page_title: USS Ranger (CV-61)
section_title: Service
hierarchical_section_title: USS Ranger (CV-61) / Service
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CVA-61) mooring at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (USA). Ranger, with assigned Carrier Air Group 14 (CVG-14), was deployed to the Western Pacific from 3 January to 27 July 1959.
context_page_description: The seventh USS Ranger was the third of four Forrestal-class supercarriers built for the United States Navy in the 1950s. Although all four ships of the class were completed with angled decks, Ranger had the distinction of being the first US carrier built from the beginning as an angled-deck ship.
  Commissioned in 1957, she served extensively in the Pacific, especially the Vietnam War, for which she earned 13 battle stars. Near the end of her career, she also served in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
  Ranger appeared on television in The Six Million Dollar Man and Baa Baa Black Sheep, and in the films Top Gun, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and Flight of the Intruder.
  Ranger was decommissioned in 1993, and was stored at Bremerton, Washington until March 2015. She was then moved to Brownsville for scrapping, which was completed in November 2017.
context_section_description: The carrier spent the remainder of 1958 in pilot qualification training for Air Group 14 and fleet exercises along the California coast. Departing 3 January 1959 for final training in Hawaiian waters until 17 February, she next sailed as the flagship of Rear Admiral Henry H. Caldwell, Commander, Carrier Division Two, to join the Seventh Fleet. Air operations off Okinawa were followed by maneuvers with SEATO naval units out of Subic Bay, Philippines. A special weapons warfare exercise and a patrol along the southern seaboard of Japan followed. During this first WestPac deployment, Ranger launched more than 7,000 sorties in support of 7th Fleet operations. She returned to San Francisco Bay 27 July. During the next 6 months, Ranger was kept in a high state of readiness through participation in exercises and coastal fleet operations.
  With Carrier Air Group 9 embarked, she departed Alameda on 6 February 1960 for a second WestPac deployment and returned to Alameda 30 August. From 11 August 1961 through 8 March 1962, Ranger deployed to the Far East a third time.
  The next seven months were filled with intensive training along the western seaboard in preparation for operations in Southeast Asia. Ranger departed Alameda on 9 November for brief operations off Hawaii, thence proceeded, via Okinawa, to the Philippines. She steamed to the South China Sea 1 May 1963 to support possible Laotian operations. When the political situation in Laos relaxed 4 May, she resumed her operations schedule with the 7th Fleet. Arriving at Alameda from the Far East 14 June 1963, she underwent overhaul in the San Francisco Naval Shipyard 7 August 1963 through 10 February 1964. Refresher training out of Alameda commenced 25 March, interrupted by an operational cruise to Hawaii from 19 June to 10 July.
  In May 1964, Ranger was deployed near French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean to monitor the French nuclear tests on Moruroa, a task made possible by launching and recovering a Lockheed U-2 from its flight deck. Work on modifying the U-2 for carrier landing and take-off started in late 1963, and one accident occurred during the carrier landing operation when the aircraft piloted by test pilot Bob Schumacher crashed.
caption: Ranger at Pearl Harbor, 1959
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:07:01 10:59:00", "Image ExifOffset": "172", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "310", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7933", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1340", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1363"}