I saw “30 Seconds OVer Tokyo”, or parts of it, again today. Van Johnson says after the crash, “I lost my ship”. Did aircrews in the Second Waorld War call their craft “ships”?
Sometimes.
Calling them ships goes back to the beginning of the century: Tom Swift and His Airship by Victor Appleton, 1910:
I can’t speak to WWII, but in the military helicopter business, people often refer to helicopters as “ships”. The habit is especially common from Bell Helicopter folks - you often hear people say things like “we modified three ships last month”.
Airships preceded aeroplanes, which adopted the nomenclature:
Airport
Captain
Crew
Port
Starboard
Galley
They’re always “she”
In addition, the term ‘gunship’ is commonly applied to both fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft. The most common, IMO, is the AC-130 Gunship.
Also, in pilot-speak, a formation of two planes is often called a “two ship” (likewise “four ship” and so on).
From the horses mouth. Not wasting anytime with extra words today I see.
More aeronautical terminology that has occurred to me:
Aircraft
Cabin
Bulkhead
Steward
It strikes me that WW2 and earlier pilots were much more likely to call planes planes than any pilot today, civilian or military.
I’m not at all sure that that is true. I was just watching a DVD of The Memphis Belle (the original) plus Combat America (a training/propaganda film of the same era, narrated by Lt. Clark Gable) and the term “ship” was used throughout both films.
I’m curious because my Father who worked on B-25’s never said “ship” for airplane. He worked on “airplanes”, my models I asked him about (did they really take the guns out for the Dolittle Raid? Wasn’t that dumb?) were “airplanes”. The Doc Savage books he and my uncles read called them “ships”. I figured it was a romantic term for books and movies. Sorry he’s not around to ask about it. 
When I note that the word ship was used throughout, I am not trying to claim that it was used in place of (air)plane, only that it was frequently used. I’m not going to rewatch the films just to see the particular usage, but my memory suggests that is was mostly used in the context of “We lost three ships that day.” and “He was able to bring his ship home despite the damage.”
Thinking about it, this might be a relevant point. The films I was watching were filmed by aircrews and snatches of dialogue that are recorded are real, (the pilot snarling to the crew to shut up and stop chattering to leave the intercom open to report actual enemy fighter sightings), but the narratives were created by guys hired (or drafted) from Hollywood and they may have included more “romantic” language that they brought from their experience in movies in the 1930s.
I know I have seen combat reports and letters home that used the word “ship,” but the impression of widespread usage taken from movies–even movies filmed (but not narrated or edited) in combat–might be a bit misleading.