[3] Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 1966, Bunker Hill served as an electronics test platform for many years in San Diego Bay.

Bunker Hill was laid down on 15 September 1941, as hull number 1509 at the Bethlehem Steel Company's Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts, and launched on 7 December 1942, sponsored by Mrs. Donald Boynton.

[4] The carrier took aboard her air group at Norfolk, Virginia, at the end of June, and on 15 July sailed south to Trinidad on her shakedown cruise.

Three weeks later the ship returned to Norfolk, and on 4 September sailed south to the Panama Canal on the way to San Diego, Pearl Harbor, and the Pacific Theater of Operations.

The tailhooks were reinstalled on the squadron's Corsairs, enabling them to land and refuel on their former ship while providing air cover to the task force as its own planes were escorting the raid on Rabaul.

On 19 June 1944, during the opening phases of the landings in the Marianas, Bunker Hill was damaged when the explosion of a Japanese aerial bomb scattered shrapnel fragments across the decks and the sides of the aircraft carrier.

On 6 November 1944, Bunker Hill steamed eastward from the forward area, and went to the Bremerton Naval Shipyard, for major overhaul/upkeep work and weaponry upgrades.

[13] The Zero then crashed onto the carrier's flight deck, destroying parked warplanes full of aviation fuel and ammunition, causing a large fire.

[1] The admiral relinquished command by visual signal; he and his remaining staff were transferred by breeches buoy to destroyer English and then to Enterprise, which became the flagship.

[15] Bunker Hill was heavily damaged but was able to steam at 20 knots to Ulithi, where the Marine pilots of VMF-221, who had been aloft during the kamikaze attack and were diverted to other carriers, rejoined their ship.

[17] On 27 September 1945, Bunker Hill sailed from Bremerton to report for duty with the Operation Magic Carpet fleet, returning veterans from the Pacific as a unit of TG 16.12.

While in reserve Bunker Hill was reclassified three times, becoming CVA-17 in October 1951, CVS-17 in August 1953, and AVT-9 in May 1959, with the latter designation indicating that any future commissioned operations would be as an "Auxiliary Aircraft Transport Carrier".

She and Franklin, which also had sustained severe damage from an aerial attack, were the only aircraft carriers in the Essex-class that did not have any active service after the end of World War II.

Although their wartime damage had been successfully repaired, it was their resultant like-new condition which kept them out of commission, as the Navy for many years envisioned an "ultimate reconfiguration" for Bunker Hill and Franklin which never took place.

[21] The ship's bell was purchased from the scrapper, displayed for a while at the San Diego Air and Space Museum, and in 1986 was provided to the guided missile cruiser which bears the name USS Bunker Hill.

[22] Bunker Hill received the Presidential Unit Citation for the 18 months between 11 November 1943 and 11 May 1945, from the first combat in the Solomon Islands to the day the ship was knocked out of the war by kamikazes.