Small, cheap, slow
aircraft carriers built in a hurry for the
Royal Navy and
US Navy during
World War II to provide air cover for convoys out of reach of land-based aircraft. Most were built in American shipyards on
standard design merchant ship and tanker hulls. They could carry as few as half a dozen planes and were too slow to serve with naval strike forces, but they were often enough to make a vital difference against the
wolf packs in the later stages of the
Battle of the Atlantic and against land-based air attack on the
Murmansk convoys.
In US Navy use they were given pennant numbers starting with CVE.