USS Tarawa (CV/CVA/CVS-40, AVT-12) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during and shortly after World War II for the United States Navy.

Unlike many of her sisters, Tarawa received no major modernizations, and thus throughout her career retained the classic appearance of a World War II Essex-class ship.

The warship arrived in Pearl Harbor on 24 January and remained in Hawaiian waters until 18 February when she got underway for fleet exercises in the vicinity of Kwajalein.

Tarawa returned to Pearl Harbor on 11 March for about a month, then headed for the west coast and arrived in San Francisco on 29 April.

She stopped at Pearl Harbor at the end of the second week in October and then continued her voyage on to her first foreign port of call, Tsingtao, China.

After inactivation overhaul, Tarawa was placed out of commission on 30 June 1949 and was berthed with the New York Group, Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

On 30 November 1950, she was ordered reactivated in response to the Navy's urgent need for warships – particularly for aircraft carriers – to prosecute the war which had erupted in Korea the previous summer.

The warship finally made it to the Asiatic war zone in the spring of 1954, but long after the July 1953 armistice had ended hostilities.

In December, she entered the Boston Naval Shipyard for overhaul and conversion to an antisubmarine warfare (ASW) aircraft carrier.

Her alterations were completed that summer and, after shakedown, the carrier operated around Quonset Point, Rhode Island, conducting training missions with the ASW air squadrons based there.

[3] In August and September 1958, Tarawa was part of Navy Task Force 88 (TF 88) during Operation Argus, which was involved in conducting nuclear tests in the very high atmosphere.

She remained on the east coast, operating out of Quonset Point and Norfolk and occasionally visiting the Caribbean area for exercises.

On 1 June 1967, her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register, and on 3 October 1968, she was sold to the Boston Metals Corporation, Baltimore, Maryland for scrapping.