USS Antietam (CV-36)

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The Antietam as a training aircraft carrier in April 1962
The Antietam as a training aircraft carrier in April 1962
Overview
Keel laying March 15, 1943
Launch August 20, 1944
1. Period of service flag
Commissioning January 28, 1945
Decommissioning May 8, 1963
Whereabouts Wrecked in 1974
Technical specifications
displacement

27,100 tons

length

271 meters

width

28 meters (water line)

Draft

8.71 meters

crew

3,448

drive

4 propellers, driven by 4 steam turbines; 150,000 hp

speed

33 knots

Armament
  • 4 × 127mm twin towers
  • 4 × 127 mm single guns
  • 8 × 40 mm quad flak
  • 46 × 20 mm MK

The USS Antietam (CV-36 / CVA-36 / CVS-36) was the Essex class belonging aircraft carriers of the US Navy , which was made in January 1945 into service. Although the ship was still in service at the time of World War II , it did not take part in any combat operations. After a good two years in the reserve fleet between June 1949 and July 1951, the Antietam was reactivated for use in the Korean War.

In 1952, the ship was the first aircraft carrier in the world to have a sloping deck. Since 1957, the Antietam was used as a training aircraft carrier, before the sister ship USS Lexington (CV-16) took over this task in October 1962 . The Antietam was transferred to the reserve fleet in May 1963, where she remained for ten years until she was deleted from the Naval Vessel Register in May 1973. In February 1974 the ship went to be scrapped.

history

The Antietam in 1945

The Antietam was laid down in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on March 15, 1943 and launched on August 20, 1944. The commissioning took place on January 28, 1945 under the command of Captain James R. Tague.

On March 2, 1945, the ship left the port of Philadelphia for its test voyage. It arrived at Hampton Roads on March 5th . The Antietam then undertook several training missions off Norfolk until March 22nd . After subsequent repairs in the shipyard in Philadelphia, the ship set out on May 19, 1945 accompanied by three destroyers for San Diego , where it arrived on June 10.

On June 19, 1945, the Antietam reached the naval base of Pearl Harbor , from where it completed training missions in the Hawaiian Islands until August 12. After the surrender of Japan , the ship, accompanied by the light aircraft carrier USS Cabot (CVL-28), set out for Asia, where it was supposed to support the American occupation forces. After an unplanned stopover in Apra Harbor due to a technical defect , both ships arrived in Okinawa on August 30th . On September 2nd, the Antietam reached the port of Shanghai .

The following three years the ship spent most of its time in the Far East and was increasingly used in the Yellow Sea . After a voyage to the Middle East in the spring of 1949, the Antietam returned to the United States to be transferred to the reserve fleet in Alameda (California) on June 21 .

After the outbreak of the Korean War, the ship was reactivated on June 25, 1950 and put into service on January 17, 1951 under the command of George J. Dufek . After training missions and test drives off the coast of California , the Antietam set out for Korea on September 8, 1951. As of November, she undertook four missions as part of Task Force 77. This was the only active combat mission during the ship's service life. It returned to the United States in April 1952.

In September 1952 the Antietam met in the New York Naval Shipyard to be converted into an attack carrier. In October she was given the new designation CVA-36 and left the shipyard in December 1952. During the conversion, the ship was among other things the world's first aircraft carrier to have a sloping deck, which has since been used on almost all larger aircraft carriers.

The Antietam, now stationed in Quonset Point , spent the spring of 1955 with practice missions to test the new sloping deck. On June 9, 1953, aircraft from the VC-4 squadron stationed at Atlantic City International Airport came on board the ship to showcase the effectiveness of the Royal Navy's new landing deck in Portsmouth . In August 1953, the Antietam was converted into an aircraft carrier for anti-submarine defense and was henceforth known as CVS-36

From January to March 1955, the ship took part as part of the United States Sixth Fleet on a trip to the Mediterranean . In October it took part in a NATO exercise that called at several ports of allied nations. On October 22, 1956, the Antietam ran aground off Brest , but could be made buoyant again without damage. After further training missions in Europe, the ship arrived on April 21, 1957 at the Naval Air Station Pensacola to be used from then on as a training aircraft carrier. In addition to training pilots, the main task here was also testing new weapon systems as well as annual trips by the United States Naval Academy .

Antietam's later missions included humanitarian missions during Hurricane Carla in Texas and after Hurricane Hattie in Honduras . On October 23, the ship was replaced by the USS Lexington (CV-16) as a training aircraft carrier and transferred to the reserve fleet in Philadelphia on May 8, 1963. The Antietam remained there for more than ten years before it was removed from the Naval Vessel Register in May 1973. On February 28, 1974, the ship went to the Union Minerals & Alloys Corporation in New York for demolition.

The Antietam 's ship's bell can be viewed today at the Antietam National Battlefield on Antietam Creek . One of the ship's anchors stands in front of the National Museum of Naval Aviation on Naval Air Station Pensacola.

literature

  • Turner Publishing: History of the USS Antietam (CV / CVA / CVS-36) . Turner Publishing Company, 2001, ISBN 1563116855

Web links

Commons : USS Antietam (CV-36)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files