Escort carriers as self-contained mobile airfields

Once escort carriers existed in numbers, the US Navy could use them as self-contained airfields as well as aircraft ferries. They carried workshops, accommodation, spares, and aircraft, reducing the infrastructure that had to be established ashore. Even navies that had prepared mobile basing units could not erect as many wartime bases as expected. The problem became acute across the Southwest and Central Pacific, where each advance exposed another chain of islands requiring aviation support. A deck sitting offshore was also less exposed to ground infiltration than a newly captured airfield. Aviation basing was therefore a logistical and security problem as well as a question of aircraft numbers.