This Week in History: USS Ranger

At about this time in 1933, USS Ranger is launched. She was the first U.S. Navy vessel to be built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier. She was also the first American carrier to launch attacks against Nazi-controlled territory during World War II.

She would ultimately become the only American carrier to launch an attack against the European mainland.

Yes, you read that right. She was the only one. The larger, armored aircraft carriers built after Ranger served in the Pacific instead.

The first of Ranger’s attacks came as Allied forces invaded French North Africa in November 1942. As amphibious landings were made near Casablanca, Ranger launched 496 combat sorties. Her aircraft scored direct hits on French ships and submarines and made short work of coastal defense and anti-aircraft batteries.

And that was to say nothing of the damage on the ground.

One French war journal described the scene, noting that American “Grummans are very tenacious, provided with invincible weapons, they are three times as numerous as us and soon gain superiority over our unfortunate Curtiss planes.”

By the third day, the French planes were nowhere to be seen, and American aircraft changed their focus to scouting for soldiers on the ground.

“In all,” a Naval History and Heritage Command summary concludes, “Ranger’s aviation assets destroyed 70 enemy aircraft on the ground, shot down another 15 in aerial combat, immobilized 21 enemy tanks, and destroyed 86 military vehicles. Ranger lost just 16 of her aircraft during the entire operation.”

Ranger’s mission against the European mainland came almost a year later, during October 1943. She’d been tasked with attacking German shipping along the Norwegian coast.

This particular stretch of land had been difficult to reach: It was too far away for land-based aircraft but also at a complicated access point for submarines.

Ranger could solve both of those problems.

She led a task force into the area, crossing into the arctic circle on October 3.  “The captain congratulates all those on board,” a ship announcement blared, “for attaining membership in the Bluenose Society . . . . Bluenose certificates will be issued to all hands.”

The attack began early the next morning as SBD Dauntless dive bombers, F4F Wildcats, and TBF Avenger torpedo bombers soared into the sky. Norwegian navigators were also aboard some planes, helping to distinguish between German-controlled shipping and Norwegian civilian craft.

After all, while Norway was occupied by the Germans, she was otherwise an ally.

Ranger’s aircraft flew in radio silence, taking the Germans by surprise. As the attack began, some of the fighters began strafing a German ship and its antiaircraft artillery. “I went in very close, so close, in fact, I had to pull up severely to miss the foremast,” Lt. (jg) Prince H. Gordon later remembered.

Nevertheless, the Germans recovered from their surprise and mounted their own—albeit unorganized—defense. Even after Ranger’s strike groups returned to the carrier, three German aircraft flew toward the task group.

It wasn’t very effective. Two were shot down, and one retreated. The men aboard Ranger celebrated a successful mission.

“Admiral ‘Pat’ Bellinger, air commander of the Atlantic Fleet,” historian Samuel Eliot Morison concludes, “was well pleased . . . . Six steamers amounting to 23,000 tons had been destroyed, four others badly damaged, and about 200 troops killed . . . . And the raid created a feeling of insecurity in the once arrogant occupation forces in Norway.”

USS Ranger’s story has been lost in the shadow of the bigger Pacific battles. But her crew were members of the Greatest Generation, too.

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Primary Sources:

• Christopher Miskimon, Carrier Strike in Norway (Military Heritage; Summer 2022) (reprinted HERE)

• John W. Lambert, Wildcats Battle Hawks Over Casablanca During Operation Torch (Aviation History Mag., May 2011) (reprinted HERE)

• Operation Leader (Naval History and Heritage Command: National Museum of the U.S. Navy)

• Operation Torch: Invasion of North Africa: 8–16 November 1942 (Naval History and Heritage Command)

• Operation Torch: November 1942 (Naval History and Heritage Command: National Museum of the U.S. Navy)

• Samuel Eliot Morison, The Atlantic Battle Won May 1943 May 1945 (1956)

• USS Ranger (CV-4) (Naval History and Heritage Command)

• USS Ranger (CV-4) (Naval History and Heritage Command: National Museum of the U.S. Navy)