The name Saratoga conjures powerful historical images: a Revolutionary War battle, fighting ships, aircraft carriers. Just shy of three years after Americans repulsed the invading British at the Battle of Saratoga, the first fighting ship bearing that name put to sea. Later, five other warships were called Saratoga; four saw battle. Their lineage was direct, their spirit continuous. Now, none is left. The name lives only in the annals of naval history and in the hearts of the men still with us who sailed and fought in the last two Saras, aircraft carriers both, CV-3 and CV-60. This juncture, 70 years since the commissioning of the first of those carriers, is a perfect time for a retrospective of the Saratoga heritage.
Between 1927 and 1994, save a few years just after World War II, an aircraft carrier Saratoga was virtually synonymous with naval aviation. The first Saratoga and her sister ship, the Lexington (CV-2), were the first “big decks” in the U.S. Navy. They practically wrote the book on aviation at sea, then proved what they wrote in combat in the World War II Pacific. After that war, with CV-3 gone, CV-60 took up the tradition, became a centerpiece of the Cold War, and fought in Vietnam and afterward, too. Heel to toe, they sailed every sea and launched and recovered every aircraft type, from Marc Mitscher’s UO-1 biplane to the supersonic, fly-by-wire F/A-18C Hornet, with blimps, autogyros, and early helicopters among them.
Together they also carried on the spirit of earlier Saratogas. Sara Number One captured Royal Navy prizes off the Delaware Capes in 1780. Sara Number Two fought another generation of the Royal Navy to a standstill in 1814- In particular, that second Saratoga set the tone for all to follow. In a sense, she was the first aircraft carrier Saratoga, her air wing a fighting cock that launched and crowed defiance against the British fleet at the start of the Battle of Lake Champlain.
Just as they had during the American Revolution, the British attempted during the War of 1812 to cut off New England from the rest of the country with a drive from Canada down the Richelieu River-Lake Champlain-Lake George corridor. In the Revolution, the Battle of Saratoga stopped that drive; in the 1814 Battle of Lake Champlain, Commodore Thomas Macdonough stopped it in his flagship, the Saratoga.
The first British salvo fired at the Saratoga fell short, save one spent shot that caromed across the deck, smashing a rooster’s cage. Freed, the fighting cock flew to the rigging g above and crowed mockingly at the British. The Americans took it as a good omen, fought well, and won the battle, thus forcing the British to abandon their invasion and head back to Canada. Ever after, the fighting cock stood as the mascot of every succeeding ship by the name Saratoga. Even today, the Saratoga Association is known as the “Rooster Booster Club.”
The first aircraft carrier Saratoga was commissioned on 16 November 1927 at Camden, New Jersey. She and the Lexington began as battle cruisers, but in accordance with limitations imposed by the Washington Naval Disarmament Treaty of 1922, they were converted to aircraft carriers while they were still under construction. These were impressive ships, even by today’s standards in many respects. Their turboelectric power plants, fed by 16 steam boilers, could propel the carriers to 33 knots, and each ship could carry up to 90 aircraft. On the other hand, they had only two centerline aircraft elevators and no island as we know it today. Instead, a bridge structure rose forward of a single massive stack, giving both the Sara and the Lex very distinctive silhouettes. Because they were built on cruiser hulls, they were narrower than desired, and their hangar decks were decidedly too small. Ironically, however, because this forced aircraft to be stowed on the flight deck—instead of in the hangar as originally envisioned—the situation unintentionally led to the deckload strikes and quick turnaround cyclic operations that proved so effective in World War II and ever since. Because of treaty limitations on displacement, much of the armor was reduced. In particular, the waterline armor measured an average of only six inches, and even despite blisters added in 1942, the ship was quite vulnerable to torpedoes, twice succumbing to them during the war. Finally, although the eight 8-inch guns looked impressive, they could contribute little once the ship engaged in an air war. Antiaircraft weapons eventually replaced these big guns.
Despite these quirks, the Saratoga and the Lexington were instrumental in the development of fast-carrier tactics used throughout World War II. Their participation in the prewar Fleet Problems and successive modernizations enabled them to continue to operate as the premier fleet carriers until the Yorktown (CV-5)-class appeared on the scene in 1937. Even as late as the 1940s, naval aviation leadership continued to see the Saratoga and the Lexington as models for the newly envisioned Essex (CV-9)-class carriers. They were big, fast, flexible, sustainable, and able to adapt quickly to new aircraft and changing tactical situations.
When the Sara and the Lex operated together, which they did often, pilots flying from them had a problem. The ships looked so much alike it was difficult to tell which one was home and which was not. In the days before widespread use of radios and navigation aids, positive sight identification was critical. To solve the problem, the Sara’s crew painted a broad, black vertical stripe on her stack; the Lex had a smaller, horizontal stripe at the top of her stack. Unless one could see different types of aircraft on deck or the smaller numbers painted on the flight deck and visible from only overhead, the stack stripes were the only means of telling the ships apart.
The second aircraft carrier named Saratoga capitalized on all the lessons of World War II and before. She was bigger, faster, more sustainable, and better armored than any carrier that had gone before. When launched she was ready for a full transition to the age of jets, but she also carried the spirit of the Saratogas that had gone before, including the vertical black stripe on her stack.
On 14 April 1956, the second carrier Saratoga (CVA-60) received her commission. She was fitted out with room for a very large air wing, four steam catapults, four arresting gears and a barricade engine, four deck- edge elevators and a mirror landing system, all state-of-the art at the time. She could carry aviation gasoline, jet fuel, Navy special fuel oil (NSFO), and large quantities of ammunition and stores. Initially she also had three rudders, but they produced so much heel in a turn that the centerline rudder was soon removed. (Thus, the centerline steering room became the bane of every zone inspector ever after.) Much later, her aviation gasoline tanks were converted to carry jet fuel, her NSFO system was converted to Navy distillate, the magazines were altered to accommodate newer weapons, and the mirror landing system was changed to the Fresnel lens system.
Her original design had been as a straight-deck carrier but was altered to an angled deck. This caused a number of compromises overcome in later carriers of similar size, but none of these proved to be anywhere near fatal. For example, the waist catapults were toed in more than would have been otherwise desired, and the port elevator at the end of the angle was not very useful during flight operations. Within the ship, the path from the spaces in the main hull to “under the angle” was tortuous. Everything else was a step up, however. The ship had more fuel, ammunition, and stores capacity and better crew accommodations than any previous carrier. What proved not to be a step up was the propulsion system, a plant that required tender loving care throughout the life of the ship. The arrangement of four propellers geared to four sets of steam turbines was rather conventional, but they were driven by 1,200-pound per square inch (psi) steam produced by up to eight oil-fired boilers. The problem was the 1,200-psi steam system: she was the first aircraft carrier with such a system. Theoretically, the higher pressures delivered more energy to the turbines and required smaller components in other parts of the system. But the automation required to run a 1,200-psi system also required a high degree of training and support. Many years passed before the training establishment, personnel policies, and the supply effort could catch up.
In fact, CV-60 was sometimes known as a “hard luck” ship, given her many propulsion-connected problems. Captains, crews, and engineers worked mightily to overcome these problems, and not a few careers were affected. Not until the massive service life extension program worked in Philadelphia from 1980 to 1984 were these problems finally solved.
The careers of the two aircraft carriers Saratoga will be forever connected. As CV-3 was blazing trails in operating doctrine, her men and her flying machines were all new to the game. And CV-60 capitalized on the trails blazed by her illustrious predecessors and others. CV-3 began with just a few biplanes and float planes. By the end of the war, she was flying the latest F6F Hellcats and night fighters. CV-60 began with an air wing of mixed jets and props—AD Skyraiders, F9F-6 Cougars, and AJ-1 Savages. When she was decommissioned, she had just finished a cruise with Hornets, Tomcats, and Intruders and had fought in the Gulf War where missiles and laser-guided precision weapons were common. CV-3 seldom took the long cruises so common during the Cold War; Fleet Problems off Hawaii and Panama were her longest trips. Emergency deployments and “contingencies” were hardly in the lexicon. For CV-60, on the other hand, six-month cruises were routine. “Contingencies” were expected and happened almost every cruise. CV-3 participated in almost every pre- World War II Fleet Problem from 1929 until the beginning of the war. CV-60 cruised the Atlantic and the Mediterranean during the Cold War, preparing for an Armageddon that never came.
Aircraft from CV-3 saw combat from and above Guadalcanal and sank the Japanese aircraft carrier Ryujo. In 1943, she operated with the British carrier Victorious in the South Pacific, and in November conducted the first U.S. raid on Rabaul, at the time one of the most heavily defended Japanese bastions in the Pacific. In 1944, she participated in the campaign against the Marshall Islands and later that year joined the British once again, this time the carrier Illustrious, in raids against Japanese strongholds in the Dutch East Indies. Toward the end of the war, she participated in raids on Japan itself, but during an air attack near I wo Jima, on 21 February 1945, she took six bomb hits and had to return home for repairs.
Aircraft from CV-60 never had to fly in a worldwide war, but they helped win the Cold War and the Gulf War, distinguished themselves over North Vietnam, brought to heel the Achille Lauro hijackers, taught the Libyans a lesson in the Guff of Sidra, flew in support of NATO operations over Bosnia, and planned and launched on contingencies too many to count.
During the Cold War, no matter how one rationalized it, the prospect of nuclear war was never pretty. Air crews, intelligence personnel, and weapons people were all intimately involved, on a 24-hour basis when deployed. Security drills, loading drills, flight planning, and flight rehearsals were constant. In the early days, so too were the alerts, sitting in a loaded airplane on the flight deck awaiting a call to launch with a weapon rated at several kilo- tons or more. Small Skyraiders and Skyhawks were expected to proceed by themselves, at low level, drop a weapon on a designated target, then return to a ship that might or might not be there. Larger A-3 Skywarriors were expected to carry two weapons to two different targets and return. For the smaller planes, “One engine, one bomb, one target, one way,” was the motto macabre. But one thing was comforting: the Soviets knew the Sara and her sisters were there. Apparently, the deterrence worked; the Cold War ended before anyone had to deliver one of those horrific weapons.
A near thing to the Cold War turning hot was the situation in Cuba in 1962, and CV-60 was there, too. In the end, the Soviets and the Cubans were deterred, but the Saratoga and her wing were ready and arguably provided the principal visible on-scene hammer of U.S. policy. The prospect of launching on missile sites when aircrews had never before seen missiles was daunting, but they were ready. Later, after some experience in Vietnam, carrier officers and crews realized that proceeding at low level toward those missile sites in A-4 Skyhawks, loaded with 18 250-pound bombs apiece and lofting them to the target, would have been suicide. Fortunately, it never happened.
Although carriers had been involved in the Vietnam War since the beginning, CV-60 did not get to the Gulf of Tonkin until 1972. She had beaten a well-worn path to the Mediterranean and back; such that a few individuals actually left their families in Europe and “deployed” to the United States instead of the more conventional other way round. But in February 1972, while preparing for yet another Med deployment, the Sara received orders to sail instead for the Philippines and the Gulf of Tonkin. In just four days she collected her people, her aircraft, and her stores and headed east for the Cape of Good Hope and beyond. For eight months she steamed at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin with only short respites for R&R. During this, her only foray into the Pacific, she distinguished herself in every way. As she sailed home, the plaudits for her performance were seemingly endless.
The second Sara’s last shooting combat took place during the Gulf War. Steaming in the Red Sea, her aircraft conducted numerous strikes, combat air patrol, and other missions over Iraq. On 18 January 1991, two of her F/A- 18 Hornets while on an air-to-ground strike mission encountered threatening Iraqi MiGs. Switching immediately to air-to-air mode, the Sara pilots downed two Iraqis, then went on to destroy their assigned ground target.
CV-3’s last employment was far less dramatic, but no less important. After bomb damage was repaired in Bremerton, she joined Operation Magic Carpet, transporting victorious U.S. servicemen of all stripes home for discharge and transition to civilian life.
Then, on 1 July 1946, she was floated, unmanned, to Bikini Lagoon. All was quiet. Then, a B-29 flew overhead and released a nuclear bomb. On schedule, it burst in the air above. Sara’s flight deck erupted in flames but they soon died out, and there was no other serious damage. The testing schedule went on, and by 25 July, an underwater weapon had been set in place. At about 1600 the weapon detonated, and a tremendous wall of water issued forth. The Saratoga momentarily disappeared from view and seemed once again to have survived. Then, slowly, she began to settle, and with a last gasp, slipped under the eerily calm waters. Today she rests in peace, but surrounded by a chorus of sailors who once served in her and will be Men of Sara forever.
The end of CV-60 was not so spectacular, and the last chapter has yet to be written. Her final cruise was typical of the many she had made previously: to the Mediterranean. There was even an unscheduled diversion, this time to the Adriatic Sea in connection with NATO operations over Bosnia, to remind old hands of times past. She visited Naples and Palma and other familiar homes away from home for the last time, and in June 1994 she made her final return to Mayport, Florida, her only real homeport.
On 20 August 1994, pierside in Mayport, with all but three of her previous commanding officers in attendance, along with the Chief of Naval Operations and thousands of Sara sailors, families, and friends, she was decommissioned. An attempt to raise enough money to turn her into a museum along the Jacksonville waterfront on the St. Johns River fell short. Now, she awaits her fate, cold iron and mothballs.
So for a while, there is no USS Saratoga on the active Navy lists. But Sara does live on, in the history books, in the legends of the sea, and in the hearts of those who were once part of her.