How did aircraft carriers contribute to the winning of WWII?

Question:

Answer:

A great deal, both in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and the Pacific. At Taranto, the Royal Naval Fleet Air Arm attacked the Italian fleet at rest in the Harbour. They sank several heavy warships, and forced the Italians to move their fleet to safer havens further to the north where they were too far from British ships to do them too much harm. The German battleship "Bismark" was crippled by the Fleet Air Arm, allowing the pursuing Royal Navy to catch up with it and then sink it. In the latter period of the War, small "Fleet" carriers provided aerial escorts for convoys crossing the Atlantic, whereas previously the cover had been provided by land based aircraft, and due to extreme range, gaps were left in the cover which German submarines took advantage of.
In the Pacific, a whole new type of warfare evolved. Before, Fleet actions might take place at distances from one mile to twenty-four miles, the maximum range of a heavy battleship gun. After Pearl Harbor, and the long range Japanese attack, "Over the Horizon" warfare developed, where the opposing ships never came into contact with each other, and all the attrition was caused by the naval air arms of the opposing countries. It was these battles that sounded the death knell for the "big gun" navy, as it was shown that ANY ship was vulnerable to air attack, no matter how heavily armoured.