USS Antietam (CV-36)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other ships with the same name, see USS Antietam.

USS Antietam on 19 April 1961
History
United States
NameAntietam
NamesakeBattle of Antietam
BuilderPhiladelphia Naval Shipyard
Laid down15 March 1943
Launched20 August 1944
Commissioned28 January 1945
Decommissioned21 June 1949
Recommissioned17 July 1951
Decommissioned8 May 1963
Reclassified
  • CVA-36, 1 October 1952
  • CVS-36, 1 August 1953
FateScrapped, 28 February 1974
General characteristics
Class and typeEssex-class aircraft carrier
Displacement27,100 long tons (27,500 t) standard
Length888 feet (271 m) overall
Beam93 feet (28 m)
Draft28 feet 7 inches (8.71 m)
Installed power
  • 8 × boilers
  • 150,000 shp (110 MW)
Propulsion
Speed33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Complement3448 officers and enlisted
Armament
Armor
  • Belt: 4 in (102 mm)
  • Hangar deck: 2.5 in (64 mm)
  • Deck: 1.5 in (38 mm)
  • Conning tower: 1.5 inch
Aircraft carried90–100 aircraft

USS Antietam (CV/CVA/CVS-36) was one of 24

battle stars
. In the early 1950s, she was redesignated an attack carrier (CVA) and then an antisubmarine warfare carrier (CVS). After the Korean War she spent the rest of her career operating in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean. From 1957 until her deactivation, she was the Navy's training carrier, operating out of Florida.

Antietam was fitted with a port sponson in 1952 to make her the world's first true angled-deck aircraft carrier. However, she received no major modernizations other than this, and thus throughout her career largely retained the classic appearance of a World War II Essex-class ship. She was decommissioned in 1963, and sold for scrap in 1974.

Construction and career

Antietam was one of the

launched on 20 August 1944 sponsored by Mrs. Millard E. Tydings, the wife of Senator Tydings of Maryland. Antietam was commissioned on 28 January 1945, with Captain James R. Tague in command.[1]

World War II and occupation of Japan

Antietam off Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1945

The aircraft carrier completed fitting out at

Cristóbal on 31 May, transited the Panama Canal the next day, and continued her voyage up the coast to San Diego. She stopped at San Diego from 10 to 13 June before beginning the first leg of her transpacific voyage. Antietam arrived in Pearl Harbor on 19 June and remained in the Hawaiian Islands conducting training missions until 12 August. On that day, she shaped a course for the western Pacific.[citation needed
]

Three days out of

Okinawa between 30 August and 1 September, and arrived in Chinese waters near Shanghai the following day.[citation needed
]

The aircraft carrier remained in the Far East for a little more than three years. The Yellow Sea constituted her primary theater of operations while her air group provided support for the Allied occupation of North China, Manchuria, and Korea. During the latter stages of that assignment, her airmen conducted surveillance missions in that area as a result of the civil war in China between communist and nationalist factions which later resulted in the expulsion of Chiang Kai-shek's forces from mainland China and the establishment of Mao Zedong's communist People's Republic of China. Throughout the period, however, she did depart the Yellow Sea on occasion for visits to Japan, the Philippines, Okinawa, and the Marianas. Early in 1949, she concluded her mission in the Orient and headed back to the United States for deactivation. She was decommissioned on 21 June 1949.[2]

Korean War

Antietam in Yokosuka, 1951

Antietam remained in reserve at

Task Force 77 (TF 77), in the combat zone off the coast of the Korean peninsula. In between fighting assignments, she returned to Yokosuka, Japan. During each of those periods, her air group carried out a variety of missions in support of United Nations forces combating North Korean aggression. Those missions included combat air patrol, logistics interdiction, particularly against railroad and highway traffic, reconnaissance, antisubmarine patrols, and night heckler missions. From late November 1951 to mid-March 1952, Antietam's air group flew nearly 6,000 sorties of all types. She returned to Yokosuka on 21 March 1952 at the conclusion of her fourth cruise with TF 77 to begin preparations for her voyage back to the United States.[3]

Later years

Antietam returning from Korea in March 1952

The aircraft carrier returned home in April and rejoined the

arrested landings. [citation needed] The VC-4 pilots were air lifted back to the states on 3 July and the F3Ds were off loaded and flown back to Atlantic City from Rhode Island.[citation needed] After August 1953, during which time she was redesignated an Anti-submarine warfare carrier (ASW), CVS-36 Antietam concentrated up on honing her hunter/killer skills.[citation needed
]

Post-Korean War

In January 1955, she embarked upon a voyage to the Mediterranean Sea where she served with the 6th Fleet until March. Resuming duty with the Atlantic Fleet ASW forces, she operated along the eastern seaboard until the fall of 1956. In October of that year, she cruised to the waters of the eastern Atlantic for NATO ASW exercises and goodwill visits to ports in Allied countries. She ran aground off Brest, France, on 22 October 1956, but was refloated undamaged.[6] While the carrier was in Rotterdam, the Suez crisis broke out in the eastern Mediterranean. Antietam cut short her visit to the Netherlands and headed for the Mediterranean to bolster the 6th Fleet during the evacuation of American citizens from Alexandria, Egypt. At the end of that assignment, she conducted ASW training exercises with Italian naval officers embarked before returning to Quonset Point on 22 December.[citation needed]

Antietam with her angled deck in 1957
HSS-1 Seabats
on 31 January 1957

After resuming operations along the eastern seaboard early in 1957, Antietam was assigned on 21 April 1957 to training duty with the Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. Mayport however, served as her home port because ships of her draft could not then enter port at Pensacola. For almost two years the aircraft carrier operated out of Mayport training new Navy pilots and conducting tests on new aviation equipment—most noteworthy on the Bell automatic landing system during August 1958. She also participated in annual Naval Academy midshipmen cruises each summer.[citation needed]

In January 1959, after the deepening of the channel into Pensacola had been completed, Antietam's home port was changed from Mayport to Pensacola. For the remainder of her active career, the carrier operated out of Pensacola as an aviation training ship.[citation needed]

The deck of the Antietam served as the launching pad for the stratospheric balloon flight of Commander Malcolm D. Ross and Lieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather, both of the United States Navy, on 4 May 1961. This flight set an absolute official altitude record for manned balloons of 113,740 feet (34,670 m). The flight took place over the Gulf of Mexico. During recovery, Prather slipped from the rescue helicopter's lifting harness and fell into the ocean; he died from his injuries onboard Antietam. Commander Ross was successfully recovered.[7]

On two occasions, she provided humanitarian services to victims of

hurricane damage. The first came in September 1961 when she rushed to the Texas coast to provide supplies and medical assistance to the victims of Hurricane Carla. The second came just over a month later when she carried medical supplies, doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel to British Honduras to help the victims of Hurricane Hattie. Otherwise, she spent the final four years of her naval career in routine naval aviation training duty out of Pensacola. On 23 October 1962, Antietam was relieved by sister ship Lexington as aviation training ship at Pensacola and was placed in commission, in reserve, on 7 January 1963. Berthed at Philadelphia, she remained in reserve until May 1973 when her name was struck from the Navy List. On 28 February 1974, she was sold to the Union Minerals & Alloys Corp. for scrapping.[citation needed
]

Awards

Bronze star
Bronze star
China Service Medal
(extended) 		American Campaign Medal
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
World War II Victory Medal Navy Occupation Service Medal
(with Asia clasp) 		National Defense Service Medal
battle stars
)
United Nations Service Medal
 Republic of Korea War Service Medal
(retroactive)

See also

References

  1. ^ "A Brief History of U.S. Navy Aircraft Carriers Part IIc – The War Years (1944–1945)". navy.mil. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
  2. ^ Naval Cover Museum: Antietam (CVS 36)
  3. ^ "Antietam II (CV-36) -- 1945–1973". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships -- Index. Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 26 January 2023.
  4. ISBN 0-87021-739-9
    p. 264
  5. ISBN 978-0-87021-739-5
    .
  6. ^ "U.S. Aircraft Carrier Runs Aground". The Times. No. 53669. London. 23 October 1956. col C, p. 9.
  7. ^ Rumerman, Judy (2003). "Higher, Farther, and Longer – Record Balloon Flights in the Second Part of the Twentieth Century". U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission. Archived from the original on 30 April 2003. Retrieved 23 October 2007.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to USS Antietam (CV-36).
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USS_Antietam_(CV-36)&oldid=1183011448"