USS Enterprise CV-6
The Most Decorated Ship of the Second World War

11 U. S. Carriers Were Sunk, 30 Hit

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 - Eleven United States aircraft carriers were sunk and thirty others were damaged, on fifty-two separate occasions, the Navy revealed today in a recapitulation of its carrier activities in World War II.

Of the seven carriers with which the Navy started the war, only the Ranger, which saw her principal actions at Malta and Africa, escaped being sunk or damaged.

Japanese air, surface and submarine attacks accounted for the carrier toll, with the single exception of the "baby flat-top" Block Island, sunk by German submarine torpedoes in the Western Atlantic.

The "most damaged" ship, the Navy recounted, was the "Big E" - the Enterprise - one of the three surviving carriers (the Enterprise, Saratoga and Ranger) that were in commission at the beginning of the war. The Enterprise was hit six times in actions in which her planes and guns destroyed more than 1,000 attacking planes^[1].

Both the Franklin and Intrepid were damaged four times, and the Saratoga was hit on three occasions.