Lake Michigan's Aircraft Carriers

Images of America: Illinois

by Paul M. Somers

Lake Michigan's Aircraft Carriers is the story of the USS Wolverine and the USS Sable, two Great Lakes excursion ships converted for use as aircraft carrier training during World War II. Through the duration of the war, the United States Navy qualified 17,800 pilots for aircraft carrier operation. Training the pilots on either the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean would have exposed the training ships to the danger of submarine attack, while requiring the escort of fighting ships that were needed elsewhere. It would also have involved arming and armoring the ships used for training. Commander R.F. Whitehead came up with an idea that solved all of these problems. He suggested doing the training on the protected waters of the Great Lakes.

The USS Wolverine and the USS Sable were chosen and thus became the only fresh water, paddle-wheeled, coal-fired aircraft carriers in the history of the world. Author Paul M. Somers shares his collection of vintage photos and a lifetime of research to detail the history of these two great vessels-from their life as cruise ships to their contributions to the war effort and then to their eventual scrapping.

Genres: History

128 pages, Paperback

First published November 5, 2003

Reviews

[JD · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good and quick read with lots of great photos about the roles played by luxury lake ships built for cruises that were converted into the US Navy's two fresh water aircraft carriers where pilots could gain carrier pilot qualification in the safety of US inland waters. Between the USS Wolverine and USS Sable they qualified 17,820 pilots during the Second World War as carrier pilots, and for such unusual ships they played a very significant part in the war. This is a great edition to any naval enthusiasts bookshelf and I highly recommend it.

[Tim Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nicely written, very amply illustrated book that I read in a day or so, covering a topic I imagine few people know much about, the fact that during World War II Lake Michigan hosted not one but two aircraft carriers for training purposes. Highly unusual for so many reasons – they were on freshwater, located far inland and unable to reach the sea as they were too wide for the Welland Canal, they were coal-fired (in a time where such ships were long gone from the U.S. Navy), were paddle-wheeled (again, a type of propulsion system long gone from the U.S. Navy), and couldn’t store aircraft, only briefly hosting them as they landed and then took off, this book covered a fascinating topic. They might seem very unusual vessels to even conceive, but they filled a valuable role in qualifying carrier pilots and operated in an ideal area, that despite the harsh winters of Lake Michigan, was a great area to train pilots as they were free from danger from enemy ships, submarines, and aircraft, could operate without being in radio silence, didn’t require armed and armored escort vessels, the carriers themselves weren’t require to be armed or armored, and pilots, crews, and sailors wouldn’t be taking up valuable naval real estate in such places as San Diego.

This book documented SS Seeandbee (a Great Lakes excursion cruiser built in 1913, its name chosen in a contest, the name based upon the corporate name of the ship’s owner, the Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Company) and the SS Greater Buffalo (built 1923-1924, which along with it sister vessel SS Greater Detroit, were the largest side-wheeled passenger vessels in the world in the 1930s), noting in photographs and text the dimension, operating capacity, and a bit about their lives before wartime conversion into training carriers, as SS Seeandbee became the USS Wolverine (named in honor of the state of Michigan and converted in a remarkable 59 days in 1942) and the SS Greater Buffalo became the USS Sable.

The ships had a valuable wartime service, qualifying pilots in carrier landings and take offs, by the end of the war 17,820 pilots becoming qualified for carrier duty thanks to the two ships (also many people other than pilots received training, such as Landing Signal Officers and Flight Deck Officers). Among those who became qualified carrier pilots was future President George H.W. Bush in 1943 on the USS Sable, the second youngest pilot to qualify on the two vessels (a photograph of Bush is included among the many photos in the book).

Though I would have liked more detail, the book did mention the many challenges in building and operating the ships, from constructing arrestor wires (the company that converted them had no experience with them, never having worked on aircraft carriers) to the Navy getting used to taking on boiler-feed water directly from Lake Michigan (it being freshwater) to operating a coal-fired vessel (learning to throw the coal the full length of the furnace, dealing with billowing clouds of black smoke and the complications this had with flight deck operations).

I liked the many photos included of the ships before conversion, during conversion, operating as aircraft carriers, the planes that landed and took off from them, and what happened to them after the war (sadly both were scrapped). Also it was nice to get blueprints for the ships, including cross sections. I had thought the book would be entirely about the ship’s history as freshwater carriers but author Paul. M Somers didn’t skimp on the ship’s history as civilian ships, showing photos of people sunning themselves on the upper deck, playing shuffleboard, and the luxurious accommodations and dining rooms aboard the ships (all scrapped in their conversion to carriers). There was a really extensive bibliography at the end of the book.

Not a lot of negatives. It wasn’t a book with a strong narrative feel or particularly personable, just a good recitation of the facts. Sometimes a few paragraphs could be a little dry but it was just providing information (most of the writing was good and serviceable, certainly pleasant and quite adequate to the task). I wish more of the photos had dates beneath them but that is a small nitpick as the time these vessels were around, especially operating as carriers, wasn’t particularly long.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 2003, 'Lake Michigan's Aircraft Carriers' tells the story, in photos, of the aircraft carriers that were built for training naval aviators on Lake Michigan in WW2. More than 100 well captioned photos and other illustrations show the vessels, as well as many pics of the pleasure craft from which some were converted. An excellent introduction to an area of WW2 history that does not often make in into print.