USS Kearsarge

Five ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Kearsarge. The first was named for Mount Kearsarge and the later ones were named in honor of the first.

USS Hornet (CV-12)

USS Hornet (CV/CVA/CVS-12) was a United States Navy aircraft carrier of the Essex class. Construction started in August 1942. She was originally named USS Kearsarge, but was renamed in honor of the USS Hornet (CV-8), which was lost in October 1942, becoming the eighth ship to bear the name.

Hornet was commissioned in November 1943, and after three months of training joined the U.S. forces in the Pacific War. She played a major part in the Pacific battles of World War II, and also took part in Operation Magic Carpet, returning troops back to the U.S. Following World War II, she served in the Vietnam War, and also played a part in the Apollo program, recovering astronauts as they returned from the Moon.

Hornet was finally decommissioned in 1970. She was eventually designated as both a National Historic Landmark and a California Historical Landmark, and in 1998 she opened to the public as the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda, California.

Construction: 1940 to 1943

The contract to build Kearsarge had been given to Newport News Shipbuilding on 9 September 1940, and her keel was laid down on 3 August 1942. The seventh Hornet (CV-8) was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz on 26 October 1942, and the CV-12 hull was renamed Hornet (the name Kearsarge is still stamped into her keel plate). Larger and more advanced than her Yorktown-class namesake, she was launched on 30 August 1943 and commissioned on 29 November 1943. Her first commander was Captain (later Rear Admiral) Miles R. Browning.

USS Kearsarge (1861)

USS Kearsarge, a Mohican-class sloop-of-war, is best known for her defeat of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama during the American Civil War. The Kearsarge was the only ship of the United States Navy named for Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire. Subsequent ships were later named Kearsarge in honor of the ship.

Hunting Confederate raiders

Kearsarge was built at Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, under the 1861 American Civil War emergency shipbuilding program. The new 1,550 long tons (1,570 t) steam sloop-of-war was launched on 11 September 1861; she was sponsored by "Mrs. McFarland," the wife of the editor of the Concord Statement, and was commissioned on 24 January 1862, with Captain Charles W. Pickering in command. Soon after, she was hunting for Confederate raiders in European waters.

Kearsarge departed Portsmouth on 5 February 1862 for the coast of Spain. She then sailed to Gibraltar to join the blockade of Confederate raider CSS Sumter, forcing the ship's abandonment there in December of 1862. However, Sumter's commanding Captain, Raphael Semmes, having returned to England for reassignment, was soon recommissioning off the Azores, in international waters, the newly built British sloop Enrica as CSS Alabama. From there, Alabama went on to become the most successful commerce raider in naval history.