Aircraft and carrier designs should be judged against their intended geography: US ships expected long Pacific operations with room to mass strikes, while British ships expected contested waters such as the Mediterranean and South China Sea and needed damage that could be repaired far from home. The smaller protected air group was therefore part of a multi-carrier concept, supported before the war by paired-carrier exercises and the Rear Admiral Aircraft Carriers organization rather than evidence that Britain ignored massed aviation.
Notable Point · 3:17:33-3:27:10
Why British and American carriers optimized for different wars
British carriers traded air-group size for survivability in confined, distant theaters, while American carriers emphasized massed air power across the Pacific.