Авианосец «Тикондерога» (CV/CVA/CVS 14) ВМС США

Essex class aircraft carrier of the US Navy

USS Ticonderoga (CV/CVA/CVS 14) was one of 24 s built during World War II for the United States Navy. The ship was the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named after the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in the American Revolutionary War. Ticonderoga was commissioned in May 1944, and served in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning five 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). She was recommissioned too late to participate in the Korean War, but was very active in the Vietnam War, earning three Navy Unit Commendations, one Meritorious Unit Commendation, and 12 battle stars. Ticonderoga differed somewhat from the earlier Essex class ships in that she was 16 feet (5 m) longer to accommodate bow mounted anti aircraft guns. Most subsequent Essex class carriers were completed to this "long hull" design and were referred to as the At the end of her career, after a number of modifications, she was said to be in the Hancock class according to the Naval vessel register. Ticonderoga was decommissioned in 1973 and sold for scrap in 1975.

The ship was laid down as Hancock on 1 February 1943 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., renamed Ticonderoga on 1 May 1943, and launched on 7 February 1944, sponsored by Miss Stephanie Sarah Pell. She was commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard on 8 May 1944, Captain Dixie Kiefer in command.

Ticonderoga remained at Norfolk for almost two months outfitting and embarking Air Group 80. On 26 June 1944, the carrier shaped a course for the British West Indies. She conducted air operations and drills en route and reached Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 30 June. For the next 15 days, Ticonderoga trained intensively to weld her air group and crew into an efficient wartime team. She departed the West Indies on 16 July and headed back to Norfolk where she arrived on 22 July for post shakedown repairs and alterations. On 30 August, the carrier headed for Panama. She transited the Panama Canal on 4 September and steamed up the coast to Naval Base San Diego the following day. On 13 September, the carrier moored at San Diego where she loaded provisions, fuel, aviation gas, and an additional 77 aircraft, as well as the Marine Corps aviation and defense units that went with them. On 19 September, she steamed for Hawaii where she arrived five days later. Ticonderoga remained at Pearl Harbor for almost a month. She and Carina conducted experiments in the underway transfer of aviation bombs from cargo ship to aircraft carrier. Following those tests, she conducted air operations – day and night landing and antiaircraft defense drills – until 18 October, when she exited Pearl Harbor and headed for the western Pacific. After a brief stop at Eniwetok, Ticonderoga arrived at Ulithi in the Western Caroline Islands on 29 October. There she embarked Rear Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Commander, Carrier Division 6, and joined Task Force 38 (TF 38) as a unit of Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman's Task Group 38.3 (TG 38.3). Ticonderoga then returned to normal operations along the East Coast until 4 November when she departed Naval Station Mayport, Florida, and headed for Europe. She relieved Intrepid at Gibraltar 10 days later and cruised the length of the Mediterranean during the following eight months. On 2 August 1956, Ticonderoga returned to Norfolk and entered the shipyard to receive an angled flight deck and an enclosed hurricane bow as part of the SCB 125 program. Those modifications were completed by early 1957, and in April she got underway for her new home port – Alameda, California. She reached her destination on 30 May, underwent repairs, and finished out the summer with operations off the California coast. On 16 September, she sailed out of San Francisco Bay and shaped course for the Far East. En route, she stopped at Pearl Harbor before continuing west to Yokosuka Japan, where she arrived on 15 October. For six months, Ticonderoga cruised the waters from Japan in the north to the Philippines in the south. Upon arriving at Alameda on 25 April 1958, she completed her first deployment to the western Pacific since recommissioning. The aircraft was being rolled from a hangar bay onto an elevator. The aircraft had mounted on it a B43 nuclear bomb. The pilot, Lieutenant JG Douglas Webster, the A 4E Skyhawk, BuNo 151022, of Attack Squadron VA 56 "Champions", and the nuclear weapon were all lost. No public mention was made of the incident at the time and it would not come to light until a 1981 United States Department of Defense report revealed that a one megaton bomb had been lost. Japan then asked for details of the incident.

Following repairs she steamed out of San Diego on 9 July to begin a normal round of West Coast training operations. Those and similar evolutions continued until 15 October, when Ticonderoga departed San Diego, bound via Hawaii for the western Pacific. The carrier reached Yokosuka, Japan, on 30 October and remained there until 5 November when she headed south for an overnight stop at U. S. Naval Base Subic Bay, Subic Bay in the Philippines on 10–11 November. On 13 November, Ticonderoga arrived in the Gulf of Tonkin and began the first of three combat tours during her 1966–1967 deployment. She launched 11,650 combat sorties, all against enemy targets located in North Vietnam. Again, her primary targets were logistics and communications lines and transportation facilities. For her contribution and that of Air Wing Nineteen to Operation Rolling Thunder, Ticonderoga was awarded her second Navy Unit Commendation.