| BB-5 gave up her name, becoming Crane ship No. 1, to pass
the illustrious name of Kearsarge on to CV-12. Laid down in the Newport
News shipyard early in 1942, work stopped and the keel was lifted out of
the dock to allow LST construction. The Carrier was laid down again on 3
august 1942 and renamed Hornet to honor CV-8 on 22 January 1943. |
| The eighth Hornet (CV-12) was launched 30 August 1943
by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia;
sponsored by Mrs. Frank M. Knox, wife of the Secretary of the Navy; and
commissioned 29 November 1943, Captain Miles M. Browning in command. |
| Hornet conducted shakedown training off Bermuda before
departing Norfolk 14 February 1944 to join the Fast Carrier Task Force 20
March at Majuro Atoll in the MarshalIs. After lending air support to protect
the invasion beaches in New Guinea, she conducted massive aerial raids against
Japanese bases in the Caroline Islands and prepared to support the amphibious
assault for the occupation of the Marianas Islands. |
| On 11 June 1944 Hornet launched raids on Tinjan and Saipan.
The following day she conducted heavy bombing attacks on Guava and Rota.
During 15 to 16 June, she blasted enemy airfields at Iwo and Chichi Jima
to prevent air attacks on troops invading Saipan in the Marianas. The afternoon
of 18 June 1944 Hornet formed with the Fast Carrier Task Force to intercept
the Japanese First Mobile Fleet, headed through the Philippine Sea for Saipan.
The Battle of the Philippine Sea opened 19 June 1944 when Hornet launched
strikes to destroy as many land-based Japanese planes as possible before
the carrier-based Japanese aircraft came in. |
| The enemy approached the American carriers in four massive waves.
But fighter aircraft from Hornet and other carriers did a magnificent
job and broke up all the attacks before the Japanese aerial raiders reached
the task force. Nearly every Japanese aircraft was shot down in the great
air battles of 19 June 1944 that became commonly known as "The Marianas Turkey
Shoot." As the Japanese Mobile Fleet fled in defeat on 20 June, the carriers
launched long-range airstrikes that sank Japanese carrier Hiji and
so damaged two tankers that they were abandoned and scuttled. Admiral Ozawa's
own flag log for 29 June 1944 showed his surviving carrier air power as only
35 operational aircraft out of the 430 planes with which he had commenced
the Battle of the Philippine Sea. |
| Hornet, basing from Eniwetok in the MarshalIs, raided
enemy installations ranging from Guam to the Bonins, then turned her attention
to the Palaus, throughout the Philippine Sea, and to enemy bases on Okinawa
and Formosa. Her aircraft gave direct support to the troops invading Leyte
20 October 1944. During the Battle for Leyte Gulf she launched raids for
damaging hits to the Japanese center force in the Battle off Samar, and hastened
the retreat of the enemy fleet through the Sibuyan Sea towards Borneo. |
| In the following months Hornet attacked enemy shipping
and airfields throughout the Philippines. This included participation in
a raid that destroyed an entire Japanese convoy in Ormoc Bay. On 30 December
1944 she departed Ulithi in the Carolines for raids against Formosa, Indo-China,
and the Pescadores Islands. En route back to Ulithi, Hornet planes
made photo reconnaissance of Okinawa 22 January 1945 to aid the planned invasion
of that "last steppingstone to Japan." |
| Hornet again departed Ulithi 10 February for full-scale
aerial assaults on Tokyo, then supported the amphibious landing assault on
Iwo Jima 19-20 February 1945. Repeated raids were made against the Tokyo
plains industrial complex, and Okinawa was hard hit. On 1 April 1945
Hornet planes gave direct support to the amphibious assault landings
on Okinawa. 0n 6 April her aircraft joined in attacks which sank the mighty
Japanese battleship Yamato and her entire task force as it closed
Okinawa. The following 2 months found Hornet alternating between close
support to ground troops on Okinawa and hard-hitting raids to destroy the
industrial capacity of Japan. She was caught in a howling typhoon 4 to 5
June 1945 which collapsed some 25 feet of her forward flight deck. |
| Hornet was routed back to the Philippines and from there
to San Francisco, arriving 7 July 1945. Her overhaul was complete by 13 September
1945 when she departed as a part of the "Magic Carpet" operation that saw
her return home troops from the Marianas and Hawaiian Islands. She returned
to San Francisco 9 February 1946. She decommissioned their 15 January 1947,
and joined the Pacific Reserve Fleet. |
| Hornet recommissioned 20 March 1951 then sailed from San
Francisco for the New York Naval Shipyard where she decommissioned 12 May
1951 for conversion to an attack aircraft carrier (CVA-12). She recommissioned
11 September 1953 and trained in the Caribbean Sea before departure from
Norfolk 11 May 1954 on an 8-month global cruise. |
| After operators in the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean,
Hornet joined the mobile 7th fleet in the South China Sea where 25
July, search planes from her task group shot down two attacking Chinese Communist
fighter planes. She returned to San Francisco 12 December 1954, trained out
of San Diego, then sailed 4 May 1955 to join the 7th fleet in the Far
East. |
| Hornet helped cover the evacuation of Vietnamese from
the Communist controlled north to freedom in South Vietnam then ranged from
Japan to Formosa, Okinawa, and the Philippines in readiness training with
the 7th fleet. She returned to San Diego 10 December 1955 and entered the
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard the following month for conversion that included
a hurricane bow and the installation of an angled flight deck that permits
the simultaneous launching and recovery of aircraft. |
| Following her modernization overhaul, Hornet operated
along the California coast. She departed San Diego 21 January 1957 to bolster
the strength of the 7th fleet until her return from the troubled Far East
25 July. Following a similar cruise, 6 January through 2 July 1958, she was
converted to an Antisubmarine Warfare Support Carrier (CVS-12) in the Puget
Sound Naval Shipyard. On 3 April 1959 she sailed from Long Beach to join
the 7th fleet in antisubmarine warfare tactics ranging from Japan, to Okinawa
and the Philippines. She returned home in October, for training along the
western seaboard. |
| In the following years, Hornet was regularly deployed
to the 7th fleet for operations ranging from the coast of South Vietnam,
to the shores of Japan, the Philippines and Okinawa. On 25 August 1966 she
was on recovery station for the unmanned Apollo moonship that rocketed
three-quarters of the way around the globe in 93 minutes before splashdown
near Wake Island. Scorched from the heat of its reentry into the Earth's
atmosphere, the Apollo space capsule, designed to carry American astronauts
to the moon, was brought aboard Hornet after its test. |
| Hornet returned to Long Beach 8 September, but headed
back to the Far East 27 March 1967. She reached Japan exactly a month later
and departed Sasebo 19 May for the war zone. She operated in Vietnamese waters
throughout the remainder of spring and during much of the summer of 1967
aiding in the struggle to keep freedom alive in Southeast Asia until being
decommissioned on 26 June 1970. She was stricken 25 July 1989 and sold
for scrap 14 April 1993. |
| A strong effort by preservationists convinced the Navy to repossess
the Hornet and donate her for restoration efforts and she is now preserved
as a museum. |
| Hornet received the Presidential Unit Citation and seven
battle stars for service in World War II. |
Displacement, 27,000; Length, 872'; Beam, 47'6";
Draft, 28'; Speed, 33 knots; Complement, 3,448; Armament,
twelve 5"; Forty 40mm. |
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