Loading powder bags Bluejackets, stripped to the waist for comfort, load powder bags into the 16-inchers aboard a first-...

Loading powder bags Bluejackets, stripped to the waist for comfort, load powder bags into the 16-inchers aboard a first-class battleship in the Pacific. While the aircraft carrier has without doubt stolen the show in the Pacific from the bristling, yet lumbering battle-wagons in this war as the importance of air supremacy ihas become more and more apparent, the performance of these giants of the fleet must not be underestimated. Without their protective power, the vulnerable aircraft carriers would hardly have dared to strike so deeply withing enemy controlled waters. Every carrier task force that steams into combat zones has enough battleships and destroyers ti protect the flat-tops as well as to provide the pre-invasion barrage.