page_title: USS Hancock (CV-19)
section_title: Vietnam War
hierarchical_section_title: USS Hancock (CV-19) / Service history / Vietnam War
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CVA-19) moored alongside Pier J at the Naval Air Station North Island, California (USA), on 18 July 1970. The carriers USS Midway (CVA-41), USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63), and USS Ticonderoga (CVS-14) (left to right) are tied up at the quay wall.
context_page_description: USS Hancock was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. The ship was the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named for John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress and first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Hancock was commissioned in April 1944, and served in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning four battle stars. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s as an attack carrier. In her second career she operated exclusively in the Pacific, playing a prominent role in the Vietnam War, for which she earned a Navy Unit Commendation. She was the first US Navy carrier to have steam catapults installed.
  She was decommissioned in early 1976, and sold for scrap later that year.
context_section_description: Hancock reached Japan on 19 November and soon was on patrol at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin. She remained active in Vietnamese waters until heading for home early in the spring of 1965.
  November found the carrier steaming back to the war zone. She was on patrol off Vietnam on 16 December; and, but for brief respites at Hong Kong, the Philippines, or Japan, Hancock remained on station launching her planes for strikes at enemy positions ashore until returning to Alameda on 1 August 1966. Her outstanding record during this combat tour won her the Navy Unit Commendation.
  Following operations off the West Coast, Hancock returned to Vietnam early in 1967 and resumed her strikes against Communist positions. After fighting during most of the first half of 1967, she returned to Alameda on 22 July and promptly began preparations for returning to battle.
  In the summer of 1969 she was back in Alameda preparing for yet another deployment to southeast Asia. In July, while in pre-deployment night landing exercises, an F-8 came in too low and crashed into the round-down splitting the aircraft into two pieces which hurtled down the deck and erupted in a massive fuel fed fire. While no lives were lost, damage to the flight deck was extensive, resulting in a frenetic 24 × 7 repair effort to be ready by the deployment date.
  Aircraft from Hancock, along with those from USS Ranger and USS Oriskany, joined with other planes for air strikes against North Vietnamese missile and antiaircraft sites south of the 19th parallel in response to attacks on unarmed U.S. reconnaissance aircraft on 21–22 November 1970 (Operation Freedom Bait). Hancock alternated with Ranger and Kitty Hawk on Yankee Station until 10 May 1971, when she was relieved by Midway.
  Hancock, along with USS Coral Sea, was back on Yankee Station by 30 March 1972 when North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. In response to the invasion, Naval aircraft from Hancock and other carriers flew tactical sorties during Operation Freedom Train against military and logistics targets in the southern part of North Vietnam. By the end of April, the strikes covered more areas in North Vietnam throughout the area below 20°25′ N. From 25–30 April 1972, aircraft from Hancock's VA-55, VA-164, VF-211 and VA-212 struck enemy-held territory around Kontum and Pleiku.
  On 17 March 1975 Hancock was ordered to offload its air wing. On arrival at Pearl Harbor off loaded half of CAG 21. On 26 March, Marine Heavy Lift Helicopter Squadron HMH-463 comprising 25 CH-53, CH-46, AH-1J and UH-1E helicopters embarked on the Hancock and it proceeded to Subic Bay to offload the other half of CAG 21. After taking on more helicopters at Subic Bay, Hancock was temporarily assigned to Amphibious Ready Group Bravo, standing by off Vung Tau, South Vietnam, but on 11 April she joined Amphibious Ready Group Alpha in the Gulf of Thailand. Hancock then took part in Operation Eagle Pull, the evacuation of Phnom Penh on 12 April 1975 and Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of Saigon on 29–30 April 1975.  From 12–14 May, she was alerted, although not utilized, for the recovery of SS Mayagüez, a US merchantman with 39 crew, seized in international waters on 12 May by the Communist Khmer Rouge.
caption: Hancock at San Diego in 1970; moored behind are (l-r) Midway, Kitty Hawk and Ticonderoga
exif: {}