USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39)

USS Lake Champlain on exercises in early 1965
History
United States
Name:	USS Lake Champlain
Namesake:	Battle of Lake Champlain, 1814
Builder:	Norfolk Naval Shipyard
Laid down:	15 March 1943
Launched:	2 November 1944
Commissioned:	3 June 1945
Decommissioned:	17 February 1947
Recommissioned:	19 September 1952
Decommissioned:	2 May 1966
Motto:	"The Straightest and the Greatest"
Nickname(s):	"Champ"
Fate:	Sold for scrapping April 1972
General characteristics
Class and type:	Essex-class aircraft carrier
Displacement:	As built: 27,100 tons standard
Length:	As built: 888 feet (271 m) overall
Beam:	As built: 93 feet (28 m) waterline
Draft:	As built: 28 feet 7 inches (8.71 m) light
Propulsion:	As designed: 8 × boilers 4 × Westinghouse geared steam turbines 4 × shafts 150,000 shp (110 MW)
Speed:	33 knots (61 km/h)
Complement:	3448 officers and enlisted
Armament:	As built: 4 × twin 5 inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns 4 × single 5 inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns 8 × quadruple Bofors 40 mm guns 46 × single Oerlikon 20 mm cannons
Armor:	As built: 4 inch (100 mm) belt 2.5 inch (60 mm) hangar deck 1.5 inch (40 mm) protectice decks 1.5 inch (40 mm) conning tower
Aircraft carried:	As built: 90–100 aircraft

USS Lake Champlain (CV/CVA/CVS-39) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers completed during or shortly after World War II for the United States Navy. She was the second US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named for the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.

Commissioned on 3 June 1945, Lake Champlain did not participate in World War II, but did serve as a transport, bringing troops home from Europe as part of Operation Magic Carpet. Like many of her sister ships, she was decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, but was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s, and redesignated as an attack carrier (CVA). She participated in the Korean War but spent the rest of her career in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean. In the late 1950s, she was redesignated as an antisubmarine carrier (CVS). She was the prime recovery ship for the first manned Mercury and for the third manned Gemini (Gemini V) space missions.

Lake Champlain had a unique modernization history. She was the only Essex-class ship to receive the SCB-27 conversion, which was a rebuild of the superstructure, flight deck and other features, but not also receive the SCB-125 conversion, which would have given her an angled flight deck and hurricane bow. Therefore, she had the distinction of being the last operational US aircraft carrier with an axial flight deck.

Lake Champlain was decommissioned in 1966 and sold for scrap in 1972.

Lake Champlain was one of the "long-hull" Essex-class ships. She was laid down in a drydock at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia on 15 March 1943. The hull was launched from drydock on 2 November 1944. Lake Champlain commissioned on 3 June 1945. The ship was sponsored by Mrs. Warren Austin, wife of Senator Austin of Vermont.