Sister of the Lexington. A beautiful ship that also survived.
Nitpick: Saratoga was torpedoed on 31 August 1942 (shortly after the Eastern Solomons battle) and had to retire to Pearl Harbor, not returning till mid-November. So after Hornet was lost at Santa Cruz in October, Enterprise was indeed the only US fleet carrier* in the area.
* I’ve seen references to one or more escort (“Jeep”) carriers, but they were scarcely power projection assets.
Ironically, the Lexington was considered a lucky ship and the Saratoga was not.
The Saratoga was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in early '42, and returned to service too late for Midway in June. She was heavily involved in the Guadalcanal campaign until again being torpedoed as mentioned above. When she returned, Enterprise was withdrawn for repairs, so Saratoga was the only US fleet carrier for a period of time, serving with Victorious. The Essexes started to show up in late '43, and she wasn’t as badly needed. She became a night fighter and training carrier.
Since this seems to be a topic full of experts, on a related note, where were the American battleships that WEREN’T at Pearl Harbor? How many did we have available and where were they currently during December 7th 1941?
According to this:
https://www.navsource.org/Naval/usf02.htm
There were 8 USN battleships assigned to the Atlantic Fleet on 7 December 1941.
6 were in active fleet service. Battleship Division 5 consisted of USS Arkansas, USS New York, USS Texas and BATDIV 3 consisted of USS New Mexico, USS Mississippi, and USS Idaho. These ships were all old, commissioned in the mid-to-late 1910s. They were involved in neutrality patrols, convoy support, and the occupation of Iceland. They represented the battleship part of the US’s commitment to the UK in the Atlantic war even before the US formally joined.
2 were very new. USS North Carolina and USS Washington were modern fast battleships comprising BATDIV 6, but they were still undergoing shakedown and workup and not really ready for even emergency service.
There were a couple of CVE , but they were both newly commissioned ships on training and ferrying missions.
USS Nassau (CVE-16) which arrived in Palmyra Island arriving 30 October, 1942, operating between Palmyra and Nouméa, New Caledonia and Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides for the next four months. Duties for the operation seems to involve ferrying planes and such. Her first major operation seems to be providing air cover for the occupation of Attu Island from 11 May through 20 May 1943.
USS Altamaha (AVG-18/ACV-18/CVE-18) was also in the area, arriving in Espiritu Santo on 22 November, she delivered part of her cargo and departed on 27 November for New Caledonia. She reached Nouméa on 28 November and commenced a period of flight operations and training exercises.
The other two CVE seem have departed for San Diego in September or by the end of October.
Keep in mind that most of the jeep carriers coming on line in mid ‘42 were being loaned to the RN or operated by the USN in the Atlantic to in the battle against German subs. Although a staggering 122 were built during the war, it wasn’t until 1943 that production really picked up.
It’s often said that the Japanese did us a favor by sinking or disabling a bunch of these old BB. During peacetime, USN ships would have half crews with the expectation that new sailors would fill up the required numbers. Having so many battleships sunk or damaged during the Pearl Harbor released all of these experience sailor to go to other ships as well as not sucking up so many of the new recruits.
In addition, it forced the Navy to immediately rethink doctrine and place more emphasis on carriers, something which took much, much longer for the IJN.
Agree with your previous point, but not this one. To me, it looks like the IJN was quicker to realize the ascendancy of the carrier over the battleship. The IJN began the war with more carriers than the much larger USN (8 vs 7), and the USN was years behind Kido Butai in the ability to put up a multi-carrier simultaneous attack.
True to a point, but the IJN (and truth be told, the USN before Pearl Harbor) was still strategically married to the idea of a Mahan-esque slugfest between capital ships. Even at Midway, Yamamoto’s grand plan saw Kidō Butai as a secondary force which would whittle down the US fleet in preparation for the coup de grâce from his battleships. Even later in the war the Japanese sought a climactic battle which would turn the tide and bring the US to the bargaining table.
Thankfully, the IJN poured enormous resources into building super-battleships (Yamato and Musashi) that spent most of their time in port rather than fighting, partly because they consumed so much scarce fuel.
They undoubtedly could have built several more carriers using the money, materials and labor expended on those two ships.
Before AND after Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy was still married to a slugfest between battleships. To this end, they planned to have 17 new battleships, with 5 of them being Yamato-sized, plus 6 battlecruisers. While the IJN wisely ceased all battleship production in 1942 in favor of carriers, the USN kept wasting money, resources, and labor on them until the 1990s.
The figures I’ve seen don’t bear out your WW II claims.
According to this site, between 1941 and 1945 the U.S. Navy built carriers over battleships by a ratio of about 14:1, while the corresponding Japanese ratio was approximately 8:1.
If you go by Wikipedia, the U.S. gained a grand total of 6 battleships between 12/7/41 and 5/14/45, while adding 21 fleet carriers and 70 escort carriers.
That doesn’t sound like an obsession with battleships.
Some would argue that battleships had a useful role in bombarding enemy-held territory prior to amphibious invasions, and in providing anti-aircraft protection for carriers. 
Every battleship built by the USA was planned and funded before Pearl Harbor. Reagan spent a fortune dragging some of those relics out of mothballs and upgrading their 1930s tech for active service in his promised “600 ship Navy”.
Those figures include escort carriers, which were never considered capital ships. They had almost no presence in the IJN. For these reasons, I don’t use them in comparisons between the front-line fleets.
It’s also problematic to compare ship quantities. Fleet CV size varied wildly, from 10k tons to over 60k. And a Yamato was far larger than a North Carolina, so it makes little sense to count them 1:1.
For my comparison, I used tonnage, Standard tons listed in my Conway’s, so it’s easy to reach. To smooth out the numbers, I combined the years, so ships commissioned in 1940 are with those in 1941, 1942 with 1943, and so on. I don’t have time to put my numbers up now, but at no time did the USN build as high a ratio of carriers:battleships as the IJN.
The fact remains that the USN never ordered another battleship after 1940. Of course, they finished and used the ones already being built. But the investment was already made before Pearl Harbor.
Back to my original point, I see no evidence that the IJN was slower to give up battleship construction than the USN was. I’m sure there are other ways to measure this, but I think the carrier:battleship ratio is a pretty good way to compare how willing a navy was to give up the gun line. That ratio shows that the IJN emphasized carriers to a greater degree than the USN.
From 1940 to 1945, the IJN built 2.39 tons of fleet carrier for every ton of BB. The USN built 1.7 tons for every BB ton.
Again, your figures, wherever you got them, seem to completely ignore anything but full-sized fleet carriers. Quoting myself from a few posts ago:
That’s a huge recognition of the value of air power compared to battleship guns.
Corresponding Japanese efforts were (thankfully) far too little, too late.
I mentioned my copy of Conway’s, more specifically, All the World’s Fighting Ships 1922-1946.
Your numbers and mine would also be thrown off because we’re using different dates.
I considered all carriers intended for front line actions. This includes light fleet carriers like the Independence class and Zuiho.
How do you get 6 BBs completed after PH? It should be 4 South Dakotas and 4 Iowas.
And I get 17 Essex plus 9 Independence = 26. Our 1945 cutoff dates may differ, but it shouldn’t make that much difference.
Again, I don’t consider escort carrier production as relevant here. They were not considered capital ships, so any discussion about when the carrier replaced the battleship is about fleet carriers, not escort carriers whose primary task was ASW.
“Allied CVEs performed virtually all the functions of the fleet and light carriers. They fought a major naval engagement against a powerful enemy battleship fleet, something the larger carriers did not experience. They supported invasions during which CVE-launched aircraft bombed enemy positions, spotted for gunship bombardment, and delivered aircraft to land bases after key airfields had been taken. They participated in raids on enemy installations, targeted shipping, sank submarines, protected fleets and convoys, and replenished aircraft and pilots for other carriers and land bases. Allied CVEs were also used for training pilots and, at the end of the war, helped repatriate troops and Prisoners of War (POWs) to their homes. In contrast, Japan used her 5 CVEs almost exclusively for convoy escort, transportation and training.”