АҚШ Әскери-теңіз күштерінің «Рэндольф» ұшақ тасушысы

Essex class aircraft carrier of the US Navy

USS Randolph (CV/CVA/CVS 15) was one of 24 s built during World War II for the United States Navy. The second US Navy ship to bear the name, she was named for Founding Father Peyton Randolph, president of the First Continental Congress. Randolph was commissioned in October 1944, and served in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning three battle stars. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s as an attack carrier (CVA), and then eventually became an antisubmarine carrier (CVS). In her second career she operated exclusively in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Caribbean. In the early 1960s she served as the recovery ship for two Project Mercury space missions, including John Glenn's historic first orbital flight. She was decommissioned in 1969 and sold for scrap in 1975.

Randolph was one of the "long hull" ships. She was laid down on 10 May 1943 in Shipway 10, at Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia. She was launched on 28 June 1944, sponsored by Rose Gillette (wife of Guy M. Gillette, a US Senator from Iowa). Randolph was commissioned on 9 October 1944.

Following shakedown off Trinidad, Randolph got underway for the Panama Canal and the Pacific. On 31 December, she reached San Francisco where Air Group 87 was detached and Air Group 12 reported on board for four months duty. On 20 January 1945, Randolph departed San Francisco for Ulithi, from which she sortied on 10 February with Task Force 58 (TF 58). She launched attacks on 16–17 February against Tokyo airfields and the Tachikawa engine plant. The following day, she made a strike on the island of Chichi Jima. On 20 February, she launched three aerial sweeps in support of ground forces invading Iwo Jima and two against Haha Jima. During the next four days, further strikes hit Iwo Jima and combat air patrols were flown almost continuously. Three sweeps against airfields in the Tokyo area and one against Hachijo Jima followed on 25 February before the carrier returned to Ulithi. Riding at anchor at Ulithi on 11 March, a Yokosuka P1Y1 "Frances" kamikaze hit Randolph on the starboard side aft just below the flight deck, killing 27 men, including four reported missing and five transferred to the hospital ship Relief where they later died, and wounding 105, during Operation Tan No. 2. The initial damage assessment by the ship's captain and later confirmed by task force commander, Admiral Raymond Spruance, was that Randolphs damage was beyond the repair capabilities at Pearl Harbor and the ship would have to return to Navy facilities on the US west coast, effectively taking Randolph out of action for some five months, including the upcoming invasion of Okinawa. At this point, Randolphs catapult officer was able to convince the captain and Spruance that repairs could be completed at sea utilizing Jason, a repair ship in the immediate vicinity. What ensued became the most extensive repair at sea ever performed by the US Navy. The captain's first act was to move number six (forward) arresting gear catapult engine aft to replace the destroyed number one engine. This returned Randolph, very quickly, to an operational status. With Randolph able to launch and retrieve aircraft, and thus defend herself, repairs focused on the massive task, at the ship's stern, involving the replacement of structural steel components forming the hangar deck, aircraft elevator framework and flight deck support, all warped or destroyed by the fires ignited by the kamikaze hit. Some 29 tons of structural steel, including I beams salvaged from a Japanese sugar mill on newly liberated Saipan, were utilized. An additional 7,500 board feet of lumber was required to repair Randolph’s flight deck. In the words of Cmdr. Charles Minter, assistant air officer on board Randolph, "That decision to remain in the forward area [for repairs] allowed us to complete the war in an operational status. I doubt anyone could estimate how long we would have been in the yard had we gone back to the States, and the loss of the Randolph at that particular time would have been crucial. Slingin' Sam (Lt. Cmdr. Samuel Humphreys) saved the day". USS Jason repaired Randolph in four days, due to the damage being far less severe than the Kamikaze attack. On her next war cruise, as a part of Admiral Halsey's 3rd Fleet, Randolph made a series of strikes up and down the Japanese home islands. With Air Group 16 replacing Air Group 12, the ship launched eight raids on 10 July against airfields in the Tokyo area, principally those on the peninsula east of Tokyo Bay. On the 14th, her planes struck the airfields and shipping in and near Tsugaru Strait. In this attack, two of the important Honshū Hokkaidō train ferries were sunk and three were damaged. Attacks on the Japanese home islands continued for the next few days, and on 18 July, the Japanese battleship Japanese battleship Nagato – lying camouflaged alongside a pier at the Yokosuka Naval Base – was bombed. Moving southwest, Randolph and other carriers were off the coast of Shikoku on 24 July, for an anti shipping sweep of the Inland Sea, during which the carrier battleship Japanese battleship Hyūga was heavily damaged and airfields and industrial installations on Kyūshū, Honshū, and Shikoku were hit hard. Randolphs pilots estimated that from 10 to 25 July they had destroyed 25 to 30 ships, ranging in size from small luggers to a 6000 ton freighter, and had damaged 35 to 40 others. Randolphs strikes continued right up to the morning of the 15 August surrender, when her planes hit Kisarazu Airfield and surrounding installations. After an overhaul at Norfolk, Randolph resumed her station in the Atlantic. Over the next five years, she made two Mediterranean cruises and a northern European cruise, while spending most of her time off the East Coast and in the Caribbean.

On 7 August 1968, the Defense Department announced that it would inactivate Randolph and 49 other ships to reduce fiscal expenditures in 1969. Randolph was decommissioned on 13 February 1969 at Boston Navy Yard and laid up in the reserve fleet at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Another anchor was placed at a Naval Reserve unit in Kingsport, Tennessee. That building was later designated for decommissioning and destruction. With the blessing and approval of the Randolph Association, that anchor was kept in Kingsport and then relocated in 1990 to Sullivan North High School for representation of their newly commissioned NJROTC program. After the closing of that school, the anchor was moved on 7 June 2023 to its new home in Lebanon Missouri where it's being refurbished and being placed on display in the city's Veterans Park with a dedication on Veterans Day, 11 November 2023. Her binnacle is preserved at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum.