Check Out America's Armored Aircraft Carrier: Come Aboard USS Franklin Roosevelt

Robert Farley

Security,

A tough warhship. 

There is some mild irony in that the ship named after Harry S. Truman should receive the same kind of early retirement as the ship that Truman named after his predecessor. Of course, even if she is retired the Harry S. Truman will not be scrapped anytime soon. At worst, she will become a source of spare parts for the rest of the fleet, and at best she will remain intact, an insurance policy against the loss of one of the other carriers.

Several weeks ago, the Navy shocked observers by proposing to retire the nuclear supercarrier USS Harry S. Truman from service some twenty years before expected. Given the gravity of this proposal, it’s worth reflecting on previous decisions to retire aircraft carriers before the exploitation of their full lifespans. In the mid-1970s, the U.S. Navy decided to retire the USS Franklin Roosevelt, a Midway-class aircraft carrier named in honor of President Truman’s predecessor. The Franklin Roosevelt was the first carrier named after a U.S. President, upon an order given by President Harry S. Truman.

(This first appeared several weeks ago.)

The Ship

USS Franklin Roosevelt (often known as “Rosie”) was laid down on December 1, 1943, second ship of the Midway class. Successors to the war-winning Essex class, the Midways were designed to combine an Essex-size airgroup with an armored flight deck. Even early in the war, experience had demonstrated that bombs could have a disastrously lethal effect on even large carriers, necessitating better horizontal protection. While British and Japanese armored carriers sacrificed airgroup for protection, the Americans simply went larger. Rosie and her sisters displaced 45000 tons and could make 33 knots. When first commissioned they could operate upwards of 120 aircraft, although such a large airgroup proved impossible to manage in practice.