The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia
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| Tonnage | 7886 tons standard displacement |
| Dimensions | 492' by 69' by 25'6" 150.0m by 21.0m by 7.8m |
| Maximum speed | 16 knots |
| Complement | 408 |
| Aircraft | 420'
(128m) flight deck 1 catapult 1 elevator 16 aircraft |
| Armament | 1 4"/50
gun 2 3"/50 AA guns 5 20mm Oerlikon AA guns 4 0.50 machine guns |
| Machinery |
1-shaft 7-cylinder Sulzer diesel
engine (8500 shp) |
| Bunkerage | 1434 tons fuel oil 100,000 gallons (380,000 liters) aviation gasoline |
| Modifications |
1942-6: SC search
radar installed.
1944: 4" replaced by 3"/50 and numerous twin 20mm added. Catapult installed. Radar upgraded to SC-2. |
The Long Island was originally the Mormacmail, a
standard Maritime
Commission C3-S ship
carrying cargo and livestock between North and South America. She was
converted to an escort
carrier in 1941. The claim that this was done at the urging of President
Roosevelt, who was
fascinated with the British
escort carrier concept, is considered doubtful by Chesneau (1992), who
points out that the U.S. Navy had been looking at auxiliary carrier
concepts since at least the early 1930s, and that Long Island actually commissioned
more than three months before Audacity,
Britain's first escort carrier, saw action. However, it is true that
Roosevelt assigned a high priority to the conversion, stipulating that
it be completed in three months.
She was a rather clumsy conversion, with a flush deck, no island, and not much of a hangar. Her old superstructure was still visible beneath the flight deck. But she inaugurated a concept that would prove tremendously valuable to the U.S. Navy in both the European and Pacific theaters.
Long Island was committed to the Pacific on 17 May 1942. She survived the war.
References
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007-2009 by Kent G. Budge. Index
