Warbird Information Exchange

When the Essex class carriers were modernized, first with the SCB-27, later with the SCB-125, what was the logic behind which ships received the modifications and which ones didn't? From CV-9 (Essex) to CV-21 (Boxer), all received the SCB-125 except Franklin, Bunker Hill and Boxer. The first two were the most heavily damaged in World War II, but they had long been repaired.

From CV-31 to 40, plus Valley Forge CV-45, you get a patchwork of which ships were modified and which weren't. BonHomme Richard was (CV-31), Leyte wasn't (CV-32), Kearsarge was (CV-33). Oriskany was built as the SCB-27 prototype and then modified to SCB-125 (CV-34). CV-35 was never built. Antietam (CV-36) was a one-off, having an angled deck, but not undergoing either the SCB-27 or SCB-125. Princeton (CV-37) and Lake Champlain (CV-39) had the SCB-27, but Shangri-LA (CV38) got the 27 and 125. Tarawa (CV-40) and Valley Forge (CV-45) received neither.

For those that have no idea what I'm talking about, the most notable feature of the SCB-27 was that changed the island struction from its World War II appearance, and the 125 added the angled deck and the hurricane bow.

Oh, all the stuff that ruined their look for me!

I love the classic Essex Class WWII version, with turrets and all!

Although I was kinda surprised when I saw Yorktown(in Charleston SC) by how narrow the island actually is!...

Robbie

Well, a couple of them, such as Bunker Hill and Franklin retained their World War II appearance until their scrapping...same with Boxer, Valley Forge and Tarawa. Antietam kept its island and its guns, but got an angled deck. It's a shame that none of them were preserved in their original WW II configuration.

Besides the fiasco with letting the Cabot get scrapped, a couple of the other Indepedence-class light carriers such as San Jacinto and Monterrey survived until the early 1970s before undergoing the cutters torch. It's a shame no one thought to save one.

Did the Franklin NOT get her upgrade because of the damage she had suffered and the emergency wartime repairs just put her too far down the list of usability? One of the gentlemen at our church is a vet of the Franklin, a machinists mate. He was there! One of the most striking of his memories was as they pulled into Pearl on their way back to the west coast for further repairs. People were on the dock cheering, a band was playing...and when they saw how scorched and damaged the Franklin was...it got real quiet! He doesn't talk much of it. Lost a lot of friends that day.

Franklin was repaired after the attack. There is an interesting pic of the repair work on the Navsource.org site. The flight deck and all the supporting structure was removed. Basically the ship was torn down to the base of the hangar deck and rebuilt. The ship was opened to the public in October 1945 for Navy Day celebrations and mothballed in February 1947. In 1959 they took the forward part of her flight deck to repair the damaged USS Valley Forge, and the ship was scrapped in 1966.

Purely conjecture on my part but which ships were modified may have been due to where the particular ships were in maintenance cycles when money was budgeted for the modifications to X number of carriers.

You look to be well versed on the subject so you've probably already read this or similar. Detail on the modifications; http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/cv-9-mods.htm

Edit: Didn't notice it last night but at the end of the global security article there is an explanation for the non-modification of Franklin and Bunker Hill.

The big reason, likely, was that the older ships were mothballed at the end of the war while the new ships entered and stayed in service.

The older ships were thus available for modernization in the 1950s without needing to pull an active carrier out of service. As the older/modernized carriers came back into the fleet the newer/unmodernized ones were relegated to other duties, such as test platforms/training ships (Antietam) or conversion to LPHs.

One thing to take a close look at in this is the commissioning date, rather than the hull number. Hull numbers were assigned in blocks to various yards, and the in-service dates varied significantly. Bunker Hill (CV-17) was commissioned almost exactly a year earlier than Ticonderoga (CV-14), for instance. There was almost a year and a half difference between Shangri-La (CV-38) and Leyte (CV-32). Shang went into mothballs, Leyte didn't.

From what I have read on the subject, I always thought it had to do with whether it was a long hull or short hull. The long hull Essex carriers would get damaged in heavy seas, especially after they were given hurricane bows. IIRC, the surviving museum carriers are all short hull versions.