USS Gilbert Islands (ex-St. Andrews Bay) was a Commencement Bay-class escort carrier of the United States Navy.

In 1941, as United States participation in World War II became increasingly likely, the US Navy embarked on a construction program for escort carriers, which were converted from transport ships of various types.

These proved to be very successful ships, and the Commencement Bay class, authorized for Fiscal Year 1944, were an improved version of the Sangamon design.

[1] They proved to be the most successful of the escort carriers, and the only class to be retained in active service after the war, since they were large enough to operate newer aircraft.

Given the very large storage capacity for oil, the ships of the Commencement Bay class could steam for some 23,900 nautical miles (44,300 km; 27,500 mi) at a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

On 12 April, Gilbert Islands left San Diego, bound for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for a week of combat training exercises.

She arrived in Ulithi in the Caroline Islands on 14 May; her escorting destroyers—Caperton, Cogswell, and Ingersoll—repeatedly reported what proved to be likely false submarine contacts on the voyage.

As the pilots got acclimated to combat missions, they began to be used to escort aerial attacks and performing strikes on Japanese positions on the island.

Over the course of the rest of the month, her aircraft attacked numerous defensive positions, particularly around Shuri Castle in southern Okinawa, as the marines fought their way across the island.

[6] On 16 June, Gilbert Islands left the Okinawa area, bound for San Pedro Bay in the Philippines for a period of rest and replenishment.

On 26 June, she sortied in company with the escort carriers Suwanee and Block Island to raid Japanese positions in the occupied Dutch East Indies.

By 4 July, the Australians had secured the area, but in the course of the fighting, one of Gilbert Islands' Hellcats was shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire.

The ship was detached from TG 30.8 on 2 September, the day Japan formally surrendered, and Gilbert Islands thereafter returned to Okinawa.

Gilbert Islands was recommissioned on 7 September 1951, and moved to the Boston Naval Shipyard in November for an overhaul to prepare her for active service.

[6] On 5 January 1953, the ship sailed for a training cruise to the West Indies; she patrolled off the East Coast of the United States for much of the rest of the year.

[6] By this time, the Navy had begun replacing the Commencement Bay-class ships with much larger Essex-class aircraft carriers, since the former were too small to operate newer and more effective anti-submarine patrol planes.

Proposals to radically rebuild the Commencement Bays either with an angled flight deck and various structural improvements or lengthen their hulls by 30 ft (9.1 m) and replace their propulsion machinery to increase speed came to nothing, as they were deemed to be too expensive.

The purpose of the ship was to serve as a mobile command and control station to coordinate with ground forces in regions where the Navy had no existing communications infrastructure.

By September, she was ready to deploy to Southeast Asia as part of Seventh Fleet to support the forces then fighting the Vietnam War.

[8] Rather than cross the Pacific, Annapolis sailed west, passing through the Indian Ocean an stopping in Mauritius and Portuguese Angola in early May.

She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register a second time, on 15 October 1972, but lingered on until 19 December 1979, when she was sold to the Union Minerals & Alloys Corp. to be broken up.