USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31)

USS Bon Homme Richard underway in 1959
History
United States
Name	Bon Homme Richard
Namesake	Benjamin Franklin
Builder	New York Naval Shipyard
Laid down	1 February 1943
Launched	29 April 1944
Commissioned	26 November 1944
Decommissioned	9 January 1947
Recommissioned	15 January 1951
Decommissioned	15 May 1953
Recommissioned	6 September 1955
Decommissioned	2 July 1971
Reclassified	CVA-31, 1 October 1952
Stricken	20 September 1989
Fate	Scrapped, 1992
General characteristics
Class and type	Essex-class aircraft carrier
Displacement	27,100 long tons (27,500 t) (standard) 36,380 long tons (36,960 t) (full load)
Length	820 feet (249.9 m) (wl) 872 feet (265.8 m) (o/a)
Beam	93 ft (28.3 m)
Draft	34 ft 2 in (10.41 m)
Installed power	8 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers 150,000 shp (110,000 kW)
Propulsion	4 × geared steam turbines 4 × screw propellers
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	12 × 5 in (127 mm) DP guns 32 × 40 mm (1.6 in) AA guns 46 × 20 mm (0.8 in) AA guns
Armor	Waterline belt: 2.5–4 in (64–102 mm) Deck: 1.5 in (38 mm) Hangar deck: 2.5 in (64 mm) Bulkheads: 4 in (102 mm)
Aircraft carried	36 × Grumman F4F Wildcat 36 × Douglas SBD Dauntless 18 × Grumman TBF Avenger

USS Bon Homme Richard (CV/CVA-31) was the 14th of the 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, the first one being named for John Paul Jones's famous Revolutionary War frigate by the same name. Jones had named that ship, usually rendered in more correct French as Bonhomme Richard, to honor Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, the American Commissioner at Paris, whose Poor Richard's Almanack had been published in France under the title Les Maximes du Bonhomme Richard.

Bon Homme Richard was commissioned in November 1944, the last of the Essex class completed in time to serve in what would be the final campaigns of the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning one battle star. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was recommissioned in 1951 for the Korean War. In her second career she operated exclusively in the Pacific, playing a prominent role in the Korean War, for which she earned five battle stars, and the Vietnam War. She was modernized and recommissioned in 1955. She was decommissioned in 1971, and scrapped in 1992.