page_title: USS Antietam (CV-36)
section_title: Korean War
hierarchical_section_title: USS Antietam (CV-36) / Service history / Korean War
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Antietam (CV-36) returning from her deployment to Korea in March 1952. The crew had raised US $15,000 for the Shriners fund for crippled children, and formed both the numbers "$15,000" on the bow, and the Shriners logo amidships.
context_page_description: USS Antietam was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during and shortly after World War II for the United States Navy. The ship was the second US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named for the American Civil War Battle of Antietam. Antietam was commissioned in January 1945, too late to serve actively in World War II. After serving a short time in the Far East, she was decommissioned in 1949. She was soon recommissioned for Korean War service, and in that conflict earned two battle stars. In the early 1950s, she was redesignated an attack carrier and then an antisubmarine warfare carrier. After the Korean War she spent the rest of her career operating in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean. From 1957 until her deactivation, she was the Navy's training carrier, operating out of Florida.
  Antietam was fitted with a port sponson in 1952 to make her the world's first true angled-deck aircraft carrier. However, she received no major modernizations other than this, and thus throughout her career largely retained the classic appearance of a World War II Essex-class ship. She was decommissioned in 1963, and sold for scrap in 1974.
context_section_description: Antietam remained in reserve at Alameda, California, but after Communist forces from North Korea invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950, she began reactivation preparations on 6 December and went back into commission on 17 January 1951, with Captain George J. Dufek in command. Initially, the carrier conducted shakedown training and carrier qualifications along the California coast, first out of Alameda and – after 14 May – out of San Diego. She made one voyage to Pearl Harbor and back to San Diego in July and August before departing the latter port on 8 September and heading for the Far East. Antietam arrived in the Far East later that fall and, by late November, began the only combat deployment of her career. During that tour, she made four cruises with Task Force 77 (TF 77), in the combat zone off the coast of the Korean peninsula. In between fighting assignments, she returned to Yokosuka, Japan. During each of those periods, her air group carried out a variety of missions in support of United Nations forces combating North Korean aggression. Those missions included combat air patrol, logistics interdiction, particularly against railroad and highway traffic, reconnaissance, antisubmarine patrols, and night heckler missions. From late November 1951 to mid-March 1952, Antietam's air group flew nearly 6,000 sorties of all types. She returned to Yokosuka on 21 March 1952 at the conclusion of her fourth cruise with TF 77 to begin preparations for her voyage back to the United States.
caption: Antietam returning from Korea in March 1952
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