This is the story of the USS Wolverine and the USS Sable, two
Great Lakes excursion ships converted for aircraft carrier training
during WWII.
Through the duration of the war, the United
States Navy qualified 17,800 pilots for aircraft carrier operation.
Training the pilots on either the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean would
have exposed the training ships to the danger of submarine attack, while
requiring the escort of fighting ships that were needed elsewhere. It
would also have involved arming and armoring the ships used for
training. Commander R.F. Whitehead came up with an idea that solved all
of these problems. He suggested doing the training on the protected
waters of the Great Lakes.
The USS Wolverine and the USS Sable
were chosen and became the only fresh water, paddle-wheeled, coal-fired
aircraft carriers in the history of the world. Author Paul M. Somers
shares his collection of vintage photos and a lifetime of research to
detail the history of these two great vessels-from their life as cruise
ships to their contributions to the war effort and then to their
eventual scrapping.
