In her second career, she operated exclusively in the Pacific, playing a prominent role in the Vietnam War, for which she earned a Navy Unit Commendation.

This renaming was done in response to an offer from the John Hancock Life Insurance Company to conduct a special bond drive to raise money for the ship if that name was used.

[1] The ship was launched 24 January 1944 by Juanita Gabriel-Ramsey, the wife of Rear Admiral DeWitt Clinton Ramsey, Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics.

She departed Boston on 31 July en route to Pearl Harbor via the Panama Canal and San Diego, and from there sailed on 24 September to join Admiral W. F. Halsey's 3rd Fleet at Ulithi on 5 October.

The following morning her aircraft resumed their assault, knocking out ammunition dumps, hangars, barracks, industrial plants ashore and damaging an enemy transport.

As Japanese aircraft again attacked the Americans during their second night off Formosa, Hancock's antiaircraft fire claimed another raider which crashed about 500 yd (460 m) off her flight deck.

During operations through 19 November, her aircraft gave support to advancing Army troops and attacked Japanese shipping over a 350 mi (560 km) area.

Antiaircraft fire destroyed the aircraft some 300 ft (90 m) above the ship, but a section of its fuselage landed amidships, and a part of the wing hit the flight deck and burst into flames.

[2] Hancock returned to Ulithi on 27 November and departed from that island with her task group to maintain air patrol over enemy airfields on Luzon to prevent kamikaze attacking amphibious vessels of the landing force in Mindoro.

The next afternoon one of her aircraft returning from a sortie made a normal landing, taxied to a point abreast of the island before disintegrating in an explosion which killed 50 men and injured 75 others.

Hancock took station off this island to provide tactical support through 22 February, attacking enemy airfields and strafing Japanese troops ashore.

[2] Back in Japanese waters, Hancock joined other carriers in strikes against Kyūshū airfields, southwestern Honshū and shipping in the Inland Sea of Japan on 18 March.

She continued to operate in Japanese waters until she received confirmation of Japan's capitulation on 15 August 1945 when she recalled her aircraft from their missions before they reached their targets.

Information collected during these flights led to landings under command of Commodore R. W. Simpson which brought doctors and supplies to all Allied prisoner of war encampments.

Hancock was fitted out for Operation Magic Carpet duty at San Pedro and sailed for Seeadler Harbor, Manus, Admiralty Islands on 2 November.

A week later Hancock departed for her second Magic Carpet voyage, embarking 3,773 passengers at Manila for return to Alameda, California, on 20 January 1946.

She sailed from San Diego on 11 March to embark men of two air groups and aircraft at Pearl Harbor for transportation to Saipan, arriving on 1 April.

After receiving two other air groups on board at Saipan, she loaded a cargo of aircraft at Guam and steamed by way of Pearl Harbor to Alameda, arriving on 23 April.

[4] She was off San Diego on 7 May 1954 for operations along the coast of California that included 17 June launching of the first aircraft to take off a United States carrier by means of a steam catapult.

She was a unit of powerful carrier task groups taking station off Taiwan when the Nationalist Chinese islands of Quemoy and Matsu were threatened with Communist invasion in August 1958.

On 1 August 1959, she sailed to reinforce the 7th Fleet as troubles in Laos demanded the watchful presence of powerful American forces in water off southeast Asia.

[2] Hancock returned to San Francisco in March 1961, then entered the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for an overhaul that gave her new electronics gear and many other improvements.

She was on patrol off Vietnam on 16 December; and, but for brief respites at Hong Kong, the Philippines, or Japan, Hancock remained on station launching her planes for strikes at enemy positions ashore until returning to Alameda on 1 August 1966.

In July, while in pre-deployment night landing exercises, an F-8 came in too low and crashed into the round-down splitting the aircraft into two pieces which hurtled down the deck and erupted in a massive fuel-fed fire.

In response to the invasion, Naval aircraft from Hancock and other carriers flew tactical sorties during Operation Freedom Train against military and logistics targets in the southern part of North Vietnam.

[2] By January 1977, ex-Hancock was being scrapped in Los Angeles harbor and artifacts were being sold to former crew members and the general public, including items ranging from portholes to the anchor chain.

[8] Hancock was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation and received four battle stars on the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal for service in World War II.