USS Monitor (CVE)

The Monitor was a U.S. Navy escort airplane carrier built and launched during the Second Great War. She was a converted freighter whose superstructure had been removed and replaced with a flight deck and small starboard island. She carried 30 airplanes including divebombers, torpedo carriers and fighters. As such, her complement was about half that of a fleet carrier. Given her origins as a freighter, she couldn't do more than 18 knots as compared to a regular warship's 30.

In 1943, a flotilla of ships consisting of the Monitor along with her sister carrier, the Bonhomme Richard, four destroyers (including the USS Townsend), two light cruisers and a heavy cruiser, probed in force Baja California. The Mexicans sent two scout airplanes to examine the task force but were easily shot down by fighters off the two airplane carriers. On reaching Cabo San Lucas, the task force launched a major air assault on joint Mexican - Confederate installations located there. The US inflicted major damage with only light casualties.