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![]() USS Wasp underway in 1967
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History | |
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Name | Wasp |
Namesake | Wasp[1] |
Builder | Fore River Shipyard |
Laid down | 18 March 1942 |
Launched | 17 August 1943 |
Commissioned | 24 November 1943 |
Decommissioned | 17 February 1947 |
Recommissioned | 28 September 1951 |
Decommissioned | 1 July 1972 |
Reclassified |
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Stricken | 1 July 1972 |
Fate | Scrapped, 1973 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Essex-class aircraft carrier |
Displacement | |
Length | |
Beam | 93 ft (28.3 m) |
Draft | 34 ft 2 in (10.41 m) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed | 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph) |
Range | 14,100 nmi (26,100 km; 16,200 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) |
Complement | 2,600 officers and enlisted men |
Armament |
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Armor |
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Aircraft carried |
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USS Wasp (CV/CVA/CVS-18) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. The ship, the ninth US Navy ship to bear the name, was originally named Oriskany, but was renamed while under construction in honor of the previous Wasp (CV-7), which was sunk 15 September 1942. Wasp was commissioned in November 1943, and served in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning eight battle stars. 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 as an attack carrier (CVA), and then eventually became an antisubmarine carrier (CVS). In her second career, she operated mainly in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Caribbean. She played a prominent role in the manned space program, serving as the recovery ship for five Project Gemini missions: Gemini IV, Gemini VI, Gemini VII, Gemini IX, and Gemini XII. She was retired in 1972, and sold for scrap in 1973.