-
2. A Crew for the “Listing Lizzie”
- The University of Alabama Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
his naval aide, Roosevelt suggested pointedly that the navy acquire a merchant ship and convert her into an aircraft carrier that could provide escort service to the Atlantic convoys. Roosevelt even suggested that such a ship might accommodate eight to twelve of the newfangled helicopters under development at the time.3 Although it declined to adopt the use of the prototype helicopters, on January 7, 1941, the navy, under ever-increasing pressure from the president , agreed to convert two merchant ships, Mormacmail and Mormacland , to light carriers. On March 6, 1941, the navy acquired Mormacmail and began her $1.5 million conversion. Three months later she emerged from the shipyard as the auxiliary aircraft escort vessel Long Island, designated as AVG-1 and captained by Commander Donald B. Duncan, USN. The converted ship had a ®ight deck length of 362 feet, carried sixteen planes, was capable of reaching speeds of 17.6 knots, and berthed 190 of¤cers and 780 sailors. Unlike contemporary carriers, she contained no island atop her ®ight deck to break her ®at silhouette. Rather, a rectangular ®ight deck capped the length of the ship. Using diesel engines for power meant that Long Island’s ®ight deck was not obstructed by smoke pipes. The speed of Mormacmail’s conversion to the carrier Long Island bene¤ted from the president’s personal attention and insistence on a three-month deadline for the project. Mormacland’s conversion took longer, but in November 1941 the United States turned her over to the Royal Navy as HMS Archer. The U.S. Navy’s operations with the ungainly Long Island, like those of the Royal Navy with Archer, proved the viability of the light carrier concept. Japan’s raid on Pearl Harbor drove the point home. Accordingly , on December 26, 1941, the navy ordered the conversion of twenty-four merchantmen and Cimmaron-class ®eet oilers to aircraft carriers. Those converted from merchantmen became known as the Bogue class, named after the ¤rst carrier to be converted in that class, while the four ships converted from the faster and larger ®eet oilers were designated the Sangamon class. Carriers of this group relied on a steam turbine power plant rather than diesel engines, boasted a small island like the larger carriers, and enjoyed longer ®ight decks and more hangar deck space. The Baby Flattops / 5 The four Sangamon carriers—Sangamon (A VG-26), Suwannee (A VG27 ), Chenango (A VG-28), and Santee (A VG-29)—demonstrated their value in November 1942 during Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa. Fighters and bombers from Sangamon, Suwannee, and Santee complemented those of the carrier Ranger and lashed at the Vichy French defenses in Morocco. Following Operation Torch’s success, the commander in chief of the navy’s Atlantic force commented that the escort carriers “proved to be a valuable addition to the Fleet. They can handle a potent air group and, while their speed is insuf¤cient, they can operate under most weather conditions and are very useful ships.”4 After Operation Torch, the navy dispatched escort carriers to the Paci ¤c. The pilots stationed on board Chenango, Suwannee, and Sangamon saw action in the Solomon Islands. Their clashes with Japanese aircraft and warships, while seldom decisive, played an important role in helping to develop the United States’ small-carrier doctrine. The relative success of these ships’ operations off the North African coast and in the South Paci¤c encouraged the navy to pursue an ambitious building program in partnership with Henry J. Kaiser. Kaiser, a longtime political supporter of President Roosevelt’s, had risen from humble beginnings as a photographer and hardware salesman to control one of the largest construction companies in the country. During the 1930s his workers were responsible for such structures as the Bonneville, Grand Coulee, and Shasta Dams as well as the Oakland– San Francisco Bridge. As war approached, Kaiser shifted his focus and remarkable energy to shipbuilding. On January 20, 1941, he rolled his bulldozers into Richmond, California, to build his ¤rst shipyard. Less than ninety days later, it laid down its ¤rst keel.5 The heavy-set, sixty-year-old Kaiser and his shipbuilding operations personi¤ed Roosevelt’s philosophy that “energy was more ef¤cient than ef¤ciency.” Kaiser embraced on-the-job training for his workers, relied on prefabricated bulkheads, decks, and hulls to speed ship construction, and utilized welding rather than the slower but more commonly accepted riveting as his preferred means of slapping ships...