[Rummyfan]

Escort carriers had the designation CVE - Combustible, Vulnerable and Expendable.

[PerConPat]

The SBD (Dauntless) is best remembered as the bomber that delivered the fatal blows to the Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The type earned its nickname "Slow But Deadly" (from its SBD initials) during this period. ( Wiki))

Many heroes' names are associated with this battle. The names Spruance and McClusky are among the most illustrious.

Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morrison: "...Spruance's performance was superb. Calm, collected, decisive, yet receptive to advice; keeping in his mind the picture of widely disparate forces, yet boldly seizing every opening. Raymond A. Spruance emerged from the battle [Midway] one of the greatest admirals in American naval history. (Wiki)

In the words of Admiral Chester Nimitz: "McClusky's decision to continue the search for the enemy and his judgment as to where the enemy might be found, "decided the fate of our carrier task force and our forces at Midway". (Wiki)

[Vigilanteman]

My Dad, a Navy veteran of the Pacific War, told me that the designation was an inside joke. The reality was that after the Battle of Guadalcanal was won, the navy found that they could produce CVEs in less than a third the time as standard CVs and that the momentum had shifted so heavily in America's favor that few were actually lost in combat.

Of the five standard CVs which started the war:

1. Lexington was sunk at the Battle of Coral Sea,
   
2. Yorktown was heavily damaged at Midway and was sunk by a chance encounter with a Japanese submarine while being towed back to Pearl Harbor for repairs,
   
3. Hornet was sunk in one of the Guadalcanal battles,
   
4. Saratoga was damaged and repaired multiple times until finally damaged so badly in a kamikaze attack at Iwo Jima that she was towed back and converted into a training vessel for the duration of the war,
   
5. Enterprise thus became the only one of the original aircraft carriers to survive the war as an aircraft carrier.