USS Hancock Aircraft Carrier.

THE ESSEXCLASS

These ships formed the core of the Fast Carrier Task Force which effectively won the war in the Pacific, and all of them having survived it, and kept up to date by considerable modification were the basis of the post-war carrier fleet, serving into the 1970s in some cases. USS Hancock (CV 19) was originally to have been called Ticonderoga but her name was switched with that of CV 14 on 1 May 1943. She was constructed at Quincy, Massachusetts by Bethlehem, laid down on 26 January 1943, launched on 17 August that year and completed and commissioned on 15 April 1944, immediately joining the Pacific Fleet.

THE CAREER OF THE HANCOCK

USS Hancock was severely damaged by an explosion in her aviation fuel supply system (which has never been satisfactorily explained; it occurred during recovery of torpedo bomber aircraft) on 21 January 1945, and again by a kamikaze attack on 7 April, which put her port side catapult temporarily out of action and destroyed aircraft on deck. Neither, however, necessitated her returning to port. She was decommissioned on 9 May 1947, and from 5 December 1951 was reconstructed at Bremerton to SCB 27C standard, being decommissioned on 1 March 1954, having been re-designated an attack carrier in the meantime. Between April and November 1956 she received an angled flight deck to SCB 125 specification at San Francisco Navy Yard. In the late 1960s and early 1970s she served as an attack carrier off the coast of Vietnam; her designation was changed back to the original on 30 June 1975, and six months later, on 30 January 1976, she was decommissioned, being stricken the next day. She was subsequently sold for scrap.

TECHNICAL DATA

Type; Fleet/attack aircraft carrier
Machinery; 4-shaft Westinghouse turbines giving a total of 15,000shp
Dimensions (overall, before reconstruction); Length, 270.7m (888ft}; beam (flight deck), 46m (147.5ft)
Displacement (before reconstruction): 27,200t standard, 34,900t full food
Draught: 8.4m (27.5ff) full load
Complement; 2682