A smiling sailor stands behind a heap of mail bags on the hangar deck of the aircraft carrier USS JOHN F. KENNEDY (CV-67) during Operation Desert Shield. More than 40,000 pounds of mail was delivered in this one shipment

Aircraft carriers are warships that act as airbases for carrier-based aircraft. In the United States Navy, these consist of ships commissioned with hull classification symbols CV (aircraft carrier), CVA (attack aircraft carrier), CVB (large aircraft carrier), CVL (light aircraft carrier), CVN (aircraft carrier (nuclear propulsion) and CVAN (attack aircraft carrier (nuclear propulsion). The first aircraft carrier commissioned into the United States Navy was USS Langley (CV-1) on 20 March 1922.