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USS Independence (CVL-22)

USS Independence (CVL-22)
USS Independence in San Francisco Bay, 15 July 1943
USS Independence in San Francisco Bay, 15 July 1943
History
United States
Name: Independence
Builder: New York Shipbuilding Corporation
Laid down: 1 May 1941
Launched: 22 August 1942
Commissioned: 14 January 1943
Decommissioned: 28 August 1946
Fate: Target in nuclear weapons testing, 1946; scuttled 1951
General characteristics
Class and type: Independence-class aircraft carrier
Displacement:
  • 10,662 tons standard,
  • 14,751 tons loaded
Length: 623 ft (190 m)
Beam:
  • 71.5 ft (21.8 m) (waterline)
  • 109.2 ft (33.3 m) (extreme)
Draught: 24.3 ft (7.4 m)
Draft: 26 ft (7.9 m)
Propulsion: General Electric turbines, 4 shafts, 4 boilers; 100,000 shp
Speed: 31 knots (57 km/h)
Range: 13,000 nautical miles (24,000 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h)
Complement: 1,569 officers and men (inc. air group)
Armament: 26 × Bofors 40 mm guns
Aircraft carried:
  • original plan was 30;
  • 9 dive bombers
  • 9 torpedo-bombers
  • 12 fighters; for most of war operated 33–34, 24–26 fighters and 8–9 torpedo bombers.

USS Independence (CVL-22) (also CV-22) was a United States Navy light aircraft carrier, lead ship of her class and served during the Second World War.

Converted from the hull of a cruiser, she was built by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation and commissioned in January 1943. She took part in the attacks on Rabaul and Tarawa before being torpedoed by Japanese aircraft, necessitating repairs in San Francisco from January to July 1944.

After repairs, she launched many strikes against targets in Luzon and Okinawa. Independence was part of the carrier group that sank the remnants of the Japanese Mobile Fleet in the Battle of Leyte Gulf and several other Japanese ships in the Surigao Strait. Until the surrender of Japan, she was assigned to strike duties against targets in the Philippines and Japan. She finished her operational duty off the coast of Japan supporting occupation forces until being assigned to return American veterans back to the United States as part of Operation Magic Carpet.

Independence was later used as a target during the Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests. After being transported back to Pearl Harbor and San Francisco for study, she was later sunk near the Farallon Islands.

Begun as light cruiser Amsterdam, CL-59, she was launched as CV-22 on 22 August 1942 by New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey, sponsored by Mrs. Dorothy Warner, wife of Rawleigh Warner, Sr, Chairman of Pure Oil Co., and commissioned 14 January 1943, Captain G. R. Fairlamb, Jr., in command.

The first of a new class of carriers converted from cruiser hulls, Independence conducted shakedown training in the Caribbean. She then steamed through the Panama Canal to join the Pacific Fleet, arriving San Francisco 3 July 1943. Independence got underway for Pearl Harbor 14 July, and after 2 weeks of training exercises sailed with carriers Essex and Yorktown for a raid on Marcus Island. Aircraft from the carrier force struck on 1 September and destroyed over 70 percent of the installations on the island. The carrier began her next operation, a similar strike against Wake Island 5 to 6 October as CVL-22, having been redesignated 15 July 1943.


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