6. The Aircraft Carrier
The advent of heavier-than-air fixed wing aircraft in 1903 was followed seven years later by the first experimental take-off of an aircraft from the deck of a United States Navy ship, these two inventions; the aircraft and the aircraft carrier would change the nature of war.
In a war which stretched across the globe and relied on airpower to win battles, the combination of air and naval forces was vital for success. Nowhere did the combination of air and sea play a more significant role than in the giant floating fortresses of the aircraft carrier.
At the beginning of the war, the Royal Navy had a numerical advantage over the German and Italian navies. Britain had seven aircraft carriers compared to none on the German and Italian side. These huge ships were vulnerable to attack, for example, the sinking of HMS Glorious during the Norwegian campaign in 1940. In November 1940, the versatility of the carrier was demonstrated when HMS Illustrious launched a long-range strike on the Italian fleet, this showed the effectiveness of mobile aircraft strikes by short-range aircrafts.
Perhaps the arena where the aircraft carrier truly showed its power was in the Pacific theatre. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour was a display of the power projection capability of a large force of modern carriers. The attack was a turning point in naval history, no other nation had used aircraft carriers so effectively.
As the Pacific War intensified and the U.S.A. made significant gains across the Pacific, the first naval battle was fought by aircraft and not warships at the Battle of Midway. Midway saw all four Japanese carriers sunk by planes from three American carriers. Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific, conducted only six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Military historian John Keegan called the Battle of Midway, “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.”