World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe Doolittle Raiders appeared over Japan in 1942. To avoid revealing their carrier-based launch, US President Franklin Roosevelt came up with the idea that the aircraft were launched from Shangri-La, a fictitious place originating in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon. This humor lived on, especially surprisingly as it was an extreme departure from the norm of using names of battles for carriers, as Shangri-La was chosen as the name of a carrier whose construction was ordered later in the same year. At her launching, Josephine Doolittle, wife of James Doolittle who had led the 1942 raid, christened the ship. USS Shangri-La was commissioned into service in Sep 1944.

ww2dbaseAfter a shakedown cruise to Trinidad, USS Shangri-La was sent to Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii via the Panama Canal, arriving in Feb 1945. At Pearl Harbor, she qualified pilots for carrier landings. In Apr 1945, she arrived at the US Navy anchorage at Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean and shortly after joined Task Group 58.4. She launched her first strike on 25 Apr 1945, with her aircraft attacking Japanese radar and communication stations on Okidaitojima of the Daito Islands 400 kilometers east of Okinawa Island. She then remained in the area to support ground troops fighting on Okinawa until 14 May 1945. On 18 May, she became the flagship of US Navy Carrier Task Force 2, under Vice Admiral John S. McCain, Sr.; as McCain was reassigned to Task Force 38 as its commanding officer, he kept USS Shangri-La as his flagship. Until mid-Jun 1945, she was mainly engaged in striking various targets in the Japanese home islands, particularly on Kyushu island, and supporting ground troops fighting on Okinawa. After two weeks of rest in the Philippines, she set sail toward Japanese waters, where she would conduct air strikes against positions in the Japanese home islands in preparation for a ground invasion.

ww2dbaseAfter the Japanese surrender, USS Shangri-La conducted operations to drop supplies to recently liberated Allied prisoners of war in the Japanese home islands. She returned to the United States in Oct 1945, primarily conducting carrier landing qualifications during this period. In May 1946, she departed California, United States for the central Pacific Ocean in support of the atomic bomb detonation tests at Bikini Atoll during Operation Crossroads, then operated out of Hawaii. After a tour that saw port calls at Pearl Harbor and Sydney, Australia, she was decommissioned from service in Nov 1945 and was placed in the Reserve Fleet at San Francisco, California. She was recommissioned during the Korean War in May 1951; she remained in American waters, serving mostly out of Boston in Massachusetts on the east coast. Returning to the west coast, she was decommissioned in Nov 1952 to receive a major modernization at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington. She returned to active service in Jan 1955, and was deployed to the western Pacific Ocean region in Jan 1956 as tensions rose in Vietnam, and she would make regular visits to the region until Mar 1960, when it was announced that her home port was being shifted to Mayport, Florida, United States. She would remain in Florida until 1970; during this time, she saw service in waters off Central America, in the Atlantic Ocean, and in the Mediterranean Sea. She was stationed in Subic Bay in the Philippines between Apr and Nov 1970, and then she returned to Mayport. She sailed to the South Annex of the Boston Navy Yard in Massachusetts, where she underwent inactivation overhaul. She was decommissioned for the final time on 30 Jul 1971 and placed in the Atlantic Reserved Fleet at Philadelphia Navy Shipyard in Pennsylvania, United States. She was struck from the US Naval Vessel Register in Jul 1982, and she offered various parts for repair and training use for USS Lexington. She was sold for scrap in Aug 1988, and ultimately was broken up in Taiwan, Republic of China.

Aircraft Carrier Shangri-La (CV-38) Interactive Map

Photographs

Shangri-La Operational Timeline