Britain reached Unicorn and the light fleet carriers after a long run of conversions and purpose-built ships: Argus, Hermes, Eagle, Furious, Courageous, Glorious, Ark Royal, and the Illustrious programme. Unicorn combined aviation support with a hull close enough to the later light fleet carriers to provide a practical template. The US Independence class likewise followed Ranger, Wasp, and the Yorktown generation. In both navies, the workable light carrier arrived after roughly three generations of design experience. Earlier ships therefore mattered even when the navy chose not to repeat them.
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How repeated experiments produced viable light carriers
Unicorn and the Independence class show that successful light carriers emerged only after several generations of experimentation.