USS Lake Champlain (CV-39)

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USS Lake Champlain (CV/CVA/CVS-39) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers completed during or shortly after World War II for the United States Navy. She was the second US Navy ship to bear the name, named for the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812. Commissioned on 3 June 1945, Lake Champlain did not participate in World War II combat operations. She served as a transport, bringing troops home from Europe as part of Operation Magic Carpet. Like many of her sister ships, she was decommissioned shortly after the war but was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s. Redesignated as an attack carrier (CVA), she participated in the Korean War before spending the rest of her career in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean. In the late 1950s, she was redesignated as an antisubmarine carrier (CVS). Lake Champlain was the prime recovery ship for the first crewed Project Mercury mission (Freedom 7), the second uncrewed Gemini mission (Gemini 2), and the third crewed Gemini...

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