History of the USS Antietam (CV/CVA/CVS)
Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing, 2001. Limited Edition [stated]. Hardcover. Format is approximately 9.25 inches by 12.25 inches. 96 pages. Decorative cover. Illustrated endpapers. Illustrations. Book in a clear plastic sleeve/dust wrapper. There is about a 1.5 inches by .5 inch scuff where the rear endpaper adhered to the inside of the rear cover at the top. Minor loss of illustration. Front cover has Ray Duane Ruggles name in gold at the lower right corner. There is a brief biography of Ruggles on pages 65 and 66 and he is mentioned in the Association Roster of inactive members on page 90. After helping decommission the USS Antietam, CVS-36 Ruggles was sent to VR-24 in Port Lyautey in April of 1963. Worked on the flight line. Moved up to Rota that September after many flights across the Med hauling everything they could pull up, pick up, unscrew or unstick. Even took the swimming pool pumps and the diving board. After about three months at Rota on the flightline he was sent to the gas pool and drove those big yellow trucks for two years. Contents are: Association's Message, Publisher's Message, History of the USS Antietam, Special Stories from the USS Antietam, Veterans of the USS Antietam, Association Member Roster, and Index. This is primarily the history of the second United States Navy's warship to bear the name of the famous Civil War battle. There would be a third commissioned which would see action in connection with the Persian Gulf hostilities, but that is not the vessel memorialized in this work. Filled with many photographs from periods of deployment and photographs of crew members in later, civilian life. USS Antietam (CV/CVA/CVS-36) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during and shortly after World War II for the United States Navy. The ship was the second US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named for the American Civil War Battle of Antietam (Maryland). Antietam was commissioned in January 1945, too late to serve actively in World War II. After serving a short time in the Far East, she was decommissioned in 1949. She was soon recommissioned for Korean War service, and in that conflict earned two battle stars. In the early 1950s, she was redesignated an attack carrier (CVA) and then an antisubmarine warfare carrier (CVS). After the Korean War she spent the rest of her career operating in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean. From 1957 until her deactivation, she was the Navy's training carrier, operating out of Florida. Antietam was fitted with a port sponson in 1952 to make her the world's first true angled-deck aircraft carrier. However, she received no major modernizations other than this, and thus throughout her career largely retained the classic appearance of a World War II Essex-class ship. She was decommissioned in 1963, and sold for scrap in 1974. In late November, 1951 USS Antietam began the only combat deployment of her career. During that tour, she made four cruises with Task Force 77 (TF 77), in the combat zone off the coast of the Korean peninsula. In between fighting assignments, she returned to Yokosuka, Japan. During each of those periods, her air group carried out a variety of missions in support of United Nations forces combating North Korean aggression. Those missions included combat air patrol, logistics interdiction, particularly against railroad and highway traffic, reconnaissance, antisubmarine patrols, and night heckler missions. From late November 1951 to mid-March 1952, Antietam's air group flew nearly 6,000 sorties of all types. She returned to Yokosuka on 21 March 1952 at the conclusion of her fourth cruise with TF 77 to begin preparations for her voyage back to the United States. Condition: Good.
Keywords: USS Antietam, CV-36, CVA-36, CVS-36, Aircraft Carrier, Essex Class, Warship, Veterans, Association, Korean War, Task Force 77, TF 77, Sponson, Yokosuka, Japan
ISBN: 1563116855
[Book #83896]
Price: $200.00