USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60) was a Casablanca-class escort carrier of the United States Navy, which served during and after World War II.

Guadalcanal was built using a converted United States Maritime Commission freighter hull by Kaiser Shipyards in Vancouver, Washington.

Gallery made the first take off and landing aboard his new ship, Guadalcanal performed pilot qualifications out of San Diego, California, and then departed on 15 November 1943, via the Panama Canal, for Norfolk, Virginia, arriving on 3 December.

There she became flagship of Task Group 22.3 (TG 22.3), and with her escort destroyers set out from Norfolk on 5 January 1944 in search of enemy submarines in the North Atlantic Ocean.

The best the escort carriers could do was substitute extra fuel tanks for depth charges on a Grumman TBF Avenger, so the plane could take off at sunset, fly around all night, and land at dawn.

After they could reliably clear the flight deck within four minutes, they were finally allowed to push the battered Avenger overboard with no cable attached.

One of the Avengers found U-515 recharging batteries on the surface northwest of Madeira, and forced the U-boat to submerge by dropping a stick of depth charges with U-515 silhouetted in a down-moon approach.

Guadalcanal kept four Avengers aloft at all times through the night, and when U-515 attempted to surface to recharge batteries, she was repeatedly forced to submerge.

U-68 sank, leaving three lookouts swimming in the wreckage, but only Hans Kastrup survived to be rescued when destroyers arrived an hour later.

Two weeks of cruising brought no contacts, and Gallery decided to head the Task Group for the coast of Africa to refuel.

Shouts of panic from the engine room led Oberleutnant Harald Lange, making his first patrol as her captain, to believe his boat was mortally wounded.

Under the command of Lieutenant, junior grade Albert David, the party leaped onto the slowly circling submarine and found her abandoned.

Lt. David and his men quickly seized all important papers, code books, and the boat's Enigma machine while closing valves and stopping leaks.

She sailed on 1 December for a training period in waters off Bermuda and Cuba that included refresher landings for pilots of her new squadron, gunnery practice, and anti-submarine warfare drills with the old submarine USS R-9.

Guadalcanal arrived at Mayport, Florida on 15 December, and was there employed in carrier qualifications of pilots, She subsequently engaged in further training activities in Cuban waters until 13 February 1945, when she returned to Norfolk.

After another short training cruise to the Caribbean Sea, she steamed into Mayport on 15 March for another tour of duty as carrier qualification ship, later moving to Pensacola, Florida for similar operations.

She was being towed to Japan for scrapping when now-Rear Admiral Gallery made the very last landing and take-off from the ship, using a helicopter, off Guantanamo, Cuba.