USS Lake Champlain (CV-39)

USS Lake Champlain on exercises in early 1965
History
United States
Name	Lake Champlain
Namesake	Battle of Lake Champlain
Builder	Norfolk Navy Yard
Laid down	15 March 1943
Launched	2 November 1944
Commissioned	3 June 1945
Decommissioned	17 February 1947
Recommissioned	19 September 1952
Decommissioned	2 May 1966
Reclassified	CVA-39, 1 October 1952 CVS-39, 1 August 1957
Fate	Scrapped, 28 April 1972
General characteristics
Class and type	Essex-class aircraft carrier
Displacement	27,100 long tons (27,500 t) standard
Length	888 feet (271 m) overall
Beam	93 feet (28 m)
Draft	28 feet 7 inches (8.71 m)
Installed power	8 × boilers 150,000 shp (110 MW)
Propulsion	4 × geared steam turbines 4 × shafts
Speed	33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Complement	3448 officers and enlisted
Armament	12 × 5 inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns 32 × Bofors 40 mm guns 46 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons
Armor	Belt: 4 in (102 mm) Hangar deck: 2.5 in (64 mm) Deck: 1.5 in (38 mm) Conning tower: 1.5 inch
Aircraft carried	90–100 aircraft

USS Lake Champlain (CV/CVA/CVS-39) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers completed during or shortly after World War II for the United States Navy. She was the second US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named for the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.

Commissioned on 3 June 1945, Lake Champlain did not participate in World War II, but did serve as a transport, bringing troops home from Europe as part of Operation Magic Carpet. 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 participated in the Korean War but spent the rest of her career in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean. In the late 1950s, she was redesignated as an antisubmarine carrier (CVS).

Lake Champlain was the prime recovery ship for the first crewed Project Mercury mission (Freedom 7), the second uncrewed Gemini mission (Gemini 2), and for the third crewed Gemini (Gemini 5) space mission.

Lake Champlain had a unique modernization history. She was the only Essex-class ship to receive the SCB-27 conversion which was a rebuild of the superstructure, flight deck and other features but without also receiving the SCB-125 conversion which would have given her an angled flight deck and hurricane bow. Therefore, she was the last operational US aircraft carrier with an axial flight deck.

Lake Champlain was decommissioned in 1966 and sold for scrap in 1972.