“Ranger would go down in history as the only one of the U.S. Navy’s original pre-war carriers not to see action against the Japanese.”

By Marc Liebman

WHEN CONSIDERING U.S. Navy aircraft carrier operations of the Second World War, the major battles of the Pacific immediately come to mind: the Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz Islands, Marinas et al. In the Atlantic, smaller escort carriers are often cited for their part in the war against the German U-Boats.

Yet, one American carrier, the USS Ranger (CV-4), would not only decisively sortie fighters, dive bombers and torpedo bombers during the 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa, the vessel would also take part in operations against German forces in Norway. In fact, Ranger would go down in history as the only one of the U.S. Navy’s original pre-war carriers not to see action against the Japanese.

America’s First Purpose-Built Career

Ranger, which was laid down in 1931, was America’s first purpose-built aircraft carrier. The USS Langley (CV-1) was converted from a 1912 collier in 1920, while the USS Lexington (CV-2) and USS Saratoga (CV-3) were originally planned during the First World War as battlecruisers, but completed as aircraft carriers in 1925.

Ranger, which had a displacement of 17,000 tons, was designed to comply with the size limitations on warships laid out in the 1920 Washington Naval Treaty. By comparison, the Lexington and Saratoga both weighed in at 45,000 tons.

Ranger’s comparative small size limited her air wing to just 70 airplanes (larger carriers could support as many as 80, plus 30 spares) and restricted how much defensive armament and armor could be fitted. The carrier’s unrefueled range was 10,000 nautical miles at 12 knots. With a top speed of only 29 knots and no catapult, Ranger could not launch Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers without at least a 10 to 15 knot headwind. These limitations would eventually decide in which ocean Ranger would fight in the coming war.

Ranger Goes to War

When the U.S. was attacked on December 7, 1941, three of the U.S. Navy’s fleet carriers —Ranger, USS Wasp (CV-7) and USS Hornet (CV-8) — were assigned to the Atlantic.

Hornet however, after proving herself capable of launching twin-engine B-25 Mitchell medium bombers, would soon be ordered to the Pacific to lead the famous Doolittle Raid.

Meanwhile Wasp sailed twice into the Mediterranean to ferry Spitfires to Britain’s beleaguered Malta garrison. But after the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in which the carriers Lexington (CV-2) and Yorktown (CV-5) were lost, Wasp too was sent to the Pacific, leaving Ranger as the only fleet carrier left in the Atlantic. She would be put to work almost immediately.

Ranger was first ordered to Norfolk for a radar upgrade. From there, the carrier steamed to Quonset Point Naval Air Station where 66 USAAF Curtis P-40 fighters were loaded onto her flight deck. Packed below on Ranger’s hanger deck were the Grumman F4F Wildcats and Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers of Air Group 5, which were left behind when Hornet was ordered to strike Japan. Ranger’s orders were to carry the USAAF planes into the South Atlantic, where on May 10, 1942, they would take off and fly to Accra, Ghana, refuel and cross Africa to Egypt to support the British Eighth Army. A patrol of the North Atlantic would follow, after which the Ranger would ferry another load of P-40s, this time the entire 57^th Fighter Group, to Accra. The planes, which launched on July 19, would reach Egypt in time to fight in the Second Battle of El Alamein that autumn.

Air Cover for Operation Torch

Ranger, back in U.S. waters, now represented the largest carrier in the U.S. Atlantic Fleet.

The ship and its air wing spent the late summer with four new Long Island-class escort carriers training for antisubmarine warfare, as well as anti-shipping operations and strike missions against land-based targets.

In the autumn, Ranger, along with a flotilla of small escort carriers would be assigned to the western task force charged with providing cover to the amphibious landings on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, as part of the larger Operation Torch.

Ranger and its escorts would play a pivotal role in the invasion; without them, the Morocco landings would be without air cover. RAF Spitfires and P-40s flying from Gibraltar couldn’t reach the three landing Atlantic landing zones. And there weren’t enough Lockheed P-38s to support both the USAAF Eighth Air Force’s early bomber strikes against Nazi-occupied Europe and fly cover for the invasion of North Africa from Gibraltar’s airfields. Republic P-47s were just starting to come off the production lines and P-51Bs with the turbocharged Allison version of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine would be built until 1943. Ranger and its escorts would have to do the work themselves.

Reaching the African coast on Nov. 8, 1942, Ranger, along with the escort carriers USS Sangamon (CVE-26); USS Suwanee (CVE-27) and USS Santee (CVE-29), provided all the air cover and close air support for three different assault groups spread over 150 miles of the Moroccan coast. All told, the group carried 109 F4F Wildcat fighters, 36 SBD dive bombers, and 27 Avenger torpedo bombers. A fourth escort carrier – USS Chenango (CVE-28) – had its decks packed with 76 P-40Es that were to be ferried ashore as soon as airfields were captured.

The pro-Nazi Vichy French Navy opted to defend French-held Morocco and sortied out against the invasion force. In the ensuing battle, dive bombers from the Ranger crippled the French Navy destroyer Albatros, forced a cruiser Primaguet to beach itself and heavily damaged the battleship Jean Bart, which opened fire on the transports and their escorts landing American soldiers near Casablanca.

The next day, Jean Bart’s crew managed to get one of its 15-inch gun turrets working again and fired at the American heavy cruiser USS Augusta. Dive bombers from Ranger again hit the French ship and sank her at the pier.

Aircraft from the Ranger, and those from the escort carriers, attacked gun positions, French tanks and other targets in support of the invasion force that came ashore in three different locations.

In the air, Ranger’s Wildcats from engaged Vichy French Dewoitine D.520s, which although were slightly slower than the German Messerschmitt Bf-109E had a better rate of turn.

Using tactics developed in the Pacific, the Wildcats downed 15 Dewoitines and destroyed another 70 French aircraft on the ground. Only two American fighters lost to enemy fire. This gave the Wildcat a 7.5 to 1 kill ratio against the French interceptors.

Ranger and the four escort flattops remained on station until Casablanca capitulated on Nov. 11 and enough airplanes had been flown from Gibraltar to provide additional air cover for the U.S. troops on the ground.

Operation Leader

By the end of 1942, America’s carrier fleet was in precarious shape. Lexington, Hornet, Yorktown and Wasp had all been lost in combat in the Pacific, while Saratoga and Enterprise were both badly damaged and were in the yards for extensive repairs. The U.S. Navy needed a large carrier to continue the war with Japan, but was reluctant to risk the Ranger. So, in 1943, U.S. and Royal Navies worked out a swap: HMS Victorious would join the U.S. Pacific fleet until the new Essex-class carriers became operational in late 1943. In return, Ranger, her air wing and several escorts would be assigned to the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet.

While American escort carriers were already helping win the campaign against Hitler’s U-boats, the German surface fleet still posed a formidable threat to convoys carrying materiel to the Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangel. Meanwhile, enemy merchant ships were still bringing iron ore from the mines in Bodø, Norway. Despite this, the British hadn’t attacked German shipping and bases in northern Norway since 1940. Operation Leader would change this.

Under the plan, Ranger, escorted by the heavy cruiser USS Tuscalosa and four American destroyers along with the Royal Navy battleships HMS Duke of York and HMS Anson, the light cruiser HMS Belfast and seven destroyers, would sail into the Norwegian Sea and carry out strikes against enemy shipping. The task force arrive undetected off Bodø, Norway on Oct. 2, 1943.

Planes from Ranger immediately carried out two different strikes. Twenty SBD Dauntless bombers and eight F4F Wildcats carried out the first raid, badly damaging the German freighters La Plata and Kerplien and crippling the tanker Schleswig. The flight also found and sank the ore carrier Rabat and heavily damaged two more freighters, Cap Guir and Malaga.

Ten Avengers and six Wildcats struck south. TBMs bombed the Norwegian cargo ship Topeka, which was so heavily damaged it had to be beached to prevent it from sinking. They also found and sank the small cargo ship Vaagan, which was operated by Norwegian crews under the control of the German occupiers of Norway. The flight also hammered the German troop ship Skramstad which had 850 soldiers aboard, killing 200.

No German fighters came up to defend Bodø, which freed the Wildcats escorting the Avengers to break off and strafe the German cargo ship Wolsum while setting an ammunition barge on fire.

All in all, Ranger’s air wing sank 31,000 tons of German shipping, damaged several others at the cost of just three aircraft – an Avenger and two Dauntlesses – and seven men. Three became a POWs, two died in their Avenger and two died when their SBD crashed.

As Operation Leader task force was withdrawing westward, two Heinkel 115 seaplanes and a Ju-88 attempted to attack the Allied vessels, but were quickly shot down by VF-4’s Wildcats. The Germans tried to attack the task force again as it steamed south toward the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow, but with little effect.

Operation Leader was the last carrier strike in the Atlantic. After the raid, Ranger remained in the Home Fleet until November 1943 when she returned to the U.S. For the rest of the war, Ranger was a training carrier first off Norfolk and then in 1944, off San Diego.

While Operation Leader appears to be a minor one, the air strikes had far reaching impacts. First, the Germans, caught totally by surprise by the strikes, diverted assets away from other fronts to protect their warships in Norwegian harbors. Second, Berlin recognized that carriers would be escorting convoys to and from Murmansk and would now exercise greater caution when attacking them. Finally, the U.S. and Royal Navies took another large step in conducting joint operations. The experience would prove beneficial in the Atlantic and later, in the Pacific when the Royal Navy rejoined the war against Japan in the dangerous waters off Malaysia and then the Philippines, Okinawa and Japan.

Post-script

In 1987, Norwegians found the wreck of the Avenger from Ranger that was shot down during Operation Leader. The crew’s remains were recovered and buried at a Norwegian memorial near the former German coastal batter at Fagervika. One of the propeller blades from the downed aircraft is now on display in the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida; the other two are shown at the Norwegian Home Guard base at Søvik. In 1993, Norwegians found and partially recovered one of the SBDs that was shot down. The airframe is now at the Aviation Museum in Bødø.

 

Marc Liebman is a retired U.S. Navy Captain and Naval Aviator and the award-winning author of 14 novels, five of which were Amazon #1 Best Sellers. His latest is the counterterrorism thriller The Red Star of Death. Some of his best-known books are Big Mother 40, Forgotten, Moscow Airlift, Flight of the Pawnee, Insidious Dragon and Raider of the Scottish Coast. All are available on Amazon here.

A Vietnam and Desert Shield/Storm combat veteran, Liebman is a military historian and speaks on military history and current events.

Visit his website, marcliebman.com, for: past interviews, articles about helicopters, general aviation, weekly blog posts about the Revolutionary War era, as well as signed copies of his books.

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