USS Shangri - La ( CV - 38 ) USS " Shangri - La " ( CV / CVA / CVS - 38 ) was one of 24 s completed during or shortly after World War II for the United States Navy . Commissioned in 1944 , " Shangri - La " participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations in World War II , earning two battle star s . Like many of her sister ships , she was decommissioned shortly after the end of the war , but was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s , and redesignated as an attack carrier ( CVA ) . She operated in both the Pacific and Atlantic / Mediterranean for several years , and late in her career was redesignated as an anti - submarine carrier ( CVS ) . She earned three battle star s for service in the Vietnam War . " Shangri - La " was decommissioned in 1971 and sold for scrap in 1988 . Nomenclature . The naming of the ship was a radical departure from the general practice of the time , which was to name aircraft carriers after battles or previous US Navy ships . After the Doolittle Raid , launched from the , President Roosevelt answered a reporter ' s question by saying that the raid had been launched from " Shangri - La " , the fictional faraway land of the James Hilton novel " Lost Horizon " . Construction and Commissioning . " Shangri - La " was one of the " long - hull " ships . She was laid down by the Norfolk Navy Yard , at Portsmouth , Virginia , on 15 January 1943 , and was launched on 24 February 1944 , sponsored by Josephine Doolittle ( wife of Jimmy Doolittle ) . " Shangri - La " was commissioned on 15 September 1944 , with Captain James D . Barner in command . Service history . World War II . " Shangri - La " completed fitting out at Norfolk and took her shakedown cruise to Trinidad , between 15 September and 21 December 1944 , at which time she returned to Norfolk . On 17 January 1945 , she stood out of Hampton Roads , formed up with large cruiser and destroyer , and sailed for Panama . The three ships arrived at Cristobal , Panama Canal Zone on the 23rd and transited the canal on the 24th . " Shangri - La " departed from Balboa on 25 January and arrived at San Diego , California on 4 February . There she loaded passengers , stores , and extra planes for transit to Hawaii and got underway on 7 February . Upon her arrival at Pearl Harbor on 15 February , she commenced two months of duty , qualifying land - based Navy pilots in carrier landings . On 10 April , she weighed anchor for Ulithi Atoll where she arrived 10 days later . After an overnight stay in the lagoon , " Shangri - La " departed Ulithi in company with destroyers and to report for duty with Vice Admiral Marc A . Mitscher ' s Task Force 58 ( TF 58 ) . On 24 April , she joined Task Group 58 . 4 ( TG 58 . 4 ) while it was conducting a fueling rendezvous with TG 50 . 8 . The next day , " Shangri - La " and her air group , CVG - 85 , launched their first strike against the Japanese . The target was Okino Daito Jima , a group of islands several hundred miles to the southeast of Okinawa . Her planes successfully destroyed radar and radio installations there and , upon their recovery , the task group sailed for Okinawa . " Shangri - La " supplied combat air patrol s for the task group and close air support for the 10th Army on Okinawa before returning to Ulithi on 14 May . While at Ulithi , " Shangri - La " became the flagship of Carrier Task Force 2 . Vice Admiral John S . McCain , Sr . hoisted his flag on " Shangri - La " on 18 May . Six days later , TG 58 . 4 , with " Shangri - La " in company , sortied from the lagoon . On 28 May , TG 58 . 4 became TG 38 . 4 and McCain relieved Mitscher as Commander , TF 38 , retaining " Shangri - La " as his flagship . On 2 – 3 June , the task force launched air strikes on the Japanese home islands – aimed particularly at Kyūshū , the southernmost of the major islands . Facing the stiffest airborne resistance to date , " Shangri - La " s airmen suffered their heaviest casualties . On 4 – 5 June , she moved off to the northwest to avoid a typhoon ; then , on the 6th , her planes returned to close air support duty over Okinawa . On the 8th , her air group hit Kyūshū again , and , on the following day , they came back to Okinawa . On the 10th , the task force cleared Okinawa for Leyte , conducting drills en route . " Shangri - La " entered Leyte Gulf and anchored in San Pedro Bay on 13 June . She remained at anchor there for the rest of June , engaged in upkeep and recreation . On 1 July , " Shangri - La " got underway from Leyte to return to the combat zone . On the 2nd , the oath of office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air was administered to John L . Sullivan on board " Shangri - La " , the first ceremony of its type ever undertaken in a combat zone . Eight days later , her air group commenced a series of air strikes against Japan which lasted until the capitulation on 15 August . " Shangri - La " s planes ranged the length of the island chain during these raids . On the 10th , they attacked Tokyo , the first raid there since the strikes of the previous February . On 14 – 15 July , they pounded Honshū and Hokkaidō and , on the 18th , returned to Tokyo , also bombing battleship , moored close to shore at Yokosuka . From 20 – 22 July , " Shangri - La " joined the logistics group for fuel , replacement aircraft , and mail . By the 24th , her pilots were attacking shipping in the vicinity of Kure . They returned the next day for a repeat performance , before departing for a two - day replenishment period on the 26th and 27th . On the following day , " Shangri - La " s aircraft damaged light cruiser and battleship , the latter so badly that she beached and flooded . She later had to be abandoned . They pummeled Tokyo again on 30 July , then cleared the area to replenish on 31 July and 1 August . " Shangri - La " spent the next four days in the retirement area waiting for a typhoon to pass . On 9 August , after heavy fog had caused the cancellation of the previous day ' s missions , the carrier sent her planes aloft to bomb Honshū and Hokkaido once again . The next day , they raided Tokyo and central Honshū , then retired from the area for logistics . She evaded another typhoon on 11 – 12 August , then hit Tokyo again on the 13th . After replenishing on the 14th , she sent planes to strike the airfields around Tokyo on the morning of 15 August 1945 . Soon thereafter , Japan ' s capitulation was announced ; and the fleet was ordered to cease hostilities . " Shangri - La " steamed around in the strike area from 15 – 23 August , patrolling the Honshū area on the latter date . From 23 August – 16 September , her planes sortied on missions of mercy , air - dropping supplies to Allied prisoners of war in Japan . " Shangri - La " entered Tokyo Bay on 16 September , almost two weeks after the surrender ceremony onboard battleship , and remained there until 1 October . Departing Japan , she arrived at Okinawa on 4 October staying until the 6th , and then headed for the United States in company with Task Unit 38 . 1 . 1 . She sailed into San Pedro Bay , on 21 October and stayed at Long Beach for three weeks . On 5 November , she shifted to San Diego , departing that port a month later for Bremerton , Washington . She entered Puget Sound on 9 December , underwent availability until the 30th , and then returned to San Diego . Post - war . Upon her return , " Shangri - La " began normal operations out of San Diego , primarily engaged in pilot carrier landing qualifications . In May 1946 , she sailed for the $ 3 to participate in Operation Crossroads , the atomic bomb tests conducted at Bikini Atoll . Following this , she made a brief training cruise to Pearl Harbor , then wintered at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard . In March 1947 , she deployed again , calling at Pearl Harbor and Sydney , Australia . When she returned to the United States , " Shangri - La " was decommissioned and placed in the Reserve Fleet at San Francisco on 7 November 1947 . " Shangri - La " recommissioned on 10 May 1951 , Captain Francis L . Busey in command . For the next year , she conducted training and readiness operations out of Boston , Massachusetts . Reclassified as an attack carrier ( " CVA - 38 " ) in 1952 , she returned to Puget Sound that fall and decommissioned again on 14 November , this time for modernization at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard . During the next two years , she received an angled flight deck , twin steam catapults , and her aircraft elevators and arresting gear were overhauled . At a cost of approximately $ 7 million , she was virtually a new ship when she commissioned for the third time on 10 January 1955 , Captain Roscoe L . Newman commanding ; she was the first operational US carrier with an angled flight deck . She conducted intensive fleet training for the remainder of 1955 , then deployed to the Far East on 5 January 1956 . Until 1960 , she alternated western Pacific cruises with operations out of San Diego . On 16 March 1960 , she put to sea from San Diego en route to her new home port , Mayport , Florida . She entered Mayport after visits to Callao , Peru ; Valparaíso , Chile ; Port of Spain , Trinidad ; Bayonne , New Jersey ; and Norfolk , Virginia . After six weeks of underway training in the local operating area around Guantánamo Bay , Cuba , she embarked upon her first Atlantic deployment , a NATO exercise followed by liberty in Southampton , England . Almost immediately after her return to Mayport , " Shangri - La " was ordered back to sea — this time to the Caribbean in response to trouble in Guatemala and Nicaragua . She returned to Mayport on 25 November and remained in port for more than two months . Between 1961 and 1970 , " Shangri - La " alternated between deployments to the Mediterranean and operations in the western Atlantic , out of Mayport . She sailed east for her first tour of duty with the 6th Fleet on 2 February 1961 . She returned to the United States that fall and entered the New York Naval Shipyard . Back in Mayport by the beginning of 1962 , " Shangri - La " stood out again for the Mediterranean on 7 February . After about six months of cruising with the 6th Fleet , she departed the Mediterranean in mid - August and arrived in Mayport on the 28th . Following a month ' s stay at her home port , the aircraft carrier headed for New York and a major overhaul . " Shangri - La " was modified extensively during her stay in the yard . Four of her 5 in ( 127 mm ) mounts were removed , but she received a new air search and height finding radar and a new arrester system . In addition , much of her electrical and engineering equipment was renovated . After sea trials and visits to Bayonne and Norfolk , " Shangri - La " returned to Mayport for a week in late March 1963 ; then put to sea for operations in the Caribbean . Eight months of similar duty followed before " Shangri - La " weighed anchor for another deployment . On 1 October 1963 , she headed back to the 6th Fleet for a seven - month tour . Vietnam . " Shangri - La " continued her United States Second Fleet and Sixth Fleet assignments for the next six years . From 15 February 1965 to 20 September 1965 , she made a Mediterranean deployment with Carrier Air Wing 10 embarked . In the fall of 1965 , " Shangri - La " was accidentally rammed by the destroyer during war games . " Shangri - La " was struck below the waterline , breaching the hull . On the destroyer , one man was killed and another injured , the ship itself suffered a bent hull . There were no casualties and the hole was quickly patched . As a result of this incident , she underwent an extensive overhaul during the winter of 1965 and the spring of 1966 , this time at Philadelphia , then resumed operations as before . On 30 June 1969 , she was redesignated an antisubmarine warfare carrier ( " CVS - 38 " ) . In 1970 , " Shangri - La " returned to the western Pacific after an absence of 10 years . She got underway from Mayport on 5 March , stopped at Rio de Janeiro , Brazil , from the 13th – 16th , and headed east through the Atlantic and Indian oceans . She arrived in Subic Bay , Philippines on 4 April , and during the next seven months launched combat sorties from Yankee Station . Her tours of duty on Yankee Station were punctuated by frequent logistics trips to Subic Bay , by visits to Manila and Hong Kong , in October , and by 12 days in drydock at Yokosuka , Japan , in July . On 9 November , " Shangri - La " stood out of Subic Bay to return home . En route to Mayport , she visited Sydney , Australia ; Wellington , New Zealand ; and Rio de Janeiro , Brazil . She arrived in Mayport on 16 December and began preparations for inactivation . After inactivation overhaul at the Boston Naval Shipyard , South Annex , " Shangri - La " decommissioned on 30 July 1971 . She was placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet and berthed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard . Fate . " Shangri - La " remained in the reserve fleet for the next 11 years , and was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 July 1982 . She was retained by MARAD for several years to provide spare parts for the training carrier . On 9 August 1988 , she was sold for scrap and later towed to Taiwan for demolition . An anchor from the Shangri - La is in Litchfield , MN . . One of Shangri - La ' s four propellers is on display outside Meding ' s Seafood in Milford , Delaware . Awards . " Shangri - La " earned two battle star s for World War II service and three battle star s for service in the Vietnam War .