Friedman, Norman The British Aircraft Carriers in Two World Wars

The Royal Navy invented the aircraft carrier and most of the key innovations that enabled aircraft carriers to remain effective by exploiting continuous changes in aircraft technology, from biplanes to supersonic jets. This two-volume work tells (and explains) how this happened over more than a century of British aircraft carrier development, drawing extensively on declassified official documents from the United Kingdom and the United States. Key topics include British dominance in the early years of aircraft carrier development and the bold and highly original plans for their use in the First World War, which later inspired naval thinking about the potential of carrier-based aviation. The introduction of armoured flight decks in the 1930s was only the first in a series of British innovations, the most important of which enabled the use of jet aircraft on aircraft carriers (the sloping deck, the steam catapult and the mirror landing system). These British developments, particularly the steam catapult, were crucial to the survival of the US aircraft carrier fleet in the post-war period, a fact that is often forgotten. This book covers all aircraft carriers built in the United Kingdom, including those in service with the Commonwealth and abroad, providing a detailed explanation of the historical context, both operational and technical, as well as the connection to larger national interests of the United Kingdom. The book is richly illustrated with photographs and also includes reproductions of official plans from the National Maritime Museum, many of which have never been published before.