USS Coral Sea (CV-43)

The USS Coral Sea (CV -43 ) was an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. She was a member of the Midway class, and was named after the Battle of the Coral Sea.

History

The Coral Sea in 1943 at Newport News Shipbuilding commissioned and placed there in July 1944 in Kiel. On April 2, 1946 ran CV -43 from the stack and was officially put into service on 1 October 1947.

First entries in the record books reached the Coral Sea in April 1948, when 27 two Lockheed P-2 Neptune JATO launches conducted from the deck of the carrier. This was the first time that such a heavy aircraft took off from an aircraft carrier. Later in the Coral Sea moved for the first time in European waters and was then overtaken.

1950 raised for the first time a North American A-2 by a carrier from, starting deck was also the Coral Sea. The year spent the carrier again in the Mediterranean. In the next five year, the carrier went once each in the region. During these missions, among others, Francisco Franco and King Paul I of Greece were received on board, also took the Coral Sea part in exercises of NATO and stood over the Suez Crisis for possible evacuations ready.

1957 laid the first carrier in the Pacific, in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard the Coral Sea was overtaken on the Service Life Extension Program. This lasted until 1960.

1965 drove the Coral Sea the first use in the context of the Vietnam War. By 1975, followed by seven further six-month tours off Vietnam. In 1975, the Coral Sea only in Operation Frequent Wind, and later participated in the completion of the so-called Mayaguez incident.

The carrier in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea in 1980 was used, she loosened her sister ship, USS Midway ( CV-41 ), which operated there during the hostage crisis in Tehran. 1985, during practice runs before Guantánamo Bay, the Coral Sea collided with the Napo, an Ecuadorian tanker, and had the following two months in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard match, where the damage was repaired.

In 1985, the ship was again used in European waters since the 1960 modernization of the sixth such use. Along with the USS America (CV -66), the Coral Sea in 1986 was involved in the bombing of Libyan air defense positions that American planes had repeatedly threatened.

By 1990, the ship went on operating in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, and was finally decommissioned on 26 April 1990. In 1993 the hull was sold for breaking down the Seawitch Salvage, Baltimore. New environmental regulations prevented but below the decomposition, a sale to China was vetoed by the Navy. Ultimately, the body of the Coral Sea was but scrapped in 2000.