USS Randolph (CV-15)

USS Randolph underway on 25 October 1959
History
United States
Name	Randolph
Namesake	Peyton Randolph
Builder	Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company
Laid down	10 May 1943
Launched	28 June 1944
Commissioned	9 October 1944
Decommissioned	25 February 1948
Recommissioned	1 July 1953
Decommissioned	13 February 1969
Reclassified	CVA-15, 1 October 1952 CVS-15, 31 March 1959
Stricken	1 June 1973
Fate	Scrapped, 24 May 1975
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 Randolph (CV/CVA/CVS-15) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. The second US Navy ship to bear the name, she was named for Founding Father Peyton Randolph, president of the First Continental Congress.^[1] Randolph was commissioned in October 1944, and served in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning three battle stars. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she 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 exclusively in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Caribbean. In the early 1960s she served as the recovery ship for two Project Mercury space missions, including John Glenn's historic first orbital flight. She was decommissioned in 1969 and sold for scrap in 1975.