Sir Arthur Johns's 1934 paper on aircraft carriers appears in the Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects. The paper notes that the Washington and London systems limited carrier displacement and gun caliber, though the stream objects that aircraft, rather than guns, were the type's true main armament. Treaty language distinguished ships able to launch and recover aircraft from seaplane carriers such as HMAS Albatross and Commandant Teste. It also treated Argus, Hermes, Eagle, Furious, Langley, and Hōshō as experimental tonnage that could be replaced without the normal age rule, showing how legal definitions shaped early carrier fleets.
Chapter · 54:44-57:20
How a 1934 paper defined the aircraft carrier
A contemporary naval-architecture paper shows how treaties defined carriers by flight operations, displacement, and gun caliber while treating early ships as experimental.