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. 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. and the Philippines, to limit Japanese air power during the invasion of Leyte.
Philippines campaign
thumb|Hancock off the Philippines, December 1944|left
The armada arrived off the Ryukyu Islands on 10 October 1944, with Hancock<nowiki/>'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. She was off San Diego on 7 May 1954 for operations along the coast of California that included 17 June launching of the first aircraft to take off a United States carrier by means of a steam catapult. After a year of operations along the Pacific coast that included testing of Sparrow I and Regulus missiles and Cutlass jet aircraft, she sailed on 10 August 1955 for 7th Fleet operations ranging from the shores of Japan to the Philippines and Okinawa.
She returned to San Diego on 15 March 1956 and decommissioned on 13 April for her SCB-125 conversion that included the installation of an angled flight deck. struck enemy-held territory around Kontum and Pleiku. On 26 March, Marine Heavy Lift Helicopter Squadron HMH-463 comprising 25 CH-53, CH-46, AH-1J and UH-1E helicopters embarked on Hancock and then proceeded to Subic Bay to offload the other half of CAG 21. From 12 to 14 May, she was alerted, although not utilized, for the recovery of SS Mayagüez, a US merchantman with 39 crew, seized in international waters on 12 May by the Communist Khmer Rouge. and sold for scrap by the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS) on 1 September 1976.
Awards
{| style="margin:1em auto; text-align:center;"
|colspan=3|
|-
|
|-
|
|-
|
|-
|
|}
Hancock was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation and received four battle stars on the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal for service in World War II.
- Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for Taiwan Straits from 26 August 1958 to 7 September 1958