Ticonderoga
A village in Essex County, N.Y., on La
Chute River, 100 miles north of Albany. The name is an
Iroquois Indian term which means
"between two lakes" and refers
to Lake George and Lake Champlain. Here, the French built a fort called Carillon in 1755, but
it was captured four years later by
British troops under General Amherst.
Early in the American Revolution, on
10 May 1775, Ethan Allen and his "Green Mountain Boys" captured the
fort from the British. General Sir
John Burgoyne recaptured the fort in May 1777, holding it until his surrender at Saratoga,
N.Y., on 17 October 1777.
IV
(CV-14: dp. 27,100; 1.
888'; b. 93'0" (wl.); ew. 147'6"; dr. 28'7";s. 33 k.;
cpl. 3,448; a. 12 5", 72 40mm., ac. 80+;
cl. Essex)
The fourth Ticonderoga
(CV-14) was laid down as Hancock
on 1 February 1943 at Newport News, Va., by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock
Co.; renamed Ticonderoga on 1
May 1943; launched on 7 February 1944;
sponsored by Miss Stephanie Sarah Pell;
and commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard on 8 May 1944, Capt. Dixie Kiefer in
command.
Ticonderoga remained at Norfolk
for almost two months outfitting and
embarking Air Group 80. On 26 June,
the carrier shaped a course for the British West Indies. She conducted air operations and drills en route and reached Port of Spain,
Trinidad, on the 30th. For the next 15 days, Ticonderoga
trained intensively to weld her
air group and crew into an efficient wartime
team. She departed the West Indies on 16 July and headed back to Norfolk where she arrived
on the 22d for post-shakedown repairs
and alterations. On 30 August, the carrier headed for Panama. She
transited the canal on 4 September and steamed
up the coast to San Diego
the following day. On the 13th, the
carrier moored at San Diego
where she loaded provisions, fuel,
aviation gas, and an additional 77
planes, as well as the Marine Corps aviation and defense units that went with them. On the 19th, she sailed for Hawaii where she arrived five days later.
Ticonderoga remained at Pearl Harbor
for almost a month. She and Carina
(AK-74) conducted experiments in the underway transfer of aviation
bombs from cargo ship to aircraft carrier.
Following those tests, she conducted
air operations—day and night landing and antiaircraft defense drills—until 18 October when she exited Pearl Harbor
and headed for the western Pacific.
After a brief stop at Eniwetok, Ticonderoga
arrived at Ulithi Atoll in the Western Carolines on the 29th. There she embarked Rear Admiral A. W.
Radford, Commander, Carrier Division
6, and joined Task Force (TF) 38 as a unit of Rear Admiral Frederick C.
Sherman's Task Group (TG) 38.3.
The carrier sortied from
Ulithi with TF 38 on 2 November. She joined the other carriers as they resumed their extended air cover for the ground
forces capturing Leyte.
She launched her first air strike on the
morning of the 5th. The planes of her air group spent the next two days pummeling enemy shipping near Luzon and air
installations on that island. Her planes
bombed and strafed the airfields at Zablan, Mandaluyong, and Pasig.
They also joined those of other carriers in sending the heavy cruiser Nachi
to a watery resting place. In addition, Ticonderoga
pilots claimed six Japanese aircraft
shot down and one destroyed on the ground, as well as 23 others damaged.
Around 1600 on the 5th,
the enemy retaliated by sending up a
flock of planes piloted by members of the suicide corps dubbed kamikaze,
or "Divine Wind," in honor of the
typhoon that had destroyed a Chinese invasion
fleet four centuries previously. Two of the suicide planes succeeded in slipping through the American combat air patrol and antiaircraft fire to
crash Lexington
(CV-16). Ticonderoga emerged
from that airborne banzai charge
unscathed and claimed a tally of two
splashes. On 6 November, the warship launched two fighter sweeps and two
bombing strikes against the Luzon airfields
and enemy shipping in the vicinity. Her
airmen returned later that day claiming the destruction of 35 Japanese aircraft and attacks on six enemy ships in Manila Bay.
After recovering her planes, the
carrier retired to the east for a fueling rendezvous.
She refueled and received replacement planes on the 7th and then headed back to continue pounding
enemy forces in the Philippines.
Early on the morning of 11 November,
her planes combined with others of TF 38
to attack a Japanese reinforcement convoy, just as it was preparing to enter Ormoc
Bay from the Camotes Sea. Together, the planes accounted for all the
enemy transports and four of the seven escorting destroyers. On the 12th and 13th, Ticonderoga and her sisters launched strikes at Luzon airfields and
docks and shipping around Manila.
This raid tallied an impressive score: light
cruiser Kiso, four destroyers, and seven merchant ships. At the conclusion of the raid, TF 38 retired eastward for a refueling breather. Ticonderoga and the rest of TG 38.3, however, continued east to Ulithi where they arrived on the 17th to
replenish, refuel, and rearm.
On 22 November, the aircraft carrier departed Ulithi once more and steamed back toward the Philippines. Three days later, she launched air strikes on
central Luzon and adjacent waters. Her pilots finished off the
heavy cruiser Kumano, damaged
in the Battle off Samar. Later, they attacked an enemy convoy about 15 miles southwest
of Kumano's not-so-safe haven in Dasol Bay. Of this convoy, cruiser Yasoshima, a merchantman, and three landing ships went to the
bottom. Ticonderoga's air
group rounded out their day of destruction
with an aerial rampage which cost the Japanese
15 planes shot down and 11 destroyed on the ground.
While her air group
busily pounded the Japanese, Ticonderoga's ship's
company also made their presence felt.
Just after noon, a torpedo launched by an enemy plane broached in Langley's
(CVL-27) wake to announce the
approach of an air raid. Ticonderoga's
gunners raced to their battle
stations as the raiders made both
conventional and suicide attacks on the task group. Her sister ship Essex (CV-9) erupted in flames when one of
the kamikazes crashed into her. When a second
suicide plane tried to finish off the stricken carrier, Ticonderoga's gunners
joined those firing from other ships in cutting his approach abruptly
short. That afternoon, while damage control
parties dressed Essex's wounds,
Ticonderoga extended her
hospitality to that damaged carrier's
homeless airmen as well as to Intrepid
(CV-11) pilots in similar straits.
The following day, TF 38 retired to
the east.
TF 38 stood out of Ulithi
again on 11 December and headed for
the Philippines.
Ticonderoga arrived at the launch
point early in the afternoon of the 13th and sent her planes aloft to blanket Japanese airbases on Luzon while Army planes took care of those in the
central Philippines. For three days, Ticonderoga airmen and their comrades wreaked havoc with a storm of
destruction on enemy airfields. She
withdrew on the 16th with the rest of TF 38 in search of a fueling rendezvous. While attempting to find calmer waters in which to
refuel, TF 38 steamed directly
through a violent, but unheralded, typhoon. Though the storm cost Admiral Halsey's force three destroyers and over 800
lives, Ticonderoga and
the other carriers managed to ride it
out with a minimum of damage. Having survived the tempest's fury, Ticonderoga
returned to Ulithi on Christmas Eve.
Repairs occasioned by the
typhoon kept TF 38 in the anchorage
almost until the end of the month. The carriers did not return to sea
until 30 December 1944 when they steamed
north to hit Formosa and
Luzon in preparation for the landings
on the latter island at Lingayen Gulf.
Severe weather limited the Formosa
strikes on 3 and 4 January 1945 and,
in all likelihood, obviated the need
for them. The warships fueled at sea on
the 5th. Despite rough weather on the 6th, the strikes on Luzon airfields were
carried out. That day, Ticonderoga's
airmen and their colleagues of the other air groups increased their score
by another 32 enemy planes. The 7th brought
more strikes on Luzon installations. After a fueling rendezvous on the 8th, Ticonderoga sped north at night to get into position to blanket Japanese airfields in the Ryukyus during the
Lingayen assault the following morning. However, foul weather, the bugaboo of TF 38 during the winter of 1944 and
1945, forced TG 38.3 to abandon the strikes on the Ryukyu airfields and join TG 38.2 in pounding Formosa.
During the night of 9
and 10 January, TF 38 steamed boldly
through the Luzon Strait and then headed generally southwest, diagonally across the South
China Sea. Ticonderoga
provided combat air patrol coverage on -the llth and helped to bring down four enemy planes which attempted to snoop the formation.
Otherwise, the carriers and their consorts proceeded unmolested to a point some 150 to 200 miles off the
coast of Indochina.
There, on the 12th, they launched their approximately 850 planes and made a series of anti-shipping sweeps during which they sank a whopping 44 ships, totalling over 130,000 tons. After
recovering planes in the late
afternoon, the carriers moved off to
the northeast. Heavy weather hindered fueling operations on the 13th and 14th, and air searches failed
to turn up any tempting targets. On
the 15th, fighters swept Japanese
airfields on the Chinese coast while the flattops headed for a position from which to strike Hong Kong. The following morning, they launched antishipping bombing raids and fighter sweeps of
air installations. Weather prevented
air operations on the 17th and again made fueling difficult. It worsened
the next day and stopped replenishment
operations altogether, so that they
were not finally concluded until the 19th. The force then shaped a course
generally northward to retransit Luzon Strait
via Balintang Channel.
The three task groups of
TF 38 completed their transit during
the night of 20 and 21 January. The next
morning, their planes hit airfields on Formosa,
in the Pescadores, and at Sakishima
Gunto. The good flying weather brought mixed
blessings. While it allowed American
flight operations to continue through the day, it also brought new gusts of the
"Divine Wind." Just after
noon, a single-engined Japanese plane scored a hit on Langley
with a glide-bombing attack. Seconds later, a kamikaze swooped out of the clouds and plunged toward Ticonderoga,
He crashed through her flight deck abreast
of the No. 2 5-inch mount, and his bomb exploded just above her hangar deck. Several planes stowed nearby
erupted into flames. Death and destruction
abounded, but the ship's company fought valiantly to save the threatened carrier. Capt. Kiefer
conned his ship smartly. First, he
changed course to keep the wind from fanning the blaze. Then, he ordered magazines and other compartments flooded to prevent further
explosions and to correct a 10-degree starboard list. Finally, he instructed the damage control party to continue flooding compartments on Ticonderoga's port side. That operation induced a 10-degree port list which neatly dumped the fire overboard! Firefighters
and plane handlers completed the job by dousing
the flames and jettisoning burning aircraft.
Wounded denizens of the
deep often attract predators. Ticonderoga was no exception. The other
kamikazes pounced on her like a school of sharks in a feeding frenzy. Her antiaircraft gunners struck back
with desperate, but methodical,
ferocity and quickly swatted three of
her tormentors into the sea. A fourth plane slipped through her barrage and smashed into the carrier's starboard side near the island. His bomb
set more planes on fire, riddled her
flight deck, and injured or killed
another 100 sailors—including Capt. Kiefer.
Yet, Ticonderoga's crew refused
to submit. Spared further attacks,
they brought her fires completely
under control not long after 1400; and Ticonderoga retired painfully.
The stricken carrier
arrived at Ulithi on 24 January but
remained there only long enough to move her wounded to hospital ship Samaritan (AH-10), to transfer
her air group to Hancock (CV-19), and to embark passengers bound for home. Ticonderoga cleared the lagoon on 28 January and headed for the United States. The warship stopped briefly at Pearl
Harbor en route
to the Puget Sound Navy Yard where she arrived on 15 February.
Her repairs were
completed on 20 April, and she cleared
Puget Sound the following day for the Alameda Naval Air Station. After embarking passengers and aircraft bound for Hawaii,
the carrier headed for Pearl Harbor
where she arrived on 1 May. The next day, Air Group 87 came on board and, for
the next week, trained in preparation
for the carrier's return to combat. Ticonderoga
stood out of Pearl Harbor and shaped a course for the western Pacific. En route
to Ulithi, she launched her planes for what amounted to training strikes on Japanese-held Taroa in the Marshalls. On 22 May, the warship arrived in Ulithi and rejoined the Fast Carrier Task Force as an element of Rear Admiral Radford's TG 58.4.
Two days after her
arrival, Ticonderoga sortied from Ulithi with TF 58 and headed north to spend
the last weeks of the war in Japanese home waters. Three days out, Admiral Halsey relieved Admiral Spruance,
the 5th Fleet reverted back to 3d
Fleet, and TF 58 became TF 38 again
for the duration. On 2 and 3 June, Ticonderoga
fighters struck at airfields on Kyushu in an effort to neutralize
the remnants of Japanese air power—particularly
the Kamikaze Corps—and to relieve the
pressure on American forces at Okinawa. During the following two days, Ticonderoga
rode out her second typhoon in
less than six months and emerged relatively
unscathed. She provided combat air patrol cover for the 6 June refueling rendezvous, and four of her
fighters intercepted and destroyed three Okinawa-bound kamikazes. That evening, she steamed off at high speed
with TG 38.4 to conduct a fighter sweep of airfields
on southern Kyushu on the 8th. Ticonderoga's
planes then joined in the aerial
bombardment of Minami Daito Shima and Kita Daito Shima before the
carrier headed for Leyte
where she arrived on the 13th.
During the two-week rest
and replenishment period she enjoyed
at Leyte, Ticonderoga changed
task organizations from TG 38.4 to
Rear Admiral Gerald F. Bogan's TG
38.3. On 1 July, she departed Leyte with TF 38 and headed north to resume raids on Japan. Two days later, a damaged reduction gear forced her
into Apra Harbor, Guam, for repairs. She
remained there until the 19th when
she steamed off to rejoin TF 38 and
resume her role in the war against Japan. On the 24th, her
planes joined those of other fast carriers in striking
ships in the Inland Sea and airfields at Nagoya,
Osaka,
and Miko. During those raids, TF 38 planes found the sad remnants of the once-mighty Japanese Fleet and bagged battleships Ise, Hyuga, and
Haruna as well as an escort
carrier, Kaiyo, and two heavy cruisers. On 28 July, her aircraft
directed their efforts toward the Kure
Naval Base, where they pounded an aircraft
carrier, three cruisers, a destroyer, and a submarine. She shifted her attention to the industrial area of central Honshu on the 30th, then to
northern Honshu and Hokkaido on 9 and 10 August. The latter attacks thoroughly destroyed the marshalling area
for a planned airborne suicide raid on the B-29 bases in the Marianas. On
the 13th and 14th, her planes returned
to the Tokyo
area and helped to subject the Japanese
capital to another severe drubbing.
The two atomic bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th, respectively, convinced the Japanese of the futility of continued
resistance. On the morning of 15 August, Ticonderoga launched another strike against Tokyo. During or just after that attack, word reached TF 38 to the effect that Japan had capitulated.
The shock of peace, though
not so abrupt as that of war almost
four years previously, took some getting used to. Ticonderoga
and her sister ships remained on a full war footing. She continued
patrols over Japanese territory and sent
reconnaissance flights in search of camps
containing Allied prisoners of war so that airdropped supplies could be rushed to them. On 6 September—four days after the formal surrender ceremony on board Missouri
(BB-63)—Ticonderoga entered Tokyo Bay.
Her arrival at Tokyo ended one phase of
her career and began another. She
embarked homeward-bound passengers and
put to sea again on the 20th. After a stop in Pearl Harbor, the carrier reached
Alameda, Calif., on 5 October. She disembarked her passengers and unloaded cargo before heading out on the 9th
to pick up another group of veterans. Ticonderoga
delivered over a thousand
soldiers and sailors to Tacoma,
Wash., and remained there through the 28th for the Navy Day celebration. On 29 October, the carrier
departed Tacoma and headed back to Alameda. En route, all of the planes of Air Group 87 were transferred
ashore so that the carrier could be
altered to accommodate additional passengers in the
"Magic-Carpet" voyages to follow.
Following the completion of those modifications at the Pearl Harbor
Naval Shipyard in November, the warship
headed for the Philippines
and arrived at Samar
on 20 November. She returned to Alameda on 6 December and debarked almost 4,000 returning servicemen. The carrier made one more "Magic-Carpet" run in December 1945 and
January 1946 before entering the Puget
Sound Naval Shipyard to prepare for
inactivation. Almost a year later, on 9 January 1947, Ticonderoga
was placed out of commission and berthed
with the Bremerton Group of the
Pacific Reserve Fleet.
On 31 January 1952, Ticonderoga
came out of reserve and went
into reduced commission for the transit from Bremerton to New York. She departed Puget Sound on 27 February and reached New York on 1 April. Three days later, she was decommissioned at the New York Naval Shipyard to begin an extensive conversion. During the ensuing 29 months, the carrier
received the numerous
modifications—steam catapults to launch jets, a new nylon barricade, a new
deck-edge elevator and the latest
electronic and fire control equipment—necessary
for her to become an integral unit of
the fleet. On 11 September 1954, Ticonderoga was recommissioned at New York, Capt. William A. Schoech in command.
In January 1955, the
carrier shifted to her new home port—Norfolk, Va.—where
she arrived on the 6th. Over the next month, she conducted carrier
qualifications with Air Group 6 in the Virginia Capes operating area. On 3 February, she
stood out of Hampton Roads for
shakedown near Cuba, after
which she returned via Norfolk to New
York for additional alterations. During the late summer, the warship resumed carrier qualifications in the Virginia capes area.
After a visit to Philadelphia
early in September, she participated
in tests of three new planes—the A4D-1 "Skyhawk,"
the F4D-1 "Skyray," and the F3H-2N "Demon." Ticonderoga then returned to normal operations along the east coast until 4 November when
she departed Mayport,
Fla., and headed for Europe.
She relieved Intrepid at Gibraltar 10 days later and cruised the length of the Mediterranean
during the following eight months.
On 2 August 1956, Ticonderoga returned to Norfolk
and entered the shipyard to receive an angled flight deck and an
enclosed hurricane bow.
Those modifications were
completed by early 1957; and, in
April, she got underway for her new home port—Alameda, Calif. She reached her destination on 30 May, underwent repairs, and finished out the
summer with operations off the California coast. On 16 September, she stood out of San
Francisco Bay and shaped
d course for the Far East. En route,
she stopped at Pearl Harbor before continuing west to Yokosuka, Japan, where she arrived on 15 October. For six months, Ticonderoga cruised Oriental waters
from Japan in the north to the Philippines in the south. Upon arriving at Alameda
on 25 April 1958, she completed her
first deployment to the western Pacific since recoinmissioning.
Between 1958 and 1963, Ticonderoga made four more peacetime deployments to the western Pacific.
During each, she conducted training
operations with other urfits of the
7th Fleet and made goodwill and liberty port calls throughout the Far East. Early in 1964, she began preparations
for her sixth cruise to the western Pacific
and, following exercises off the west coast and in the Hawaiian Islands, the carrier cleared Pearl Harbor on 4 May for what began as another peaceful tour of duty in the Far East.
The first three months of that deployment brought normal operations—training
and port calls. However, on 2 August, while operating in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin,
Maddox (DD-731) reported
being attacked by units of the North Vietnamese
Navy. Within minutes of her receipt of the message, Ticonderoga dispatched
four, rocket-armed F8E "Crusaders" to the destroyer's assistance.
Upon arrival, the "Crusaders"
launched Zuni rockets and strafed the North Vietnamese craft with their 20-millimeter cannons. The Ticonderoga
airmen teamed up with Maddox gunners
to thwart the North Vietnamese attack,
leaving one boat dead in the water and damaging the other two.
Two days later, late in the evening of the 4th, Ticonderoga received
urgent requests from Turner Joy (DD-951)—by then on patrol with Maddox—for
air support in resisting what the destroyer
alleged to be another torpedo boat foray. The carrier again launched planes to aid the American surface ships, and Turner
Joy directed them. The Navy surface and air team believed it had sunk two boats and damaged another pair. President Johnson responded with a reprisal
to what he felt at the time to be two
unprovoked attacks on American
seapower and ordered retaliatory air
strikes on selected North Vietnamese motor torpedo boat bases. On 5 August, Ticonderoga
and Constellation (CV-46)
launched 60 sorties against four bases and their supporting oil storage
facilities. Those attacks reportedly resulted
in the destruction of 25 PT-type boats,
severe damage to the bases, and almost complete razing of the oil storage depot. For her quick reaction and successful combat actions on those three
occasions, Ticonderoga received
the Navy Unit Commendation.
After a return visit to Japan in September, the aircraft carrier resumed normal operations in the South China Sea until winding up the deployment late in the year. She returned to the Naval Air Station, North Island, Calif., on 15 December 1964. Following post-deployment and holiday standdown, Ticonderoga moved to the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard on 27 January 1965
to begin a five-month overhaul. She completed repairs
in June and spent the summer operating along the coast of southern California.
On 28 September, the aircraft carrier
put to sea for another deployment to
the Orient. She spent some time in the Hawaiian Islands for an operational readiness exercise then continued on to the Far East.
She reached "Dixie Station" on 5 November and immediately
began combat air operations.
Ticonderoga's winter
deployment of 1965 and 1966 was her first
total combat tour of duty during American involvement in the Vietnam
War. During her six months in the Far East,
the carrier spent a total of 115 days
in air operations off the coast of Vietnam,
dividing her time almost evenly
between "Dixie" and "Yankee
Stations," the carrier operating areas off South and North
Vietnam, respectively. Her air group delivered over 8,000 tons of ordnance in more than
10,000 combat sorties, with a loss
of 16 planes, but only 5 pilots. For
the most part, her aircraft hit enemy installations in North Vietnam and interdicted supply routes into South Vietnam, including
river-borne and coastwise junk and
sampan traffic as well as roads, bridges, and trucks on land.
Specifically, they claimed the destruction
of 35 bridges as well as numerous warehouses, barracks, trucks, boats, and
railroad cars and severe damage to a
major North Vietnamese thermal power
plant located at Uong Bi north of Haiphong. After a stop at Sasebo,
Japan, from 25 April to 3 May 1966, the warship put to sea to
return to the United States.
On 13 May, she pulled into port at San Diego to end the
deployment.
Following repairs she stood
out of San Diego
on 9 July to begin a normal round of
west coast training operations. Those
and similar evolutions continued until
15 October, when Ticonderoga departed San Diego,
bound via Hawaii for the western Pacific. The carrier reached Yokosuka, Japan, on 30 October and
remained there until 5 November when
she headed south for an overnight stop
at Subic Bay in the Philippines on the 10th and llth. On the 13th, Ticonderoga
arrived in the Gulf of Tonkin and began the first of three combat tours during her 1966-67 deployment. She launched 11,650 combat sorties, all against enemy targets
located in North Vietnam. Again, her primary
targets were logistics and
communications lines and transportation facilities. For their overall efforts in the conduct of day and night strikes on enemy targets, Ticonderoga and her air group earned
their second Navy Unit Commendation. She
completed her final line period on
27 April 1967 and returned to Yokosuka, from
which she departed again on 19 May
to return to the United States. Ten days later, the carrier entered San Diego and
began a month-long, post-deployment standdown. At the beginning of July, the warship shifted to Bremerton, Wash., where she entered the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for two months of repairs. Upon the completion of yard work, she departed Bremerton on 6
September and steamed south to training operations off the coast of southern California.
On 28 December, Ticonderoga sailed for her fourth combat
deployment to the waters off the Indochinese coast.
She made Yokosuka on 17 January 1968 and, after two days of upkeep, continued on to the Gulf of Tonkin where she arrived on station on the 26th and began
combat operations. Between January and July, Ticonderoga was on the
line off the coast of Vietnam
for five separate periods totalling
120 days of combat duty. During that
time, her air wing flew just over 13,000
combat sorties against North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, most frequently in the continuing attempts to
interdict the enemy lines of supply. In mid-April,
following her second line period, she made a port visit to Singapore and then, after upkeep at Subic Bay, returned to duty off Vietnam. On 9 July, during her fifth and final line period, Lt. Comdr. J. B.
Nichols claimed Ticonderoga's
first MiG kill. The carrier completed
that line period and entered Subic Bay for
upkeep on 25 July.
On the 27th, she headed
north to Yokosuka where she spent a week
for upkeep and briefings before heading
back to the United States
on 7 August. Ticonderoga reached
San Diego on
the 17th and disembarked her air group. On the 22d, she entered the Long Beach Naval
Shipyard for post-deployment repairs. She completed
those repairs on 21 October, conducted sea trials on the 28th and 29th, and began normal operations
out of San Diego early in November. For the
remainder of the year, she conducted
refresher training and carrier
qualifications along the coast of southern California.
During the first month of
1969, Ticonderoga made preparations for her fifth consecutive combat
deployment to the southeast Asia
area. On 1 February, she cleared San Diego and headed
west. After a brief stop at Pearl
Harbor a week later, she continued her voyage
to Yokosuka
where she arrived on the 20th. The carrier departed Yokosuka
on the 28th for the coast of Vietnam where she arrived on 4 March. Over the next four months, Ticonderoga served four
periods on the line off Vietnam,
interdicting communist supply lines and
making strikes against their positions.
During her second line
period, however, her tour of duty off
Vietnam came to an abrupt
end on 16 April when she was shifted
north to the Sea of Japan. North Korean aircraft had shot down a Navy reconnaissance plane in the area, and Ticonderoga was called upon to beef up the forces assigned to the
vicinity. However, the crisis abated;
and Ticonderoga entered Subic Bay on 27 April for upkeep. On 8 May, she departed the Philippines to return to
"Yankee Station" and
resumed interdiction operations. Between her third and fourth line periods, the carrier visited Sasebo
and Hong Kong.
The aircraft carrier took
station off Vietnam for her last line
period of the deployment on 26 June and there followed 37 more days of highly successful air sorties against enemy targets. Following that
tour, she joined TF 71 in the Sea of Japan for the remainder of the deployment. Ticonderoga concluded
the deployment—a highly successful
one for she received her third Navy Unit Commendation for her operations during that tour of duty—when she left Subic Bay on 4
September.
Ticonderoga arrived in San
Diego on 18 September. After almost a month of post-deployment standdown, she moved to the Long Beach Naval Shipyard in
mid-October to begin conversion to an
antisubmarine warfare (ASW) aircraft
carrier. Overhaul and conversion work
began on 20 October, and Ticonderoga
was re-designated CVS-14 on the 21st. She completed overhaul and conversion on 28 May 1970 and conducted
exercises out of Long Beach for most of June. On the 26th, the
new ASW support carrier entered her
new home port, San Diego. During July and August, she conducted refresher training, refresher air operations, and
carrier landing qualifications. The warship operated off the Califonia coast for the remainder of the year and participated in two exercises—HUKASWEX 4-70 late in October and COMPUTEX 23-70 between 30 November
and 3 December.
During the remainder of
her active career, Ticonderoga made two more deployments
to the Far East. Because of her change in mission, neither tour of duty included combat
operations off Vietnam.
Both, however, included training
exercises in the Sea of Japan with ships of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force.
The first of these two cruises also
brought operations in the Indian Ocean with units of the Thai Navy and a
transit of Sunda
Strait during which a ceremony was held to commemorate the loss of Houston
(CA-30) and HMAS Perth in 1942.
In between these two last
deployments, she operated in the eastern
Pacific and participated in the recovery of the Apollo 16 moon mission
capsule and astronauts near American Samoa during
April of 1972. The second deployment
came in the summer of 1972; and, in addition to the training exercises in the Sea of Japan, Ticonderoga also joined ASW training operations in the South China Sea. That fall, she returned to the eastern Pacific and, in November, practiced for the
recovery of Apollo 17. The next
month, Ticonderoga recovered her
second set of space voyagers near American
Samoa. The carrier then headed back to San Diego where she arrived on 28 December.
Ticonderoga remained active for nine more months, first operating out of San Diego and then making preparations for inactivation. On 1 September 1973,
the aircraft carrier was
decommissioned after a board of
inspection and survey found her to be unfit for further naval service. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 16 November 1973, and arrangements were begun to sell her for scrap.
Ticonderoga received
five battle stars during World War II and
three Navy Unit Commendations, one Meritorious
Unit Commendation, and 12 battle stars during
the Vietnam War.
Ticonderoga (CV-14)
is one of the relatively few Navy ships to have had a piece of music written in
her honor.This song was published in
1944.
Hit by two kamikazes off Formosa
on 21 February 1945, Ticonderoga was
saved by the heroic efforts of her crew. (80-G-273437)
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