page_title: USS Boxer (CV-21)
section_title: Post-Korea
hierarchical_section_title: USS Boxer (CV-21) / Service history / Post-Korea
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of USS Boxer (CV-21/LPH-4) loaded with helicopters of the 1st Cavalry Division, 1965
context_page_description: USS Boxer was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers of the United States Navy, and the fifth ship to be named for HMS Boxer. She was launched on 14 December 1944 and christened by the daughter of a US Senator from Louisiana.
  Commissioned too late to see any combat in World War II, Boxer spent much of her career in the Pacific Ocean seeing 10 tours in the western Pacific. Her initial duties involved mostly training and exercises, including launching the first carrier-based jet aircraft, but demobilization prevented much activity in the late 1940s. At the outbreak of the Korean War, she was used as an aircraft transport before arriving off Korean waters as the third U.S. carrier to join the force. She supported the Inchon landings and subsequent invasion of North Korea, and was among the ships that provided support during the Chinese counteroffensive against an under-prepared and spread out United Nations force. She saw three subsequent combat tours in Korea conducting close air support and strategic bombing in support of UN ground troops fighting along the 38th parallel, as the battles lines had largely solidified by this time.
context_section_description: Following the Korean War, Boxer returned to the United States. She conducted a tour of the Pacific throughout 1954 which was relatively uneventful, followed by a rest in the United States and another tour in the Pacific in late 1955 and early 1956, which was similarly uneventful.
  She was converted to an anti-submarine warfare carrier in early 1956, re-designated CVS-21. She completed another tour of the western Pacific in late 1956 and early 1957, which was her tenth and final deployment to the area. In late 1957, the navy began experimenting with the concept of a carrier operating entirely with attack helicopters, and Boxer was used to test the concept.
  In 1958, Boxer was the flagship during Operation Hardtack, a series of nuclear weapons tests in the central Pacific. Later that year, she was transferred to the Atlantic Fleet, and became part of a new amphibious assault squadron with four Landing Ship Tank vessels equipped with helicopter platforms. The experimental concept would allow for rapid deployment of US Marine Corps personnel and helicopter squadrons. For the remainder of 1958 elements of this force were organized aboard Boxer and she was reclassified LPH-4, denoting a "Landing Platform Helicopter", on 30 January 1959.
  For the next 10 years, Boxer operated mainly out of the Caribbean as an amphibious assault carrier. During this duty, she was on station during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1964, she undertook her first tour to the Mediterranean when she took part in Operation Steel Pike, the largest amphibious exercise in history.
  With two LSD ships, Boxer was dispatched to Hispaniola on 29 August 1964 on a humanitarian mission to aid Haiti and the Dominican Republic whose infrastructure had been damaged by Hurricane Cleo. The ships provided medical aid and helped to evacuate civilians displaced by the storm. On 27 April 1965 Boxer returned to the Dominican Republic with Helicopter Squadron 264 and a complement of Marines. They evacuated about 1,000 US nationals from the country in the wake of a revolution in the country. It was a part of Operation Powerpack which would eventually see the US occupation of that country. Later in 1965, she was used as a transport vessel for the Vietnam War. The carrier transported 200 helicopters of the US Army's 1st Cavalry Division to South Vietnam. She made a second trip to Vietnam in early 1966 when she transported Marine Corps aircraft to South Vietnam. However, she did not participate in combat operations during that war.
  On 26 February 1966, Boxer recovered AS-201, an unmanned test flight of the Apollo program which had launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida aboard a Saturn 1B rocket. The capsule had landed 200 miles (320 km) east of Ascension Island and one of Boxer's helicopters picked it up. From 16–17 March 1966, Boxer was the designated Atlantic prime recovery ship for Gemini 8, although USS Leonard F. Mason recovered the spacecraft and two crewmen after it encountered problems.
  She was decommissioned on 1 December 1969 after 25 years of service, and she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register. 
  She was sold for scrap on 13 March 1971.
caption: Boxer loaded with 200 helicopters of the 1st Cavalry Division bound for the Vietnam War, 1965
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