The American victory cleared the way for the seizure of the port of Casablanca as well as the Allied occupation of French Morocco. The ship was launched in April , commissioned in July, and served as a training and transport carrier throughout the war. Postwar, she participated in Operation Magic Carpet , repatriating U. She was decommissioned in June , when she was mothballed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.
She was sold for scrap in April Casablanca was the lead ship of the Casablanca -class escort carriers, the most numerous type of aircraft carriers ever built, [ 4 ] and designed specifically to be mass-produced using prefabricated sections, in order to replace heavy early war losses.
Standardized with her sister ships , she was ft 3 in She had a beam of 65 ft 2 in She also had a draft of 20 ft 9 in 6. She displaced 8, long tons 8, t standard , 10, long tons 11, t with a full load.
She had a ft 78 m long hangar deck and a ft m long flight deck. Her compact size necessitated the installation of an aircraft catapult at her bow, and there were two aircraft elevators to facilitate movement of aircraft between the flight and hangar deck: one each fore and aft.
Anti-aircraft defense was provided by eight Bofors millimeter 1. By the end of the war, Casablanca -class carriers had been modified to carry thirty 20 mm cannons, and the amount of 40 mm guns had been doubled to sixteen, by putting them into twin mounts. These modifications were in response to increasing casualties due to kamikaze attacks.
