Essex-Class Aircraft Carrier

The Essex class is a class of American aircraft carriers, the lead ship USS Essex commissioned in December 1942, built in greater numbers than any other class of aircraft carrier in history, with twenty-four ships completed during and shortly after the Second World War, and it formed the core striking power of the United States Navy's fast carrier task forces in the Pacific theater from 1943 onward. Larger and better protected than the earlier Yorktown-class carriers that fought the critical early Pacific battles, and typically operating an air group of between ninety and one hundred aircraft, Essex-class carriers took part in nearly every major American naval offensive across the Pacific from the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaigns through the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the final assaults on Okinawa and the Japanese home islands. Numerous Essex-class ships remained in active or reserve American service for decades after the Second World War, extensively modernized to operate jet aircraft, and several saw further combat service during the Korean War and the Vietnam War before the last were finally retired in the 1990s.