Navy - A Brief History of Aircraft Carriers - USS Shangri- La (CV 3. Doolittle, and commissioned on 1. September 1. 94. 4, Capt. Barner in command. Shangri- La completed fitting out at Norfolk and took her shakedown cruise to Trinidad, B. Between 19, Shangri-La alternated between deployments to theMediterranean and operations in the western Atlantic, out of Mayport. W. I., between 1. September and 2. 1 December 1. Norfolk. On 1. 7 January 1. Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley. USS SHANGRI-LA was one of the ESSEX. Between 19, SHANGRI-LA alternated between deployments to the Mediterranean and operations in the western Atlantic. Get menu, photos and location information for Shangri La in bethesda, MD. Or book now at one of our other 1961 great restaurants in Bethesda. The USS SHANGRI-LA REUNION ASSOCIATION is an independent, non-profit, private organization maintained by volunteers to help locate former members, assist in reunion. Hampton Roads, formed up with the large cruiser USS Guam (CB- 2) and USS Harry E. Hubbard (DD- 7. 48), and sailed for Panama. The three ships arrived at Cristobal, C. Z., on the 2. 3rd and transited the canal on the 2. Shangri- La departed from Balboa, C. Z., on 2. 5 January and arrived at San Diego, Calif., on 4 February. There she loaded passengers, stores, and extra planes for transit to Hawaii and got underway on 7 February. Upon her arrival at Pearl Harbor on 1. February, she commenced two months of duty, qualifying land- based Navy pilots in carrier landings. On 1. 0 April 1. 94. Ulithi Atoll where she arrived ten days later. After an overnight stay in the lagoon, Shangri- La departed Ulithi in company with USS Haggard (DD- 5. USS Stembel (DD- 6. Vice Adm. Mitscher's Fast Carrier Task Force. On 2. 4 April, she joined Task Group 5. TG 5. 0. 8. The next day, Shangri- La and her air group, CVG- 8. Japanese. The target was Okino Daito Jima, a group of islands several hundred miles to the southeast of Okinawa. Her planes successfully destroyed radar and radio installations there and, upon their recovery, the task group sailed for Okinawa. Shangri- La supplied combat air patrols for the task group and close air support for the 1. Army on Okinawa before returning to Ulithi on 1. May. While at Ulithi, Shangri- La became the flagship of the 2nd Carrier Task Force. John S Mc. Cain hoisted his flag in Shangri- La on 1. May 1. 94. 5. Six days later, TG 5. Shangri- La in company, sortied from the lagoon. On 2. 8 May, TG 5. TG 3. 8. 4 and Vice Adm. Mc. Cain relieved Vice Adm. Mitscher as Commander, Task Force 3. Shangri- La as his flagship. On 2 and 3 June, the task force launched air strikes on the Japanese home islands . Facing the stiffest airborne resistance to date, Shangri- La's airmen suffered their heaviest casualties. On 4 and 5 June, she moved off to the northwest to avoid a typhoon; then, on the 6th, her planes returned to close air support duty over Okinawa. On the 8th, her air group hit Kyushu again, and, on the following day, they came back to Okinawa. On 1. 0 June 1. 94. Okinawa for Leyte, conducting drills en route. Shangri- La entered Leyte Gulf and anchored in San Pedro Bay on 1. June. She remained at anchor there for the rest of June, engaged in upkeep and recreation. On 2 July, the oath of office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air was administered to John L. Sullivan on board Shangri- La, the first ceremony of its type ever undertaken in a combat zone. Eight days later, her air group commenced a series of air strikes against Japan which lasted until the capitulation on 1. August. Shangri- La's planes ranged the length of the island chain during these raids. On 1. 0 July, they attacked Tokyo, the first raid there since the strikes of the previous February. On 1. 4 and 1. 5 July, they pounded Honshu and Hokkaido and, on the 1. Tokyo, also bombing battleship Nagato, moored close to shore at Yokosuka. From 2. 0 to 2. 2 July, Shangri- La joined the logistics group for fuel, replacement aircraft, and mail. By the 2. 4th, her pilots were attacking shipping in the vicinity of Kure. They returned the next day for a repeat performance, before departing for a two- day replenishment period on the 2. On the following day, Shangri- La's aircraft damaged cruiser Oyoda, and battleship Haruna, the latter so badly that she beached and flooded. She later had to be abandoned. They pummeled Tokyo again on 3. July, then cleared the area to replenish on 3. July and 1 August. Shangri- La spent the next four days in the retirement area waiting for a typhoon to pass. On 9 August, after heavy fog had caused the cancellation of the previous day's missions, the carrier sent her planes aloft to bomb Honshu and Hokkaido once again. The next day, they raided Tokyo and central Honshu, then retired from the area for logistics. She evaded another typhoon on 1. August, then hit Tokyo again on the 1. After replenishing on the 1. Tokyo on the morning of 1. August 1. 94. 5. Soon thereafter, Japan's capitulation was announced; and the fleet was ordered to cease hostilities. Shangri- La steamed around in the strike area from 1. August, patrolling the Honshu area on the latter date. Between 2. 3 August and 1. September, her planes sortied on missions of mercy, air- dropping supplies to Allied prisoners of war in Japan. Shangri- La entered Tokyo Bay on 1. September, almost two weeks after the surrender ceremony on board USS Missouri (BB- 6. October. Departing Japan, she arrived at Okinawa on 4 October stayed until the 6th, and then headed for the United States in company with Task Unit 3. She sailed into San Pedro Bay, Calif., on 2. October and stayed at Long Beach for three weeks. On 5 November, she shifted to San Diego, departing that port a month later for Bremerton, Wash. She entered Puget Sound on 9 December, underwent availability until the 3. San Diego. Upon her return, Shangri- La began normal operations out of San Diego, primarily engaged in pilot carrier landing qualifications. In May 1. 94. 6, she sailed for the Central Pacific to participate in Operation Crossroads, the atomic bomb tests conducted at Bikini Atoll. Following this, she made a brief training cruise to Pearl Harbor, then wintered at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. In March 1. 94. 7, she deployed again, calling at Pearl Harbor and Sydney, Australia. When she returned to the United States, Shangri- La was decommissioned and placed in the Reserve Fleet at San Francisco on 7 November 1. Shangri- La recommissioned on 1. May 1. 95. 1, Capt. For the next year, she conducted training and readiness operations out of Boston, Mass. Reclassified an attack aircraft carrier, CVA- 3. Puget Sound that fall and decommissioned again on 1. November, this time for modernization at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. During the next two years, she received an angled flight deck, twin steam catapults, and her aircraft elevators and arresting gear were overhauled. At a cost of approximately $7 million, she was virtually a new ship when she commissioned for the third time on 1. January 1. 95. 5, Capt. She conducted intensive fleet training for the remainder of 1. Far East on 5 January 1. Carson, flying an F3. H- 2. N Demon of VF- 1. Mc. Donnell Trophy with a non- stop, non- refueling flight from Shangri- La off the coast of San Francisco to Oklahoma City. She entered Mayport after visits to Callao, Peru; Valparaiso, Chile; Port of Spain, Trinidad; Bayonne, N. J.; and Norfolk, Va. After six weeks of underway training in the local operating area around Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, she embarked upon her first Atlantic deployment, a NATO exercise followed by liberty in Southampton, England. Almost immediately after her return to Mayport, Shangri- La was ordered back to sea, this time to the Caribbean in response to trouble in Guatemala and Nicaragua. She returned to Mayport on 2. November 1. 96. 0 and remained in port for more than two months. Between 1. 96. 1 and 1. Shangri- La alternated between deployments to the Mediterranean and operations in the western Atlantic, out of Mayport. She sailed east for her first tour of duty with the 6th Fleet on 2 February 1. Back in Mayport by the beginning of 1. Shangri- La stood out again for the Mediterranean on 7 February 1. After about six months of cruising with the 6th Fleet, she departed the Mediterranean in mid- August and arrived in Mayport on the 2. Following a month's stay at her home port, the aircraft carrier headed for New York and a major overhaul. Shangri- La was modified extensively during her stay in the yard. Four of her 5- inch mounts were removed, but she received a new air search and height finding radar and a new arrester system. In addition, much of her electrical and engineering equipment was renovated. After sea trials and visits to Bayonne, N. J., and Norfolk, Va., Shangri- La returned to Mayport for a week in late March 1. Caribbean. Eight months of similar duty followed before Shangri- La weighed anchor for another deployment. On 1 October 1. 96. Fleet for a seven- month tour. Shangri- La continued her 2nd and 6th Fleet assignments for the next six years. During the winter of 1. Philadelphia, then resumed operations as before. On 3. 0 June 1. 96. CVS- 3. 8. In 1. 97. Shangri- La returned to the western Pacific after an absence of ten years. She got underway from Mayport on 5 March, stopped at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from the 1. Atlantic and Indian oceans. She arrived in Subic Bay, R. P., on 4 April and, during the next seven months, launched combat sorties from Yankee station. Her tours of duty on Yankee station were punctuated by frequent logistics trips to Subic Bay, by visits to Manila, R. P., and Hong Kong, B. C. C., in October, and by 1. Yokosuka, Japan, in July. On 9 November 1. 97. Shangri- La stood out of Subic Bay to return home. En route to Mayport, she visited Sydney, Australia; Wellington, N. Z.; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She arrived in Mayport on 1. December and began preparations for inactivation. After pre- inactivation overhaul at the Boston Naval Shipyard, South Annex, Shangri- La decommissioned on 3. July 1. 97. 1. She was placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet and berthed at Philadelphia. Shangri- La remained in the reserve fleet for the next 1. Navy List on 1. 5 July 1. Last Update: 1. 5 June 2.
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