Meet the Midway-Class: The U.S. Navy ‘Battle Aircraft Carrier’ with an Armored Flight Deck

Meet the Midway-Class: The U.S. Navy ‘Battle Aircraft Carrier’ with an Armored Flight Deck

PUBLISHED on August 18, 2025, 1:43 PM EDT: Key Points and Summary – The Midway-class aircraft carriers were the U.S. Navy’s first designed with heavily armored flight decks, a crucial innovation for surviving kamikaze attacks in World War II. Though they missed that conflict, these massive carriers—the USS Midway, USS Coral Sea, and USS Franklin D. Roosevelt—served for nearly 50 years, their robust decks enabling the transition from propeller ai…