CV-4 USS Ranger

Construction Data

Highlights of Ship's Service History

Ordered.

Keel laid at Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Newport News, Virginia.

Launched; sponsored by Mrs. Herbert Hoover.

Commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Captain Arthur L. Bristol commanding.
Operated in the Atlantic.

Assigned to Pacific Fleet.

Participated in Neutrality Patrols, operating out of Bermuda.

Returning to Norfolk from open-ocean patrol.
Combat patrols in the South Atlantic.

Routine repairs at Norfolk Navy Yard.
Flagship of Rear Admiral A. B. Cook, Commander, Carriers, Atlantic Fleet. Admiral Cook was relieved by Rear Admiral Ernest D. McWhorter, who also used Ranger as his flagship.
Ferried 68 U.S. Army P-40 fighter planes and personnel of the Army's 33rd Pursuit Squadron to Accra, of the African Gold Coast.
Patrol to Argentia, Newfoundland.
Another ferry mission to Africa, this time with 72 Army P-40s, which were launched from the flight deck on the 19th and flown to Accra.
Battle practice off Norfolk.
Training near Bermuda, along with four newly-commissioned Sangamon-class escort carriers.
Ranger and the four Sangamon-class escort carriers provide air cover for the invasion of French Morocco.
Ranger aircraft fly 496 combat sorties, resulting in damage to a French destroyer and cruiser, probable sinking of two submarines, destruction of coastal defense and anti-aircraft batteries, destruction of 21 tanks and 86 other vehicles, and 15 aircraft shot down in aerial combat with another 70 destroyed on the ground. Ranger loses 16 aircraft either shot down or damaged beyond repair.
Routine training in Chesapeake Bay.
Overhaul at Norfolk Navy Yard.

75 Army P-40L aircraft transported to Africa.
Pilot training off the New England coast.
Ranger joins the British Home Fleet in Scapa Flow, Scotland. She participates in patrols of the approaches to the British Isles.
The British Home Fleet, with USS Ranger attached, sails to attack the Norwegian port of Bodo. Ranger aircraft sink four ships and damage four others. Ranger is attacked by three German aircraft, but her Combat Air Patrol (CAP) shoots down two and chases off the third.
Ranger assists the British Second Battle Squadron in North Atlantic patrols. She is detached on 26 November and returns to U.S. waters.

Ranger is designated a training carrier, operating out of Quonset Point, Rhode Island.
Relieved of training duties, Ranger loads 78 P-38 fighters and Army, Navy and French Navy personnel bound for Casablanca. Delivering the aircraft and personnel on 4 May, she then loads damaged aircraft and military passengers destined for New York.
Ranger undergoes refit at Norfolk, receiving a strengthened flight deck and new catapults, radar and other equipment for use in night fighter training.
Departing Norfolk, Ranger transits the Panama Canal on the 16th, embarks several hundred Army personnel at Balboa, and proceeds to San Diego, arriving on the 25th.
After loading almost 1,000 Marines, and the men and equipment of Night Fighting Squadron 102, Ranger sails for Hawaii, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 3 August.
Ranger conducts night fighter training, operating out of Pearl Harbor.
Operating out of San Diego, California, under the command of Commander, Fleet Air, Alameda, Ranger serves as a training carrier off the California seacoast.

Ranger departs San Diego and proceeds to Balboa, picks up civilian and military passengers, then steams to New Orleans, arriving 18 October, where she participates in Navy Day activities.
After a brief stops at Pensacola, Florida and Norfolk, Virginia, Ranger enters the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for overhaul.
Operations on the East Coast.

Ranger decommissions at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
Struck from the Navy List.

Sold for scrap to the Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Chester, Pennsylvania.

Notes

First U.S. carrier designed and built as such from the keel up.
World War II citations: 2 Battle Stars
Name continued by Forrestal-class fleet carrier CV-61 USS Ranger

Sources
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships - U. S. Naval Historical Center Wikipedia Online Library of Selected Images - U. S. Naval Historical Center NavSource: Photographic History of the U.S. Navy Haze Gray & Underway

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