USS Coral Sea (CV/CVB/CVA-43), a , was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Battle of the Coral Sea. She earned the affectionate nickname "Ageless Warrior" through her long career. Initially classified as an aircraft carrier with hull classification symbol CV-43, the contract to build the ship was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding of Newport News, Virginia, on 14 June 1943. She was reclassified as a "Large Aircraft Carrier" with hull classification symbol CVB-43 on 15 July 1943. Her keel was laid down on 10 July 1944 in Shipway 10. She was launched on 2 April 1946, sponsored by Thomas C. Kinkaid and commissioned on 1 October 1947 with Captain A.P. Storrs III in command.
Before 8 May 1945, the aircraft carrier CVB-42 had been known as USS Coral Sea; after that date, CVB-42 was renamed in honor of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the late President, and CV-43 was named Coral Sea.
Coral Sea was one of the last U.S Navy carriers to be completed with a straight flight deck, with an angled flight deck added on during later modernizations. All subsequent newly built U.S Navy carriers have had the angled deck included as part of the ship's construction, and the other two ships of this class were also converted. While Coral Sea was eventually decommissioned and scrapped, her sistership, , is preserved as a museum ship in San Diego, California, in the 21st century.
Early milestones The ship promptly began a series of career milestones when, on 27 April 1948, two P2V-2 Neptunes, piloted by Commander Thomas D. Davies and Lieutenant Commander John P. Wheatley, made jet-assisted takeoffs (JATO) from the carrier as she steamed off Norfolk, Virginia. This was the first carrier launchings of planes of this size and weight. The Coral Sea sailed from Norfolk on 7 June 1948 for a midshipmen cruise to the Mediterranean and Caribbean, and returned on 11 August.
After an overhaul period, Coral Sea was again operating off the Virginia Capes. On 7 March 1949, a P2V-3C Neptune, piloted by Captain John T. Hayward of VC-5, was launched from the carrier with a 10,000-lb load of dummy bombs. The aircraft flew across the continent, dropped its load on the West Coast, and returned nonstop to land at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. The mission proved the concept of carrier-based atomic bomb attacks. Following training in the Caribbean, Coral Sea sailed on 3 May 1949 for her first tour of duty in the Mediterranean with the Sixth Fleet, returning 28 September.
Operations in the 1950s On 21 April 1950, the first carrier takeoff of an AJ-1 Savage heavy attack bomber was made from Coral Sea by Captain John T. Hayward of VC-5. The remainder of the pilots of the squadron completed carrier qualifications on board Coral Sea in this aircraft on 31 August, marking the introduction of this long-range atomic-attack bomber to carrier operations. At this time, she returned to the Mediterranean for duty with the Sixth Fleet from 9 September 1950 to 1 February 1951.
An overhaul and local operations upon her return, as well as training with Air Group 17, prepared her for a return to the Mediterranean once more on 20 March 1951. As flagship for Commander, Carrier Division 6, she took part in a NATO Exercise, Beehive I. She returned to Norfolk on 6 October for local and Caribbean operations, next sailing for the Mediterranean on 19 April 1952. While on service with the Sixth Fleet, she visited Yugoslavia in September and carried Marshal Josip Broz Tito on a one-day cruise to observe carrier operations.Vraćanje posete admiralu Kesediju na nosaču "Coral Sea". foto.mij.rs The ship was reclassified as an "Attack Aircraft Carrier" with hull classification symbol CVA-43 on 1 October 1952 while still at sea and returned to Norfolk, Virginia, for overhaul 12 October.
In November 1952, Herbert D. Riley assumed command of Coral Sea and she participated in the training of pilots in carrier operations off of the Virginia Capes and Naval Station Mayport, Mayport, Florida. She sailed for a tour of duty in the Mediterranean in April 1953, visited Spain, and took part in the NATO Exercise Black Wave with Deputy Secretary of Defense R. M. Kyes on board as an observer. Returning to Norfolk on 21 October, she carried out tests for the Bureau of Aeronautics and trained members of the Naval Reserve at Naval Station Mayport and Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
Coral Sea returned to the Mediterranean from 7 July to 20 December 1954, and during this tour, was visited by Spanish Generalissimo Francisco Franco as she lay off of Valencia. On her next tour of duty in the Mediterranean from 23 March to 29 September 1955, she called at Istanbul and participated in NATO exercises.
Sailing from Norfolk on 23 July 1956 for Mayport, Florida, to embark Carrier Air Group 10, Coral Sea continued on to the Mediterranean on her next tour. She participated in NATO exercises and received King Paul of Greece and his consort, Friederike Luise Thyra of Hanover, on board as visitors in October. During the Suez Crisis, Coral Sea evacuated American citizens from the troubled area and stood by off Egypt until November.
Sometime between late 1956 and early 1957, a so far unnamed crew member of Hungarian origin, possibly the ship's helmsman, managed to convince the crew of the Coral Sea to donate their annual Christmas funds to the refugees of the Hungarian Revolution, instead. Having made a unified decision, the crew members donated $7,500 and lined up for an aerial publicity shot, displaying Isten Segítsen! (English: God Help You). The U.S. government continued to promote this generous gesture by organizing trips for Hungarian refugees to see Coral Sea at Naples.
Coral Sea returned to Norfolk on 11 February 1957. She cleared that port on 26 February and visited Santos, Brazil; Valparaíso, Chile; and Balboa, Canal Zone, before arriving at Bremerton, Washington, on 15 April.
Coral Sea was decommissioned at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on 24 May 1957 to receive a major conversion (SCB 110A), which included a longer, angled deck canted 3° more than the previous overhauls of her sister ships. As the centerline elevators were relocated to the starboard deck edge forward and aft of the island, Coral Sea became the first carrier to mount an elevator on the port quarter resembling the more efficient deck layout of the Kitty Hawk class then under construction. Other improvements included new steam catapults, an enclosed hurricane bow, hull blisters, and removal of the armor belt and several antiaircraft guns. Upon completion, she was recommissioned on 25 January 1960 and rejoined the fleet. During September 1960, she conducted training with her new air group along the West Coast, then sailed in September for a tour of duty with the Seventh Fleet in the Far East on her first WestPac (Western Pacific cruise). She recorded her 100,000th arrested landing in October 1961.
Vietnam and operations in the 1960s to early 1970s
Installation of the pilot landing-aid television (PLAT) system was completed on Coral Sea on 14 December 1961. She was the first carrier to have PLAT installed for operational use. Designed to provide a videotape of every landing, the system proved useful for instructional purposes and in the analysis of landing accidents, thereby making it an invaluable tool in the promotion of safety. By 1963, all attack carriers had been equipped with PLAT and plans were underway for installation in the CVSs and at shore stations.
Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August, Coral Sea departed on 7 December 1964 for duty with the Seventh Fleet. On 7 February 1965, her aircraft, along with those from and , conducted Operation Flaming Dart against the military barracks and staging areas near Đồng Hới in the southern sector of North Vietnam. The raids were in retaliation for a damaging Viet Cong attack on installations around Pleiku in South Vietnam. On 26 March, the Seventh Fleet units began their participation in Operation Rolling Thunder, a systematic bombing of military targets throughout North Vietnam. Pilots from Coral Sea struck island and coastal radar stations in the vicinity of Vinh. On 3 April Vietnam People's Air Force MiG-17s attacked aircraft from Coral Sea and Hancock in the first United States aerial combat of the Vietnam conflict. A Coral Sea RF-8 took the first photographs of a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile site on 5 April. Coral Sea remained on deployment until returning home on 1 November 1965.
Coral Sea made another Westpac/Vietnam deployment from 29 July 1966 to 23 February 1967.
On 25 October 1967, while Coral Sea was stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, a Zuni rocket ignited during a routine test in the forward assembly area. The accident resulted in nine sailors suffering burns, with three in critical condition. The injured were promptly flown to Clark Air Force Base for intensive treatment. The rocket motor caused damage when it tore into a bulkhead about 20 feet from the testing area; however, the flames were quickly extinguished by the crew, and the injured men were transported to the sick bay for emergency care. Despite the incident, damage to the ship was minimal, and Coral Sea remained fully operational. The carrier continued her scheduled operations, launching airstrikes the following morning before departing Yankee Station on 27 October.
In the summer of 1967, the city of San Francisco adopted the ship as "San Francisco's Own",USS Coral Sea Tribute Site – Ship's History . Usscoralsea.net. Retrieved on 2010-09-22. and the city and ship enjoyed a formal, official relationship. In July 1968, prior to a deployment to Vietnam, Coral Sea participated in the carrier trials of the US Navy's proposed new interceptor, the General Dynamics–Grumman F-111B.
The ship continued to make WestPac/Vietnam deployments until 1975: 26 July 1967 to 6 April 1968; 7 September 1968 to 15 April 1969; 23 September 1969 to 1 July 1970; 12 November 1971 to 17 July 1972; 9 March 1973 to 8 November; and 5 December 1974 to 2 July 1975. Operations by the Navy and the Marine Corps aircraft in Vietnam expanded significantly throughout April 1972, with a total of 4,833 Navy sorties in the south and 1,250 in the north. Coral Sea, along with Hancock, was on Yankee Station when the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive began. They were joined in early April by and . On 16 April 1972, their aircraft flew 57 sorties in the Haiphong area in support of U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress strikes on the Haiphong petroleum product-storage area in an operation known as Freedom Porch.
After refitting, from 1970 through to 1971, and during refresher training south to San Diego, Coral Sea on her return trip to Alameda caught fire in the communications department. The fire spread so fast that Captain William H. Harris commanded that the carrier be placed just offshore between San Mateo and Santa Barbara to abandon ship if the fire could not be put under control. Several communications personnel were trapped, and RM-2 Robert Bilbo and RM-3 Billy Larremore pulled many shipmates out of the burning and smoke-filled compartments. They received the Navy and Marine Corp Medal. Lance Corporal Thomas P Howard Jr. of ships Mar/Det received a "Meritorious Mast" from Captain Harris as a result of his location and rescue of shipmates overcome by toxic smoke in security weapon space. An oxygen-breathing apparatus was L/Cpl Howard's only breathing protection at the time.