A slightly different take on British armoured decks in WW2 (it's in the comments) http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm

"it was code-named "Robin" for communication purposes, an intentional reference to the famous—or infamous—English outlaw Robin Hood"

Aw, dang, and I thought it was because the Saratoga was Batman.

I expected some story of deception, very interesting story, but I was a bit disappointed.

It was a deception, in that the whole thing was constructed to make the Japanese think the USN had one more operational heavy carrier than they actually did.

But there literally was another carrier. They stated it openly flew the Union Jack too. It's not really a deception if there is real live carrier right there flying US planes.

It is if the Japanese believe the carrier is more powerful than it actually is. See my other reply.

Edit:

WRT the statement about the Union Jack, the jig would be up if the Japanese actually launched an air strike against the task force since the strike pilots would get close enough to clearly see what ship she actually was. Submarines and recon aircraft, however, would probably not be able to get that close and thus would just report a second, presumably American, carrier.

But didn't they (in a round about sort of way) since there were two carriers instead of one? Wouldn't making something think you had something that wasn't really there be something different?

Victorious was not nearly as capable as Saratoga. The former only carried ~36 aircraft while the latter carried ~90. Making the Japanese think the other heavy carrier was American would cause them to overestimate the strength of the air group and make it less likely that they would send their own carrier battle group down to challenge American operations.

The Saratoga was big but you are not really comparing like with like. At that point in the war the Royal Navy carriers didn't park aircraft on deck as they had been mainly operating in the North Atlantic with bad weather conditions and in the Mediterranean where they could be attacked by land-based aircraft. The Victorious carried more aircraft later in the war.

I don't remember offhand when her air group size increased. I think it was after this point in the war, though. She got Avengers and Martlets in December of 1942, but I don't think the size of the air group was increased at that point.

They were never comparable in air wing size.

Thanks, I just wasted a whole hour reading this, its comments section, and a variety of Wikipedia'd searches around the subject and offshoots.

Armchair General, indeed!

That carrier doesn't look like British carriers. I always thought they had a curved launch ramp while USS carriers have always been a flat deck.

Those are more modern carriers that were built/converted in the late 20th century to take Harriers off a ski-jump type ramp, because they were too small for modern jet aircraft. British WW2 aircraft carriers were true flat decks.