Royal Navy escort carriers for trade protection

The Royal Navy's requirement began with a global maritime trade network exposed to aircraft and surface raiders. Fighters from an escort carrier could defend a convoy against air attack. Reconnaissance aircraft could instead detect a raider early enough for the convoy to evade while a cruiser or capital ship moved to intercept. Those functions were especially valuable around trade choke points, where shipping routes concentrated risk. Ferrying remained another planned use, but this passage first establishes the escort carrier as a tool for protecting merchant traffic rather than a miniature fleet carrier.