Ex - USS Ranger (CV-61)

 abandoned / shut down, aircraft carrier, United States Navy

USS Ranger is the third member of the Forrestal Class of Aircraft Carriers built for the US Navy, laid down at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. in August 1954 and commissioned into service with the US Atlantic Fleet in August 1957. Remaining in Atlantic waters for much of the next year conducting training and crew familiarization exercises, the Ranger departed Norfolk in June 1958 for a two-month voyage around Cape Horn and into Pacific waters where she shaped a course for Alameda and joined the US Pacific Fleet upon her arrival in August.

Engaging in routine deployments, exercises and drills throughout the Pacific into the mid-1960’s, the Ranger and her crew played their role in the American Cold War effort against the Soviet Union and its forces in the Pacific. Ranger’s regular pace of peacetime operations were interrupted in 1963 by her operation in Project Whale Tale, a US Air Force experiment in operating specially-modified U-2 spy aircraft from Navy Carriers in order to improve their range. Amid a cloud of secrecy so thick that many crew aboard her were unaware of what they were participating in, the Ranger sailed for the South Pacific and conducted the first-ever operational use of a U-2 spy aircraft from an Aircraft Carrier, enabling US observation of the French Nuclear Testing programs taking place at Moruroa in 1964. With her role in Project Whale Tale completed, the Ranger was hurriedly dispatched to the Western Pacific, where US Destroyers had reportedly come under fire by North Vietnamese gunboats in the Gulf of Tonkin. Becoming Flagship of Task Group 77.7 upon her arrival at Yokosuka, the Ranger began operations with the US 7th Fleet and launched airstrikes on targets in North Vietnam through the end of 1964 and into 1965, giving both ship and crew their first taste of full-scale combat operations. While so engaged on April 13th, Ranger’s crew were exposed to a different kind of combat when an onboard fuel line broke and started a large fire in her No.1 Machinery Room, taking the life of one sailor and forcing the Carrier back to the US mainland for repairs lasting through September.

Returning to the Western Pacific and 7th Fleet in December 1965, the Ranger began what would turn into six consecutive combat deployments in support of Vietnam War operations through the 1973 ceasefire declaration, after which she returned to the Gulf of Tonkin in a non-combatant role to cover the withdrawal of American forces from the theatre. After participating in flood-relief humanitarian efforts in the Philippines and an Indian Ocean deployment as a show of force off Kenya, the war-weary Ranger shaped a course for Bremerton where she was given a comprehensive overhaul and modernization through 1978. Returning to her peacetime routine of exercises and deployments, the Ranger and her crew maintained an active schedule of Western Pacific operations into the early 1980’s. Badly damaged by another onboard fire while operating East of Oman in November 1983, the Ranger lost one of her engines and use of two of her four screws while her crew suffered six men killed before the fire was extinguished and the ship able to return to port for repairs lasting into mid-1984.

Ranger’s return to active service in 1985 following her repairs was marked by her use in filming both Top Gun and Star Trek IV before the winds of conflict brought her back into frontline service, this time in the Persian Gulf in support of 1987’s Operation Earnest Will. This initial deployment began what would turn into five years of regular deployments to the Middle East for Ranger and her crews, with the Carrier playing a major role in Operation Desert Storm by launching over 70 combat sorties in support of the initial ground assault on January 16th, 1991. Continuing to launch combat sorties throughout the ground war in Iraq, the Ranger remained in the Persian Gulf until mid-1991 ensuring Iraqi compliance with the terms of the cease-fire before returning stateside. After workups and training which included ceremonial duties re-enacting James Doolittle’s 1942 Carrier Raid on Tokyo, the Ranger departed Alameda on her 21st and final deployment in August 1992, returning once again to the Western Pacific and Persian Gulf. Relieving her sister USS Independence (CV-62) in the Gulf in September, the Ranger immediately assumed control of US Navy flights in support of Operation Southern Watch which she continued nonstop through December, when she departed the Persian Gulf to support American operations in Somalia as part of Operation Restore Hope. Launching her final combat sorties in support of US Ground Forces in Somalia, the Ranger was finally relieved on station by the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) in mid-December and began her long voyage back to the US.

Following port calls in Japan and Hawaii, the Ranger arrived at Naval Station San Diego where she was formally decommissioned on July 10th, 1993, ending her naval career one month shy of 36 years. Towed to the Bremerton Naval Shipyard to enter the Reserve Fleet, Ranger was retained in Category B Reserve until March 1994 when she was officially struck from the Naval Register and placed into Category X Reserve. Serving largely as a parts source for active members of the Kitty Hawk and Nimitz Classes for the next decade, the Ranger became the subject of a preservation effort by the not-for-profit USS Ranger Foundation, which submitted a formal application to the Naval Sea Systems Command in September 2010 for the Ranger to be donated to their organization for use as a museum. The Ranger was to be donated to a group at the Chinook Landing Marine Park on the Columbia River in Fairview, OR, however the Navy rejected the bid due to financing issues and other problems.

The Ranger was formally sold for scrapping to International Shipbreaking Ltd of Brownsville, TX on December 23rd, 2014 and was towed out of Bremerton by the tug Crosby Leader on March 5th, 2015 on her final five-month voyage around Cape Horn to Texas.

www.ussrangercv61.org/
www.navsource.org/archives/02/61.htm
www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/CV61.htm
navy.memorieshop.com/Ranger/Last-Voyage.html