USS BON HOMME RICHARD

USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31)

From 1944 to 1992, the USS Bon Homme Richard was a part of the Naval Fleet. She was an aircraft carrier of the Essex-class, weighing in at 27,100 tons. Bon Homme Richard was deployed in March of 1945 and joined other carriers in the final raids on Japan in the Pacific. Although the hostility ended in mid-August, the ship remained off the coast of Japan until September of that year, and then returned home.

Into 1946, she was occupied by the ‘Magic Carpet’ personnel transport services and, after that, was inactive until 1947 when she was decommissioned. In 1951, she was recommissioned and joined forces in fighting the Korean War.

Later that year, Bon Homme Richard returned home again, only to go back to combat in 1952. From May to December of that year, she was reclassified as a CVA-31 and was put into combat. In 1953, the ship was again decommissioned, but this time to undergo renovations to allow for the operation of high-performance jets.

In 1955, she was back on the water, deployed many times as a part of the 7^th Fleet. There were subsequent cruises in the Western Pacific before heading into combat once again in the Vietnam War. Finally, she was decommissioned in 1971 and joined the Reserve Fleet in Bremerton, Washington for two decades before being sold in March of 1992 for scrapping.