primitive hydraulic launch system and recovered them with a cable, Bostic, the Navy reference librarian, said.
But what led to the escort carriers' eventual success over the German U-boats was the Allies code-breaking U-boat radio traffic in 1943, providing escort carriers with accurate locations of enemy submarines.
Source: US Naval Institute
This breakthrough also allowed the Allies to hunt and kill German U-tankers, or "Milch Cows," which refueled the short-range U-boats at sea.
Source: US Naval Institute
This new knowledge of German U-boat and U-tankers allowed the Allies to evolve their tactics, sending escort carriers with destroyers away from their convoys to hunt and destroy the enemy submarines.
Source: US Navy
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