ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Aircraft CarrierPowered by two nuclear reactors with four gearedsteam turbines and four shafts, the Nimitz-class carrier iscapable of spending at least half a year at sea, and morethan a decade without refueling. Its ship’s company exceeds3,000, with almost 2,500 more on the air wing.Below decks is an entire city, complete with vast warrensof living spaces, dining halls that serve nearly 20,000meals a day, a radio and television station, a barber shop,a library, gymnasium, a hospital and dentist office, shops,and a post office.Evolution of the CarrierAt 11:01 a.m. on January 18, 1911, the U.S. Navy’s EugeneEly landed a Curtiss pusher aircraft on a specially builtplatform aboard the USS Pennsylvania. Thus, was bornthe concept of the aircraft carrier. On March 20, 1922, theNavy commissioned the Langley, its first carrier, builtfrom a converted collier called the Jupiter. Later that year,as a result of the 1922 Washington Naval Limitation Treaty,which limited battleship inventories, Congress authorizedthe conversion of the unfinished battleships Lexingtonand Saratoga. In June 1934, the Ranger, the first ship builtas an aircraft carrier, was commissioned.During the interwar period, the aircraft carrier benefitedfrom a number of innovations, most of them Britishin origin. For example, the Royal Navy introduced the ideaof arresting wire (originally necessary because the flimsyWorld War I-era planes might blow overboard), as well aselevator lifts for stowing craft. Later innovations in catapultsand landing lights would also come from the UnitedKingdom. The British and Americans were not the onlyforces building aircraft carriers; like the Americans, theJapanese, who had signed the Washington naval agreement,converted unfinished battleships to carriers.Carriers figured heavily in World War II, particularlyduring operations in the Pacific theatre. The Japaneselaunched their attack on U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor inDecember, 1941, from carriers, and in May, 1942, theUnited States struck back decisively in the Battle of theCoral Sea, the first naval battle in which opposing fleetsfought without their ships coming in sight of one another.A month later, the Battle of Midway proved one of theturning points in the war, and reinforced the concept ofnaval air support.Postwar changes. By the end of World War II, the UnitedStates had commissioned more than 34 carriers, withseveral more made operational late in 1945. But it had alsolost several such vessels, including the first two, the Langleyand the Lexington. Following the war, the introduction ofguided missiles revolutionized the nature of the carrierbattle group, while nuclear fission replaced diesel powerfor the most advanced carriers.Several British innovations—the angled landing strip,which made it possible for a jet to land far from parkedaircraft, as well as the mirrored landing site and steamEncyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Securitycatapults—made it possible to build carriers capable oflaunching powerful aircraft and managing complex airmissions. But as the Cold War progressed, it became clearthat only extraordinary carriers could support the vessels’emerging threefold purpose: to deliver air strikes againsttargets on sea and land; to protect other ships at longrange; and to support antisubmarine operations throughtheir battle groups. Only a true world power could affordto build carriers big enough to perform all three tasks—adistinction that, in effect, separated the United States fromthe rest of the world.With the launch of its 59th carrier, Forrestal, in 1959,the United States introduced the era of the very largecarrier. The Forrestal included rectangular extensions onthe rear part of the flight deck, which greatly expanded thedeck area. Designers had also moved the elevators off tothe side, so that they could be used even as aircraft weretaking off and landing.Two years later, in 1961, the Navy introduced the firstnuclear-powered carrier, the Enterprise. It is no accidentthat the world’s most well-known fictional spaceship, fromthe 1960s television show Star Trek, was also called theEnterprise. During that era, the standard of excellenceamong carriers—the epitomy of technological superiorityanyone was likely to encounter in real life—was the Enterprise,which carried 100 aircraft, displaced 75,700 tons(68,674 tonnes), and moved at speeds higher than 30knots (55.6 kph). With eight nuclear reactors, it could travelfor three years before being replaced.As impressive as it was, the Enterprise would beeclipsed by the Nimitz (commissioned in May 1975) andthe rest of its class. Instead of eight reactors, these requiredonly two, whose uranium cores needed to bereplaced once every 13 years. The carriers displaced 81,600tons, but had much smaller propulsion systems, and thus,could store much more aircraft fuel.As of 2003, the United States had launched a total of75 carriers, with two more under construction. Its 12 activecarriers included the Enterprise and the Kitty Hawk class(the Kitty Hawk and Constellation), all launched in 1961;the John F. Kennedy, launched in 1968; and eight carriersof the Nimitz class: Nimitz, Dwight D. Eisenhower (1977),Carl Vinson (1982), Theodore Roosevelt (1986), AbrahamLincoln (1989), George Washington (1992), John C. Stennis(1995), and Harry S. Truman (1998). Additionally, the RonaldReagan was under construction, with launch plannedfor the middle of the decade, while construction was tobegin on the George H. W. Bush, with completion plannedfor 2009. (Both are Nimitz-class carriers.)Other nations and light carriers. The United States hasdecommissioned about as many carriers—63—as the restof the world had afloat in 2003. Nations with carriersincluded the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Italy,Japan, Spain, India, Brazil, Chile, Peru, China, and Thailand.The leading carrier power, other than the UnitedStates, was—not surprisingly, given the many previous19