USS Enterprise (CV-6) was a Yorktown-class carrier built for the United States Navy during the 1930s. She was the seventh U.S. Navy vessel of that name. Colloquially called "The Big E", she was the sixth aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. Launched in 1936, she was the only Yorktown-class carrier to survive World War II. She was also one of only three American fleet carriers commissioned before the war to survive it; the others were Saratoga and Ranger .
Enterprise participated in more major actions of the war against Japan than any other United States ship. These actions included the attack on Pearl Harbor — 18 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers of her air group arrived over the harbor during the attack; seven were shot down with eight airmen killed and two wounded, making her the only American aircraft carrier with men at Pearl Harbor during the attack and the first to sustain casualties during the Pacific War — the Battle of Midway, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, various other air-sea engagements during the Guadalcanal campaign, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Enterprise earned 20 battle stars, the most for any U.S. warship in World War II, and was the most decorated U.S. ship of World War II. She was also the first American ship to sink a full-sized enemy warship after the Pacific War had been declared when her aircraft sank the Japanese submarine I-70 on 10 December 1941. On three occasions during the war, the Japanese announced that she had been sunk in battle, inspiring her nickname "The Grey Ghost". By the end of the war, her planes and guns had downed 911 enemy planes, sunk 71 ships, and damaged or destroyed 192 more.
Despite efforts made by the public after the war to turn Enterprise into a museum ship, Enterprise was scrapped from 1958 to 1960.
Contents
Construction and commissioning
The sixth carrier built for the United States Navy and the second of the Yorktown class, Enterprise was launched on 3 October 1936 at Newport News Shipbuilding, sponsored by Lulie Swanson, wife of Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson, and commissioned on 12 May 1938 with Captain Newton H. White, Jr. in command. Enterprise sailed south on a shakedown cruise which took her to Rio de Janeiro. Captain Charles A. Pownall relieved White on 21 December. After her return, she operated along the East Coast and in the Caribbean until April 1939, when she was ordered to duty in the Pacific.
Service history
Enterprise was one of fourteen ships to receive the early RCA CXAM-1 radar. Captain George D. Murray assumed command of the carrier on 21 March 1941. Based first at San Diego (where she was used in the filming of Dive Bomber, starring Errol Flynn and Fred MacMurray) and then at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu after President Roosevelt ordered the Fleet to be "forward based", the carrier and her Air Group trained intensively and transported aircraft to American island bases in the Pacific. Enterprise and the other ships of Task Force 8 (TF 8) departed Pearl Harbor on 28 November 1941 to deliver Marine Fighter Squadron 211 (VMF-211) to Wake Island nearly 2,500 miles (4,000 km) due west. She was scheduled to return to Hawaii on 6 December 1941, but was delayed by the weather, and she was still at sea about 215 nautical miles (398 km) west of Oahu at dawn on 7 December 1941.
World War II
Enterprise launched eighteen of her SBDs - the CAG's aircraft, 13 aircraft from Scouting Squadron Six (VS-6) and four aircraft from Bombing Squadron Six (VB-6) - at dawn on 7 December to scout an arc extending from the northeast to southeast of the ship, and to land at Ford Island at Pearl Harbor after completing their search routes. As these aircraft arrived in pairs over Pearl Harbor, they were caught between attacking Japanese aircraft and defensive anti-aircraft fire from the ships and shore installations below. Seven SBDs were shot down, either from enemy action or friendly fire, with the loss of eight airmen killed and two wounded.
Enterprise received radio messages from Pearl Harbor reporting that the base was under attack, and she was later directed to launch an airstrike based on an inaccurate report of a Japanese carrier southwest of her location. The strike was launched around 17:00, consisting of six Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters of Fighting Squadron Six (VF-6), 18 Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers of Torpedo Squadron Six (VT-6), and six SBDs of VB-6.
Unable to locate any targets, the torpedo and dive bombers returned to Enterprise, but the six fighters were directed to divert to Hickam Field on Oahu. Although word of the planes' expected arrival had been broadcast to all ships and anti-aircraft units in the area, the appearance of the Wildcats in the night sky over Oahu triggered panic firing, which shot down three of them, killing their pilots, while a fourth aircraft ran out of fuel, forcing the pilot to bail out.
Enterprise pulled into Pearl Harbor for fuel and supplies on the evening of 8 December. Vice-Admiral William Halsey Jr., commander of Carrier Division 2, ordered every able-bodied man on board to help rearm and refuel Enterprise; this process normally took 24 hours to complete, but was completed this time within seven hours. She and the other ships of TF 8 sailed early the next morning to patrol against possible additional attacks on the Hawaiian Islands. Although the group encountered no Japanese surface ships, Enterprise aircraft sank Japanese submarine I-70 at 23°45′N 155°35′W on 10 December 1941.
During the last two weeks of December 1941, Enterprise and her escorts steamed west of Hawaii to cover the islands while two other carrier groups made a belated attempt to relieve Wake Island. After a brief layover at Pearl Harbor, Enterprise and her group sailed on 11 January 1942, protecting convoys reinforcing Samoa.
Return to duty
Captain Matthias Gardner relieved Ginder on 7 November. Back at Pearl Harbor on 6 November, Enterprise left four days later to provide close air support to the 27th Infantry Division landing on Makin Atoll, during the Battle of Makin, from 19–21 November 1943. On the night of 26 November, Enterprise introduced carrier-based night fighters to the Pacific when a three-plane team from the ship broke up a large group of land-based bombers attacking TG 50.2. Two of the three planes returned to the ship, with LCDR Edward "Butch" O'Hare the only casualty. After a heavy strike by aircraft of TF 50 against Kwajalein on 4 December, Enterprise returned to Pearl Harbor five days later.
The carrier's next operation was with the Fast Carrier Task Force in softening up the Marshall Islands and supporting the landings on Kwajalein, from 29 January-3 February 1944. Then, Enterprise sailed, still with TF 58, to strike the Japanese naval base at Truk Lagoon in the Caroline Islands, on 17 February. Again Enterprise made aviation history, when she launched the first night radar bombing attack from a U.S. carrier. The twelve torpedo bombers in this strike achieved excellent results, accounting for nearly one-third of the 200,000 tons of shipping destroyed by aircraft.
Detached from TF 58 with escorts, Enterprise launched raids on Jaluit Atoll on 20 February, then steamed to Majuro and Espiritu Santo. Sailing on 15 March in TG 36.1, she provided air cover and close support for the landings on Emirau Island (19–25 March). The carrier rejoined TF 58 on 26 March, and for the next 12 days, joined in a series of strikes against the islands of Yap, Ulithi, Woleai, and Palau. After a week's rest and replenishment at Majuro, Enterprise sailed on 14 April to support landings in the Hollandia (currently known as Jayapura) area of New Guinea, and then hit Truk again from 29 to 30 April.
On 6 June 1944, she and her companions of TG 58.3 sortied from Majuro to join the rest of TF 58 in attacking the Marianas Islands. Striking Saipan, Rota, and Guam from 11 to 14 June, Enterprise pilots gave direct support to the landings on Saipan on 15 June, and covered the troops ashore for the next two days.
Aware of a major Japanese attempt to break up the invasion of Saipan, Admiral Spruance, now Commander 5th Fleet, positioned TF 58 to meet the threat.
Battle of Leyte Gulf
After operating west of the Palau Islands, Enterprise joined other units of TF 38 on 7 October and set course to the north. From 10 to 20 October, her aviators flew over Okinawa, Formosa, and the Philippines, blasting enemy airfields, shore installations, and shipping in preparation for the assault on Leyte. After supporting the Leyte landings on 20 October, Enterprise headed for Ulithi to replenish, but the approach of the Japanese fleet on 23 October called her back to action.
On 24 October 1944, at 9:18, 27 aircraft from Enterprise and the aircraft carrier USS Franklin attacked Vice Admiral Shōji Nishimura's Southern Force consisting of 2 battleships, 1 heavy cruiser, 1 light cruiser, and 8 destroyers. Enterprise fighters singled out the battleship Yamashiro and killed 20 sailors with strafing and rocket attacks, while a bomb's near miss damaged the hull and flooded the starboard bilge causing the ship to list by almost 15 degrees until counter-flooding in the port bilge righted the ship. Enterprise planes also hit the battleship Fusō, with one bomb destroying the catapult and both floatplanes, while another bomb hit the ship near Turret No. 2 and penetrated the decks, killing everyone in No. 1 secondary battery; the ship began to list to starboard. Enterprise planes then hit the destroyer Shigure with a bomb to her bridge which killed 5 sailors and finally conducted strafing runs on the heavy cruiser Mogami. In the meantime, Franklin's air group sank the destroyer Wakaba before the American aircraft returned to the fleet.
Later in the day, Enterprise joined the other carriers of TF-38 in attacking Admiral Takeo Kurita's Center Force of 5 battleships, 7 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 13 destroyers in the Sibuyan Sea. Her air group singled out the Japanese "super battleship" Musashi - one of the two largest and most powerful battleships in the world alongside her sistership Yamato - which had already tanked 9 torpedo hits, 2 bomb hits, and 9 damaging bomb near misses from USS Intrepid, Essex, and Lexington aircraft. Musashi was heavily down by the bow and struggling along at 20 knots but showed no signs of stopping yet. Nine Enterprise Avengers attacked the battleship and nailed her with four 1,000-pound (450 kg) bomb hits, three of which penetrated the bow and killed Musashi's entire forward damage control team, while the fourth wrecked the chief steward's office. Right afterwards, eight Enterprise Avengers executed a pincer attack and landed three torpedo hits. The first two hit the bow on both sides, while the third hit amidships underneath her funnel and flooded her third machinery space and further dropped Musashi's speed to 13 knots. Afterwards, Musashi was additionally hit by at least another 6 torpedoes and 11 bombs from the aircraft carriers Lexington, Intrepid, and Franklin and the light carrier USS Cabot. Musashi sank over 10 hours with the loss of 1,023 men.
Aviation complement
The following aviation complement was disembarked from Enterprise on 7 September 1945 at NAS Barber's Point;
United States Pacific Fleet - Navy Carrier Air Group 52 (CVGN-52) - NYD SEATTLE 1x Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat - ship's flight
VFN-52 - 22x F6F-5 + 15x F6F-5P
VTN-52 (torpedo bomber squadron) - 16x General Motors TBM-3E Avenger
Post war
Restored to peak condition, Enterprise voyaged to Pearl Harbor, returning to the States with some 1,141 servicemen due for discharge, including hospital patients and former POWs, then sailed on to New York on 25 September 1945 via the Panama Canal arriving on 17 October 1945. Two weeks later, she proceeded to Boston for installation of additional berthing facilities, then began a series of three Operation Magic Carpet voyages to Europe, bringing home more than 10,000 veterans in her final service to her country.
The first European voyage returned 4,668 servicemen from Southampton, England, in November 1945. On the second trip to Europe, she was boarded by the British First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Albert Alexander in Southampton, who presented Enterprise with a British Admiralty pennant that was hoisted when a majority of the Admiralty Board members were present. The pennant was given to Enterprise as a token of respect from several high-ranking officers of an ally. She returned to New York on 25 December 1945 with 4,413 servicemen. On this nine-day trip, she encountered four storms, some with winds of 80 miles per hour (130 km/h) that caused 75-foot (23 m) waves that swamped the forecastle deck in water up to 10 feet (3 m) deep. According to damage control officer John U. Monro, the storms smashed sections of walkways and railings, and swept loose objects overboard. Her last voyage was to the Azores, and returned 3,557 personnel, including 212 WACs to New York on 17 January 1946.
The end for Enterprise
With the commissioning of over two dozen larger and more advanced aircraft carriers by end of 1945, Enterprise was deemed surplus for the post-war needs of America's navy. She entered the New York Naval Shipyard on 18 January 1946 for deactivation and was decommissioned on 17 February 1947. In 1946, she had been scheduled to be handed over to the state of New York as a permanent memorial, but this plan was suspended in 1949. Subsequent attempts were made at preserving the ship as a museum or memorial, but fund-raising efforts failed to raise enough money to buy the vessel from the Navy, and Enterprise was sold on 1 July 1958 to the Lipsett Corporation of New York City for scrapping at Kearny, New Jersey.
A promise was made to save the distinctive tripod mast for inclusion in the Naval Academy's new football stadium, but was never fulfilled; instead, a memorial plaque was installed at the base of what is still called "Enterprise Tower". Scrapping was complete as of May 1960. In 1984, a permanent "Enterprise Exhibit" was dedicated at the Naval Aviation Museum, Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, to house artifacts, photos, and other items of historical interest.
Surviving Enterprise artifacts include the ship's bell, which resides at the U.S. Naval Academy, where it is traditionally rung only after Midshipmen victories over West Point. Her commissioning plaque and one of her anchors are on display at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.. The salvaged sixteen-foot (4.9 m), one-ton nameplate from the ship's stern, was displayed near a Little League park in River Vale, New Jersey. In 2025, through a cooperative effort by the US Navy, the River Vale community trust and the USS New Jersey Battleship trust, the stern nameplate was refurbished to reflect the camouflage/color scheme of the ship just before decommissioning and mounted on a new mobile platform for display at the USS New Jersey Battleship museum dock. The artifact will be on display at the dock until such time as the National Museum of the US Navy is completed, and the stern plate of CV6 can be moved there for display. Unveiled 7 October 2025 in conjunction with the (USN) NAVY 250 celebrations, this final "meeting" reflects on the WW2 service of CV6 and BB62 in the same Pacific fleet.
Successors to Enterprise
The name was revived in February 1958 when the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was laid down as the eighth Enterprise; this ship was commissioned in November 1961. Also nicknamed the "Big E", various artifacts and mementos were kept aboard from her predecessor. The port holes in the captain's in-port cabin and conference room are only one example. She was inactivated and removed from service on 1 December 2012 after being in the fleet for 51 years. Due to considerations arising from reactor removal, she cannot be turned into a memorial. At her inactivation, it was announced that the ninth ship to bear the name Enterprise would be the planned Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, CVN-80. Four portholes taken from CV-6 will be removed from CVN-65 and incorporated into CVN-80.
Awards and commendations
Enterprise was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for her service during World War II. The citation states:
For consistently outstanding performance and distinguished achievement during repeated action against enemy Japanese forces in the Pacific war area, 7 December 1941, to 15 November 1942. Participating in nearly every major carrier engagement in the first year of the war, the Enterprise and her air group, exclusive of far-flung destruction of hostile shore installations throughout the battle area, did sink or damage on her own a total of 35 Japanese vessels and shot down a total of 185 Japanese aircraft. Her aggressive spirit and superb combat efficiency are fitting tribute to the officers and men who so gallantly established her as an ahead bulwark in the defense of the American nation.
In addition to her Presidential Unit Citation, Enterprise received the Navy Unit Commendation and 20 battle stars for World War II service, making her the highest decorated U.S. ship of the war.
Finally, she was presented with a British Admiralty pennant that was hoisted when a majority of the Admiralty Board members were present. The pennant was given to Enterprise as an unofficial token of respect from an ally.
Legacy
Gene Roddenberry, creator of the television show, Star Trek, named his fictional starship in honor of CV-6 early on in the development of the show, because he was "particularly fascinated" by her war record, and had "always considered it a heroic ship". In doing so, he replaced the name S.S. Yorktown (named after Enterprise's sister ship) he had originally envisioned for his fictional starship, when he conceived the show in early 1964. The name Enterprise has been given to multiple starships throughout the Star Trek franchise over the years in both television and motion picture stories. The CV-6 is acknowledged during a discussion of past vessels named Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Jack C. Taylor, founder of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, had served on Enterprise as a fighter pilot during the war, and (re-)named his company in 1969 after the ship.
Bob Ramsey, who served on the Enterprise during the war as an Aviation Machinist's Mate, invented a bass drum pedal while aboard the Enterprise. Its action was inspired by the landing gear of the fighter planes he serviced, and its footboard design was suggestive of the carrier's runway. He named it "The Ghost" pedal in tribute to the Enterprise, after its nickname "The Gallopin' Ghost". He and his wife manufactured it in their garage in Eugene, Oregon before being bought out by Ludwig Drums. Owner William F. Ludwig, Jr. called it "one of the world's most uniquely engineered" and "most sought after pedals". The Ghost pedal was used by prominent jazz drummers including Shelley Manne, Cozy Cole, Louis Bellson, Lionel Hampton, and Gene Krupa. It was also popularized by rock drummers Carmine Appice and Alex Van Halen.
The Azur Lane character Enterprise is based on this ship.