When Victorious operated under the name USS Robin, it took responsibility for fighter control while strike aircraft concentrated aboard Saratoga. British procedures for fighter direction and combat air patrol helped American personnel develop their own methods. Saratoga supplied the American experience of mass strike launches. The Royal Navy had practised that skill during interwar exercises, including Mediterranean exercises with two or three carriers on each side. Wartime demands to spread carriers across separate Mediterranean tasks were eroding that practice, so the partnership brought together experience shaped by different operating conditions.
Notable Point · 2:14:07-2:15:07
Saratoga and Victorious: complementary carrier strengths
The Saratoga-Victorious partnership shows American strike capacity and British fighter-direction practice reinforcing each other.