They were through deck cruisers, the nomenclature had as much (if not more) to do with their design lineage than any desire to hide their true capability.

Yes, they had cruiser hulls, the Air defense capabilities of a destroyer and a through deck to carry helicopters for ASW Ops, you could probably point them out to be a more role optimized successor to the Tigers and to the Centaur class CVL’s which were overkill in the ASW role.