Navy escort carriers based in Norfolk helped win the Battle of the Atlantic. They were the smallest, slowest, and most vulnerable of the Navy's aircraft carriers, yet Samuel Eliot Morison called their escort carrier groups probably the greatest single contribution of the United States Navy to victory over enemy submarines. The first escort carriers, or CVEs, were converted oilers or were built on merchant ship hulls and were first used to train pilots, ferry aircraft, and provide air cover for convoys bound for Europe. After their offensive potential was recognized, these versatile ships, their air squadrons, and destroyer escorts were organized into hunter-killer groups that searched for German U-boats in the North Atlantic, including along the U.S. Atlantic coast. U-boat wolf packs had been taking a heavy toll, sinking 1,158 ships in 1942. The hunter-killer groups sank one enemy submarine in late 1942, twenty-seven in 1943, twenty-one in 1944, plus the capture of U-505, and five through April 1945. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945.
