Commissioned in December 1942, Essex participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning the Presidential Unit Citation and 13 battle stars.

[1] Essex was laid down on 28 April 1941 by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. After the Pearl Harbor attack, her building contract (along with the same for CV-10 and CV-12) was reworked.

After an accelerated construction, she was launched on 31 July 1942, sponsored by Alice Trubee Davison, the wife of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air.

While en route to the Mariana Islands to sever Japanese supply lines, the carrier force was detected and subjected to a prolonged aerial attack which it repelled successfully.

A kamikaze hit the port edge of her flight deck, landing among planes fueled for takeoff, and causing extensive damage, killing 15, and wounding 44.

In the closing days of the war, Essex took part in the final telling raids against the Japanese home islands on 10 July to 15 August 1945.

Modernization endowed Essex with a new flight deck, and a streamlined island superstructure on 16 January 1951, when she was recommissioned, with Captain A. W. Wheelock commanding.

After repairs at Yokosuka, she returned to frontline action on 3 October to launch strikes up to the Yalu River and provide close air support for U.N. troops.

On 1 December 1953, she started her final tour of the war, sailing in the East China Sea with what official U.S. Navy records describe as the "Peace Patrol".

Ordered to join the Atlantic Fleet for the first time in her long career, she sailed from San Diego on 21 June 1957, rounded Cape Horn, and arrived at Naval Station Mayport on 1 August.

[2] In the fall of 1957, Essex participated as an antisubmarine carrier in the NATO Exercise Strikeback and in February 1958, deployed with the 6th Fleet until May, when she shifted to the eastern Mediterranean.

Alerted to the Middle East crisis on 14 July 1958, she sped to support the US landings in Beirut, Lebanon, launching reconnaissance and patrol missions until 20 August.

She conducted rescue and salvage operations off the New Jersey coast for a downed blimp, cruised with midshipmen, and was deployed on NATO and CENTO exercises that took her through the Suez Canal into the Indian Ocean.

[2] On 7 November 1960, the Soviet research vessel Vityaz was reported by TASS to have been buzzed in the Arabian Sea by a Grumman S-2F Tracker from Essex.

[6] In April 1961, Essex steamed out of Quonset Point on a two-week "routine training" cruise, purportedly to support the carrier qualification of a squadron of Navy pilots.

The A4D-2 were armed with two 20 mm Mk-12 cannons loaded with "service" ammo and one LAU-3a 19 shot 2.75 FFAR pod with "antitank" warheads mounted on the centerline ejector rack, Station 3.

Not generally known to the Essex crew, they had been tasked to provide air support to CIA-sponsored bombers during the ill-fated Bay of Pigs Invasion.

The naval aviation part of the mission was aborted by President John F. Kennedy at the last moment and the Essex crew was sworn to secrecy.

On her return voyage to the United States, she ran into a severe North Atlantic storm (January 1962) and suffered major structural damage.

Aboard Essex, the hull was opened, and the ship's speed indicator equipment was destroyed, but the carrier was still able to make port unassisted.

However, the mission did not take place because on 27 January 1967, the Apollo 1's crew was killed by a flash fire in their spacecraft on LC-34 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.