- "The Navy is looking forward to a period about two years hence -- if the Pacific war lasts that long -- when it will be able to test its new super-armed, 'unsinkable,' giant carriers against the Japanese...
...the new 45,000-ton aircraft carriers, the first of which is under construction at New3port News, should be superior to any carriers afloat...
...The ships will not have an excessively greater amount of machinery than the carriers of the 27,000-ton Essex class..."
This article refers to the 45,000 ton Midway class carriers, which indeed were not completed in time for the war.
But the Essex class, by the time all was said & done, grew from 27,000 tons to 36,000 tons, and as the USS Franklin showed, were themselves pretty tough little ships -- in the words of John Cameron Swayze, in a different context, Essex class: "Takes a Licking and keeps on Ticking"
You can still see the old Midway, in San Diego harbor.
These photos I took some years ago from the Midway, of three Nimitz class carriers:
