Key Points – The WWII-era Essex-class aircraft carriers were a pivotal development that served as a historic bridge to the modern carrier age. Some experts consider this one of the best classes ...

Perhaps no vessel embodies the U.S. Navy’s embrace of the aircraft carrier as the centerpiece of its strategy as the Essex-class carrier.Between 1943 and 1950, twenty-four of the thirty-thousand ...

The Best: During World War II, the United States Navy commissioned 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers, making it the most numerous class of capital warships of the 20th century.These carriers were a ...

Modernizations of Essex-class aircraft carriers between between 1944 and 1974, left to right: USS Franklin; ... Essex-class carriers became the backbone of the US Navy's strength during the war.

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17), an Essex-class aircraft carrier, fought in battles across the Pacific Theater, including at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It suffered heavy casualties during the invasion of ...

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17), an Essex-class aircraft carrier, fought in battles across the Pacific Theater, including at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It suffered heavy casualties during the invasion of ...

Commissioned 75 years ago on Dec. 31, 1942, the Newport News-built USS Essex was the lead vessel of a new class of aircraft carriers that became the Navy's sledgehammer in the Pacific during World ...

The U.S. fielded the Essex class of carriers during WWII, which displaced over 36,000 tons. That's a lot, but the latest U.S. carrier class, the Gerald R. Ford, displaces 100,000 tons.