Key Points and Summary on USS Wasp – The USS Wasp (CV-7), a unique American aircraft carrier from the WWII era, was a compromised design doomed from the outset by the tonnage limits of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty.
-Many experts claim it is the worst aircraft carrier the U.S. Navy ever sailed.
-Built with the remaining 15,000 tons allotted to the US, the Wasp was essentially a smaller, lighter version of the Yorktown-class carriers but was dangerously underarmored and lacked adequate damage control systems.
-On September 15, 1942, while supporting the Guadalcanal Campaign, these design flaws proved fatal when two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine ignited massive gasoline fires that the crew could not contain, leading to the ship’s dramatic sinking.
Aircraft Carrier USS Wasp: Doomed from the Outset and Worst Ever
The USS Wasp was, by many measures, an odd ship. Built under the auspices of the Washington Naval Treaty, a 1922 agreement that placed restrictions on the tonnage and number of capital ships the signatory powers — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Imperial Japan, and Italy — could build, an effort to prevent a naval arms race between the powers from spiraling out of control. Other conditions, including the size of capital ship main guns and a 10-year moratorium on battleship construction, as well as other clauses, were designed to preserve peace and prevent the destruction witnessed during the First World War.
In the short term, it preserved American and British naval supremacy, but was undermined by Japan’s withdrawal in the mid-1930s and subsequent naval arms race.
Following the construction of the USS Enterprise and the USS Yorktown, the United States had 15,000 tons of ship that could still be built within the parameters of the treaty. The USS Wasp was, in essence, a truncated Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, although it differed in several key aspects, design details that would ultimately prove fatal for the ship.
Despite the USS Wasp’s smaller size compared to other American aircraft carriers of the era, the U.S. Navy nonetheless decided to outfit the diminutive ship with the same number of aircraft, a large air group, as the larger Yorktown-class ships. Despite the USS Wasp’s approximately 25 percent smaller size, the ship managed to accommodate the air group by cramming the planes onto the carrier, thanks to a unique airplane elevator mounted on the edge of the ship’s deck.
However, the USS Wasp was underpowered, underarmored, and lacked an adequate damage control system. The Imperial Japanese Navy would exploit the ship’s weaknesses and send it to the bottom of the ocean.
The Sinking
A comprehensive account of the USS Wasp and its service is available online as part of the United States Navy’s history.
One of the most colorful passages concerns the sinking of the USS Wasp at the hands of the I-19, a Japanese submarine, fired after the USS Wasp had launched and recovered several airplanes in support of the Guadalcanal Campaign.
“A spread of four torpedoes, fired from the tubes of the Japanese submarine I-19, churned inexorably closer. Wasp put over her rudder hard-a-starboard, but it was too late. Two torpedoes smashed home in quick succession while a fourth passed ahead. Both hit in the vicinity of gasoline tanks and magazines.
In quick succession, fiery blasts ripped through the forward part of the ship. Aircraft on the flight and hangar decks were thrown about as if they were toys and dropped on the deck with such force that landing gears snapped.
Planes triced up in the hangar overheads fell and landed upon those on the hangar deck; fires broke out almost simultaneously in the hangar and below decks. Soon, the heat of the intense gasoline fires detonated the ready ammunition at the forward antiaircraft guns on the starboard side, and fragments showered the forward part of the ship.
The number two 1.1-inch mount was blown overboard, and the corpse of the gun captain was thrown onto the bridge, where it landed next to Capt. Sherman.
Water mains in the forward part of the ship proved useless, since the force of the explosions had broken them. There was no water available to fight the conflagration forward; and the fires continued to set off ammunition, bombs, and gasoline. As the ship listed to starboard between 10 and 15 degrees, oil and gasoline, released from the tanks by the torpedo hit, caught fire on the water.”
Death of USS Wasp
A complete account of the ship’s loss is preserved in the War Damage Report covering the sinking. One of the report’s main findings was that the ship’s damage control system — its ability to fight fires specifically — was inadequate and defective.
The resultant lack of ability to fight gasoline fires caused by the Japanese torpedo explosions may have been ultimately responsible for the ship’s demise.
About the Author: Caleb Larson
Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.
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