USS San Jacinto (CVL-30)

On 21 April 1836, General Sam Houston and his outnumbered troops won independence for Texas by decisively defeating a Mexican army at the San Jacinto River.

The name Newark was originally assigned to a projected light cruiser, CL-100, on 11 February 1941. The wartime need for aircraft carrier construction, however, resulted in the light cruiser being earmarked for conversion to an aircraft carrier and reclassification to CV-30. Renamed Reprisal on 2 June 1942, the ship was laid down on 26 October 1942 at Camden, N.J., by the New York Shipbuilding Co.; renamed San Jacinto circa 4 January 1943; reclassified as a small aircraft carrier, CVL-30, on 15 July 1943; launched on 26 September 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Jesse Jones, wife of the Secretary of Commerce; and commissioned on 15 November 1943, Capt. Harold M. Martin in command.

After shakedown in the Caribbean, San Jacinto sailed, via the Panama Canal, San Diego, and Pearl Harbor, for the Pacific war zone. Arriving at Majuro, Marshall Islands, she became part of the growing might of Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's Task Force 58/38, the fast carrier striking force of the Pacific Fleet. There, San Jacinto embarked Air Group 51, whose fighters and torpedo planes would be the ship's chief weapons in battle.

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From the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, compiled by the Naval History and Heritage Command (San Jacinto II (CVL-30)). A work of the United States Government, in the public domain.