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Photo # NH 97439:  USS Lake Champlain at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, circa the early 1960s

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Lake Champlain (CV-39, later CVA-39 and CVS-39), 1945-1970

USS Lake Champlain, a 27,100-ton Ticonderoga class aircraft carrier, was built at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia. Commissioned in June 1945, she participated in Operation "Magic Carpet" later in the year, helping to transport service members home from Europe. While engaged in that activity in late November 1945, she set a trans-Atlantic speed record. Lake Champlain was decommissioned in February 1947 and remained in reserve until the Korean War and Cold War greatly increased the demand for active aircraft carriers.

Following a modernization that gave her a strengthened flight deck, new island and other improvements, Lake Champlain was recommissioned in September 1952 and was soon thereafter redesignated CVA-39. She transited the Suez Canal in May 1953, eastbound to join Task Force 77 for Korean War service. Arriving in the war zone in mid-June, she had six weeks of active combat duty before the Korean Armistice stopped the fighting. The carrier remained in the Far East until October 1953, when she returned to the U.S. east coast by way of the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.

During the next four years, Lake Champlain made several Sixth Fleet cruises in the Mediterranean, including a crisis deployment in April-July 1957. In August 1957, she was converted to an anti-submarine warfare support aircraft carrier and redesignated CVS-39. In that role, she continued her Atlantic, Caribbean and Mediterranean assignments for another eight years, including participation in the Cuban Quarantine in October and November 1962. In addition to her normal anti-submarine activities, Lake Champlain conducted midshipmen training cruises, acted as recovery ship for manned space flights and assisted in hurricane relief activities.

By the early 1960s, Lake Champlain had become the only "axial" (or straight) flight deck fixed-wing aircraft carrier in a fleet that had long-since embraced the revolutionary angled flight deck. Incapable of safe operation of modern aircraft, and rendered redundant by the construction of new "super-carriers", she was decommissioned in May 1966. USS Lake Champlain was striken from the Naval Vessel Register in December 1969 and sold for scrapping in July 1972.

This page features selected views of USS Lake Champlain (CV/CVA/CVS-39).

If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: 80-G-265465

USS Lake Champlain (CV-39)


Underway at sea on 23 June 1945, less than three weeks after she went into commission.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 66KB; 740 x 605 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: NH 95918

USS Lake Champlain (CVA-39)


At anchor in Aden harbor, 18 May 1953, while she was en route to take part in the Korean War. Among the planes on her flight deck are a few Douglas F3D "Skyknight" all-weather fighters, parked just in front of the carrier's island.

Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 98KB; 740 x 595 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97435

USS Lake Champlain (CVA-39)


"A flight of (F2H-2) Banshees streaks over the USS Lake Champlain (CVA-39) in a photo taken by an accompanying destroyer of Task Force 77. The Essex-class carrier, recently arrived in the Far East, is in her first tour of Korean duty."
Quoted from original caption released with this photograph by Commander Naval Forces Far East, under date of 18 July 1953.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 97KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97436

USS Lake Champlain (CVA-39)


Anchored at Cannes, France, on 17 June 1957, during her final deployment as an attack aircraft carrier. Among the planes on her flight deck are three large AJ "Savage" attack aircraft.
Photographed by PH2 J.R. Sholar.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 137KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97437

USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39)


Underway at sea. The original print bears the rubber stamp date 1 July 1960.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 85KB; 740 x 610 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97438

USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39)


Underway while conducting anti-submarine exercises in the western Atlantic, circa early 1965.
The original print was received by "All Hands" magazine on 23 April 1965.
Note flight deck markings on this ship, the last axial-deck fixed-wing aircraft carrier in U.S. Navy service.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 124KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97439

USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39)


Anchored at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, while making a liberty call after exhaustive anti-submarine warfare exercises in the Caribbean. Presence of Sikorski HSS/SH-34 helicopters on her flight deck indicates that the photo was taken during the early 1960s.
The original print was received by "All Hands" magazine on 23 April 1965.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 98KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97440

USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39)


Catapults a pair of F2H-2 "Banshee" jet fighters for her first Korean War strikes, 15 June 1953.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 97KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: 80-G-684504

USS Lake Champlain (CVA-39)
, and
USS Purdy (DD-734)

Refueing at sea from USS Neosho (AO-143), in the Mediterranean, 20 October 1955.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 108KB; 740 x 605 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: NH 97441

USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39)


Members of the carrier's V-2 Division rigging arresting gear on the flight deck, circa 1962.
The caption released with this photo on 24 July 1962 reads: "Speeding toward a record-breaker, V-2 divisionmen aboard the USS Lake Champlain show what it takes to come out on top in barrier rigging. The 'Champ' crew recently broke the Atlantic Fleet record for setting the Davis (S2F) barrier with a time of 59 seconds flat. Having gained momentum, they went on to rig the conventional (AD) barrier in a pace-setting 53 seconds. When the men slowed down enough to look in the record books, they quickly found out that the record they had broken was their own, set in July of '61."

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 117KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97442

Gemini Titan 2 Suborbital Test, 19 January 1965


"U.S.S. Lake Champlain -- Navy frogmen place the floatation collar around the Gemini Titan 2 spacecraft. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched the spacecraft from Cape Kennedy, Jan. 19, 1965 at 9:03 and it was recovered by the recovery forces aboard the U.S.S. Lake Champlain some 2100 miles downrange at 10:45 a.m. Flight time was 19:03 minutes. Actual landing was 16 miles short of the programmed landing area."
Quoted from the original caption released by NASA with this photograph. Lake Champlain (CVS-39) is in the background. One of her SH-3 helicopters is hovering over the spacecraft.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 83KB; 740 x 610 pixels

 


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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Page made 14 November 2000
Link added 8 October 2001