How do I find a crew list for the aircraft carriers in WW2?
You most likely can’t. There’s no big database in the sky for information like that. All of thier records were on paper back then. Most of those records were destroyed either in battle, when the ship decomissioned, or as a matter of just cleaning out old files. In addition to that problem, guys swtiched ships all the time back then. For example, if your ship got sunk then you became part of the crew of the ship that picked you up. It’s very possible that someone was on a ship for several months, but there was no record of them being there. Another problem you will face is that there were 3 types of carriers during WWII (CVA, CVL, and CVE). It wasn’t like today when there is only 12. In 1942, there were TONS of carriers (no pun intended). You would have better luck talking to family members and find more facts about when and where he was then try researching what ships were there at that time. Then going to some of the reunion website and asking around to see if anyone knows him.
