USS Hancock (CV/CVA-19) was one of 24 s built during World War II for the United States Navy. Hancock was the fourth US Navy ship to bear the namesake of Founding Father John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress and first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.There is some controversy regarding the naming of fleet carriers after famous Americans. Some suggest that the carrier was named for the frigate Hancock of the Continental Navy and that no US fleet carrier was named directly for a person before . The other examples are was named for Benjamin Franklin and was the fifth ship to bear the name, and was named for Peyton Randolph, President of the First Continental Congress. Hancock was commissioned in April 1944 and served in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning four battle stars. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s as an attack carrier (CVA). In her second career, she operated exclusively in the Pacific, playing a prominent role in the Vietnam War, for which she earned a Navy Unit Commendation. She was the first US Navy carrier to have steam catapults installed. She was decommissioned in early 1976 and sold for scrap later that year.
Construction and commissioning The ship was laid down as Ticonderoga on 26 January 1943 by Bethlehem Steel Co., Quincy, Massachusetts and subsequently renamed Hancock on 1 May 1943. This renaming was done in response to an offer from the John Hancock Life Insurance Company to conduct a special bond drive to raise money for the ship if that name was used. (The shipyard at Quincy was in the company's home state.) CV-14, originally laid down as Hancock and under construction at the same time in Newport News, Virginia, took the name Ticonderoga instead.
The company's bond drive raised enough money to both build the ship and operate her for the first year. The ship was launched 24 January 1944 by Juanita Gabriel-Ramsey, the wife of Rear Admiral DeWitt Clinton Ramsey, Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Hancock was commissioned 15 April 1944, with Captain Fred C. Dickey in command.
Service history
World War II
After fitting out in the Boston Navy Yard and shake-down training off Trinidad and Venezuela, Hancock returned to Boston for alterations on 9 July 1944. She departed Boston on 31 July en route to Pearl Harbor via the Panama Canal and San Diego, and from there sailed on 24 September to join Admiral W. F. Halsey's 3rd Fleet at Ulithi on 5 October. She was assigned to Rear Admiral Gerald F. Bogan's Carrier Task Group 38.2 (TG 38.2).
The following afternoon, Hancock sailed for a rendezvous point west of the Marianas where units of Vice Admiral Mitscher's Fast Carrier Task Force 38 (TF 38) were to raid Japanese air and sea bases in the Ryūkyūs, Formosa,Formosa was the name of the main the island of Taiwan in western literature until the 20th century. and the Philippines, to limit Japanese air power during the invasion of Leyte.
Philippines campaign
The armada arrived off the Ryukyu Islands on 10 October 1944, with Hancock's aircraft claiming seven enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground and assisting in the sinking of a submarine tender, 12 torpedo boats, 2 midget submarines, 4 cargo ships, and a number of sampans.
Formosan air bases were targeted on 12 October. Hancocks pilots claimed six Japanese aircraft and nine more on the ground. She also reported one cargo ship sunk, three probably destroyed, and several others damaged.
During an enemy air raid that evening, Hancocks gunners accounted for a Japanese aircraft during seven hours of uninterrupted general quarters. The following morning her aircraft resumed their assault, knocking out ammunition dumps, hangars, barracks, industrial plants ashore and damaging an enemy transport. As Japanese aircraft again attacked the Americans during their second night off Formosa, Hancocks antiaircraft fire claimed another raider which crashed about off her flight deck.
As the American ships withdrew a large force of Japanese aircraft approached the American fleet. One dropped a bomb off Hancocks port bow a few seconds before being hit by the carrier's guns and crashing into the sea. Another bomb penetrated a gun platform but exploded in the water. The task force sailed toward the Philippines to support the landings at Leyte.
On 18 October, she launched aircraft against airfields and shipping at Laoag, Aparri, and Camiguin Island in Northern Luzon. Her aircraft struck the islands of Cebu, Panay, Negros, and Masbate, airfields and shipping. The next day, she retired toward Ulithi with Vice Admiral John S. McCain, Sr.'s TG 38.1.
She received orders on 23 October to turn back to the area off Samar to assist in the search for units of the Japanese fleet reportedly closing Leyte to challenge the American fleet, and to destroy amphibious forces which were struggling to take the island. Hancock did not reach Samar in time to assist the escort carriers and destroyers of "Taffy 3" during the main action of the Battle off Samar, but her aircraft did manage to attack the retreating Japanese Center Force as it passed through the San Bernardino Strait. Hancock then rejoined Rear Admiral Bogan's Task Group with which she struck airfields and shipping in the vicinity of Manila on 29 October 1944. During operations through 19 November, her aircraft gave support to advancing Army troops and attacked Japanese shipping over a area. She became flagship of the Fast Carrier Task Force (TF 38) on 17 November 1944 when Admiral McCain came on board.
Unfavorable weather prevented operations until 25 November, when a kamikaze targeted Hancock, diving out of the sun. Antiaircraft fire destroyed the aircraft some above the ship, but a section of its fuselage landed amidships, and a part of the wing hit the flight deck and burst into flames. The fire was extinguished without major damage.
Hancock returned to Ulithi on 27 November and departed from that island with her task group to maintain air patrol over enemy airfields on Luzon to prevent kamikaze attacking amphibious vessels of the landing force in Mindoro. The first strikes were launched on 14 December against Clark and Angeles City Airfields as well as enemy ground targets on Salvador Island. The next day her aircraft attacked installations at Masinloc, San Fernando, and Cabanatuan, while fighter patrols limited Japanese attacks. Her aircraft also attacked shipping in Manila Bay.
Hancock encountered Typhoon Cobra on 17 December 1944, in waves which broke over her flight deck, some above her waterline. She put into Ulithi 24 December and got underway six days later to attack airfields and shipping around the South China Sea. Her aircraft struck at Luzon airfields on 7–8 January 1945 and turned their attention back to Formosa on 9 January, hitting airfields and the Toko Seaplane Station. An enemy convoy north of Camranh Bay, Indochina was the next target, with two ships sunk and 11 damaged. That afternoon Hancock launched strikes against airfields at Saigon and shipping on the northeastern bulge of French Indochina. Strikes by the fast and mobile carrier force continued through 16 January, hitting Hainan Island in the Gulf of Tonkin, the Pescadores Islands, and shipping in the harbor of Hong Kong. Raids against Formosa were resumed on 20 January. The next afternoon one of her aircraft returning from a sortie made a normal landing, taxied to a point abreast of the island before disintegrating in an explosion which killed 50 men and injured 75 others. Damage control work brought the fires under control in time to land the other aircraft of the same flight. She returned to formation and launched strikes against Okinawa the next morning. Hancock reached Ulithi on 25 January, where Admiral McCain left the ship and relinquished command of TF 38, which became TF 58 under Mitscher.
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
She sortied with the ships of her task group on 10 February and launched strikes against airfields in the vicinity of Tokyo on 16 February. On that day, her air group, Air Group 80, claimed 71 enemy aircraft and 12 more the following day. Her aircraft attacked enemy naval bases at Chichi Jima and Haha Jima on 19 February, as part of a raid to isolate Iwo Jima from air and sea support during American landing. Hancock took station off this island to provide tactical support through 22 February, attacking enemy airfields and strafing Japanese troops ashore.
Returning to waters off the Japanese home islands, Hancock launched her aircraft against targets on northern Honshū, making a diversionary raid on the Nansei-shoto islands on 1 March before returning to Ulithi on 4 March 1945.
Back in Japanese waters, Hancock joined other carriers in strikes against Kyūshū airfields, southwestern Honshū and shipping in the Inland Sea of Japan on 18 March. Hancock was refueling the destroyer on 20 March when kamikazes attacked the task force. One aircraft dove for the two ships but was destroyed by gunfire when about overhead. Fragments of the aircraft hit Hancocks deck while its engine and bomb crashed the fantail of the destroyer. Hancocks gunners shot down another aircraft as it neared the release point of its bombing run on the carrier.
Hancock was reassigned to Carrier TG 58.3 with which she struck the Nansei-shoto islands from 23 to 27 March and Minami Daito Island and Kyūshū at the end of the month.
Hancock provided close air support for the landing of the US 10th Army on the western coast of Okinawa on 1 April,. On 7 April a kamikaze struck her flight deck and hitting a group of aircraft while its bomb hit the port catapult; 62 men were killed and a further 71 wounded but the fires were put out within half an hour and she was back in action inside an hour.
Hancock was detached from her task group on 9 April and steamed to Pearl Harbor for repairs. She sailed back into action 13 June and attacked Wake Island on 20 June en route to the Philippines. Hancock sailed from San Pedro Bay with the other carriers on 1 July and attacked Tokyo airfields on 10 July. She continued to operate in Japanese waters until she received confirmation of Japan's capitulation on 15 August 1945 when she recalled her aircraft from their missions before they reached their targets. However aircraft of her photo division were attacked by seven enemy aircraft over Sagami Wan. Three were claimed shot down and a fourth damaged. Later that afternoon aircraft of Hancocks air patrol shot down a Japanese torpedo plane as it dived on a British task force. Her aircraft flew missions over Japan in search of prison camps, dropping supplies and medicine, on 25 August. Information collected during these flights led to landings under command of Commodore R. W. Simpson which brought doctors and supplies to all Allied prisoner of war encampments.
End of the war