Paddlewheel carriers protected frontline training capacity

What was the value of the US Navy's paddlewheel training carriers?

They provided a quick way to qualify carrier pilots without withdrawing a frontline carrier from combat service.

Paddlewheel training carriers were an efficient wartime conversion. A passenger liner could receive a flight deck and become a platform for repeated carrier takeoffs and landings. That arrangement accelerated pilot qualification without taking a frontline carrier away from combat duties. The ships solved a training bottleneck through conversion rather than by consuming a purpose-built fleet asset.