When wwii started in europe, the U.S. Navy had six aircraft carriers in service and two-the future Wasp and Hornet-under construction. A year later, 11 more had been ordered and another 11 were planned for the following fiscal year. But the active fleet still only numbered eight carriers and it was clear that the build-up of the carrier fleet was not going rapidly enough to meet the Navy's needs. Carriers were large complex ships which took a long time to build and some kind of smaller, simpler carrier was going to be needed that could take up the slack until the big ships started to arrive. The solution to this problem was the escort carrier (CVE). Escort carriers would primarily be employed to escort convoys but, as more of them joined the fleet, they were also used in other roles, such as providing air support for amphibious operations and transporting replacement planes.
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