In the immediate post war years the United States Navy was dominated by problems of demobilization, an uneasy international situation, and a reorganization. Demobilization was rapid with the number of aircraft carriers in service reduced from 109 in 1945 to twenty-five a year later, and by the middle of 1950 to nine. The great lesson of the Korean War was that the atomic bomb had not rendered conventional weapons obsolete. It also produced the authorization for a new class of super aircraft carrier to replace the World War II Essex class carrier. This volume covers this eleven year period, the aircraft types, the force levels, the markings, and the color schemes employed by the United States Navy carrier squadron.