Living up to her potential
Some 75 years ago this week.
The “long-hull” Essex-class fleet carrier USS Leyte (CV-32) is seen loading aircraft at Yokosuka, Japan, for transportation to the U.S. at the end of her Korean War combat tour. The photograph is dated 24 January 1951. Several decommissioned Tacoma-class frigates (PF), late of the Soviet Red Banner fleet, are moored in groups across the harbor background while a snow-capped Mount Fuji is just visible in the distance.
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 97295
Commissioned 11 April 1946, Leyte (laid down as USS Crown Point) came too late for WWII but got her licks in off Korea from 9 October 1950 through 19 January 1951, where the ship and her airwing of Air Group Three spent 92 days at sea and flew 3,933 sorties against North Korean and Chinese forces.
Her pilots accumulated nearly 11,000 hours in the air while inflicting massive damage upon enemy positions, supplies, transportation, and communications.
She earned two battle stars for the cruise.
Among the squadrons based on Leyte were the “Swordsmen” of VF-32 flying the F4U-4 Corsair, a squadron that included Ensign Jesse Brown and LT Thomas J. Hudner Jr.
Other outfits included another Corsair squadron, VF-33, a F9F-2 Panther unit (VF-31), an AD-3/4 Skyraider squadron (VA-35), and smaller dets from VC-4 (F4U-5N night fighters), VC-62 (F4U-5P photo birds), VC-12 (AD-4W), VC-33 (AD-3N), and a couple of well-used whirly birds from HU-2 who were famed for their C-SAR use.
USS Leyte (CV-32). Moored off Naval Operating Base, Yokosuka, Japan, during a break from Korean War operations, 1 December 1950. 80-G-424599
Mascot “Beno” sits in a Grumman F9F-2 Panther of Fighter Squadron Three One (VF-31) “Tomcatters” aboard USS Leyte (CV-32) as she pulled into San Diego, California, at the end of her Korean deployment. 3 February 1951.
Never modernized from her 1946 arrangement, Leyte was reclassified as CVA-32 in October 1952 and as an anti-submarine carrier, CVS-32, the following August, operating in the Med and Caribbean for the rest of the decade.
Reclassified as a training carrier, AVT-10, in May 1959, she decommissioned the same day and was sold for scrap in 1970 after her parts were raided to keep her sisters in service; her usefulness to the Navy was at an end.