United States Navy — Aircraft carrier class
Essex-class aircraft carrier
Essex class
The class in numbers
- 32 Planned
- 24 Completed
- 8 Cancelled
- 4 Preserved
Design and service
- Type
- Aircraft carrier
- Navy
- United States Navy
- Built
- 1941–1950
- In commission
- 1942–1991
- Preceded by
- Yorktown-class aircraft carrier
- Succeeded by
- Midway-class aircraft carrier
- Operators
- United States
- Builders
- Newport News Shipbuilding
- Fore River Shipyard
- Brooklyn Navy Yard
- Philadelphia Naval Shipyard
- Norfolk Naval Shipyard
- Subclasses
- Ticonderoga class
Class specifications
Figures for the class as designed. Individual vessels varied, sometimes considerably — each vessel page carries its own configurations.
All stats as built
- Displacement, standard
- 30,800 long tons (31,294 t)
- Displacement, full load
- 36,380 long tons (36,964 t)
- Length
- 265.79 m (872 ft) OA
- Speed
- 33 knots (61.1 km/h, 38 mph)
- Complement
- 2,631
- Main gun
- 127 mm (5 in)
- Armament
- 12 × 5-inch (127 mm) /38 caliber guns
- 32 to 72 × 40 mm Bofors guns
- 55 to 76 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannon
Roster
Holding 22 of the 24 hulls recorded for this class. Vessels transferred to another navy are catalogued under the navy that sailed them and appear there instead.
| Vessel | Pennant | Commissioned | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| USS Antietam (CV-36) | CV-36 | 1945 | Scrapped 1974 |
| USS Bennington (CV-20) | CV-20 | 1944 | Scrapped 1994 |
| USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) | CV-31 | 1944 | Scrapped 1992 |
| USS Boxer (CV-21) | CV-21 | 1945 | Scrapped 1971 |
| USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) | CV-17 | 1943 | Scrapped 1973 |
| USS Essex (CV-9) | CV-9 | 1942 | Scrapped 1973 |
| USS Franklin (CV-13) | CV-13 | 1944 | Scrapped 1966 |
| USS Hancock (CV-19) | CV-19 | 1944 | Scrapped 1976 |
| USS Hornet (CV-12) | CV-12 | 1943 | Preserved |
| USS Intrepid (CV-11) | CV-11 | 1943 | Preserved |
| USS Kearsarge (CV-33) | CV-33 | 1946 | Scrapped 1974 |
| USS Lake Champlain (CV-39) | CV-39 | 1945 | Scrapped 1972 |
| USS Lexington (CV-16) | CV-16 | 1943 | Preserved |
| USS Leyte (CV-32) | CV-32 | 1946 | Scrapped 1970 |
| USS Oriskany | 1950 | Sunk 2006 | |
| USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) | CV-47 | 1946 | Scrapped 1971 |
| USS Princeton (CV-37) | CV-37 | 1945 | Scrapped 1972 |
| USS Randolph (CV-15) | CV-15 | 1944 | Scrapped 1975 |
| USS Shangri-La | 1944 | Scrapped 1988 | |
| USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) | CV-14 | 1944 | Scrapped 1974 |
| USS Wasp (CV-18) | CV-18 | 1943 | Scrapped 1973 |
| USS Yorktown (CV-10) | CV-10 | 1943 | Preserved |
Sources
- Facts harvested from Essex-class aircraft carrier on Wikipedia. Figures only — no wording is taken from it.