USS Shangri-La

USS Shangri-La (CV/CVA/CVS-38) was one of 24 Essex-class

aircraft carriers completed during or shortly after World War II for the
United States Navy.

Commissioned in 1944 and named after the mythical paradise of the

same name, Shangri-La participated in several campaigns in the
Pacific Theater of Operations in World War II, earning two battle
stars. Like many of her sister ships, she was decommissioned shortly
after the end of the war, but was modernized and recommissioned in
the early 1950s, and redesignated as an attack carrier (CVA). She
operated in both the Pacific and Atlantic / Mediterranean for several
years, and late in her career was redesignated as an anti-submarine
carrier (CVS). She earned three battle stars for service in the Vietnam USS Shangri-La underway with crew on
War. parade, 17 August 1946
History
Shangri-La was decommissioned in 1971 and sold for scrap in 1988.
United States

Name Name Shangri-La

The naming of the ship was a radical departure from the general Namesake Shangri-La
practice of the time, which was to name aircraft carriers after battles Ordered 7 August 1942
or previous US Navy ships. After the Doolittle Raid, launched from Builder Norfolk Naval Shipyard
the aircraft carrier Hornet, President Roosevelt answered a reporter's Laid down 15 January 1943
question by saying that the raid had been launched from "Shangri-
Launched 24 February 1944
La", the fictional faraway land of the James Hilton novel Lost
Horizon.[1][2] Commissioned 15 September 1944
Decommissioned 7 November 1947
Construction and commissioning Recommissioned 10 May 1951

Shangri-La was one of the "long-hull" Essex-class ships. She was 10 January 1955
laid down by the Norfolk Navy Yard, at Portsmouth, Virginia, on 15 Decommissioned 14 November 1952
January 1943, and was launched on 24 February 1944, sponsored by 30 July 1971
Josephine Doolittle (wife of Jimmy Doolittle). Shangri-La was
Reclassified CVA-38, 1 October 1952
commissioned on 15 September 1944, with Captain James D. Barner
in command.[3] CVS-38, 30 June 1969
Stricken 15 July 1982
Service history Fate Scrapped, 1988
General characteristics

World War II Class and type Essex-class aircraft carrier

Shangri-La completed fitting out at Norfolk and took her shakedown Displacement 27,100 long tons (27,500 t)
standard
cruise to Trinidad, between 15 September and 21 December 1944, at
which time she returned to Norfolk. On 17 January 1945, she stood Length 888 feet (271 m) overall
out of Hampton Roads, formed up with large cruiser Guam and Beam 93 feet (28 m)
destroyer Harry E. Hubbard, and sailed for Panama. The three ships Draft 28 feet 7 inches (8.71 m)
arrived at Cristobal, Panama Canal Zone on 23 January and transited
Installed power 8 × boilers
the canal the next day. Shangri-La departed from Balboa on 25
 January and arrived at San 150,000 shp (110 MW)
Diego, California, on 4 Propulsion 4 × geared steam turbines
February. There she loaded
4 × shafts
passengers, stores, and extra
planes for transit to Hawaii Speed 33 knots (61 km/h;
and got underway on 7 38 mph)
February. Upon her arrival at Complement 3448 officers and enlisted
Pearl Harbor on 15 February,
Armament 12 × 5 inch (127 mm)/38
Mrs. James H. Doolittle christens she commenced two months
Shangri-La at the Norfolk Navy Yard,
caliber guns
of duty, qualifying land-
Virginia, 24 February 1944
based Navy pilots in carrier 32 × Bofors 40 mm guns

landings.[3] 46 × Oerlikon 20 mm
cannons
On 10 April, she weighed anchor for Ulithi Atoll where she arrived Armor
Belt: 4 in (102 mm)
10 days later. After an overnight stay in the lagoon, Shangri-La
Hangar deck: 2.5 in
departed Ulithi in company with destroyers Haggard and Stembel to
(64 mm)
report for duty with Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's Task Force 58
(TF 58). On 24 April, she joined Task Group 58.4 (TG 58.4) while it Deck: 1.5 in (38 mm)
was conducting a fueling rendezvous with TG 50.8. The next day, Conning tower: 1.5 inch
Shangri-La and her air group, CVG-85, launched their first strike Aircraft carried 90–100 aircraft
against the Japanese. The target was Okino Daito Jima, a group of
islands several hundred miles to the southeast of Okinawa. Her planes successfully destroyed radar and radio installations
there and, upon their recovery, the task group sailed for Okinawa. Shangri-La supplied combat air patrols for the task
group and close air support for the 10th Army on Okinawa before returning to Ulithi on 14 May.[3]

While at Ulithi, Shangri-La became the flagship of Carrier Task Force 2. Vice Admiral John S. McCain, Sr. hoisted his
flag on Shangri-La on 18 May. Six days later, TG 58.4, with Shangri-La in company, sortied from the lagoon. On 28
May, TG 58.4 became TG 38.4 and McCain relieved Mitscher as Commander, TF 38, retaining Shangri-La as his
flagship. On 2–3 June, the task force launched air strikes on the Japanese home islands – aimed particularly at Kyūshū,
the southernmost of the major islands. Facing the stiffest airborne resistance to date, Shangri-La's airmen suffered their
heaviest casualties.[3]

On 4–5 June, she moved off to the northwest to avoid a typhoon; then, on 6 June, her planes returned to close air support
duty over Okinawa. On 8 June, her air group hit Kyūshū again, and, on the following day, they came back to Okinawa.
On 10 June, the task force cleared Okinawa for Leyte, conducting drills en route. Shangri-La entered Leyte Gulf and
anchored in San Pedro Bay on 13 June. She remained at anchor there for the rest of June, engaged in upkeep and
recreation.[3]

On 1 July, Shangri-La got underway from Leyte to return to the combat zone. On the 2nd, the oath of office of Assistant
Secretary of the Navy for Air was administered to John L. Sullivan on board Shangri-La, the first ceremony of its type
ever undertaken in a combat zone. Eight days later, her air group commenced a series of air strikes against Japan which
lasted until the capitulation on 15 August.[3]

Shangri-La's planes ranged the length of the island chain during these raids. On the 10th, they attacked Tokyo, the first
raid there since the strikes of the previous February. On 14–15 July, they pounded Honshū and Hokkaidō and, on 18
July, returned to Tokyo, also taking part in an attack against the battleship Nagato, moored close to shore at Yokosuka.
From 20 to 22 July, Shangri-La joined the logistics group for fuel, replacement aircraft, and mail. By 24 July, her pilots
were attacking shipping in the vicinity of Kure. They returned the next day for a repeat performance, before departing for
a two-day replenishment period on 26–27 July. On the following day, Shangri-La's aircraft damaged light cruiser Ōyodo
and battleship Haruna, the latter so badly that she beached and flooded. She later had to be abandoned. They pummeled
Tokyo again on 30 July, then cleared the area to replenish on 31 July and 1 August.[3]
Shangri-La spent the next four days in the retirement area waiting for a typhoon to pass. On 9 August, after heavy fog
had caused the cancellation of the previous day's missions, the carrier sent her planes aloft to bomb Honshū and
Hokkaido once again. The next day, they raided Tokyo and central Honshū, then retired from the area for logistics. She
evaded another typhoon on 11–12 August, then hit Tokyo again on 13 August. After replenishing on 14 August, she sent
planes to strike the airfields around Tokyo on the morning of 15 August 1945. Soon thereafter, Japan's capitulation was
announced; and the fleet was ordered to cease hostilities. Shangri-La steamed around in the strike area from 15 to 23
August, patrolling the Honshū area on the latter date. From 23 August – 16 September, her planes sortied on missions of
mercy, air-dropping supplies to Allied prisoners of war in Japan.[3]

Shangri-La entered Tokyo Bay on 16 September, almost two weeks after the surrender ceremony onboard battleship
Missouri, and remained there until 1 October. Departing Japan, she arrived at Okinawa on 4 October staying until 6
October, and then headed for the United States in company with Task Unit 38.1.1. She sailed into San Pedro Bay, on 21
October and stayed at Long Beach for three weeks. On 5 November, she shifted to San Diego, departing that port a
month later for Bremerton, Washington. She entered Puget Sound on 9 December, underwent availability until 30
December, and then returned to San Diego.[3]

Post-war
Upon her return, Shangri-La began normal operations out of San Diego,
primarily engaged in pilot carrier landing qualifications. In May 1946, she sailed
for the Central Pacific to participate in Operation Crossroads, the atomic bomb
tests conducted at Bikini Atoll. Following this, she made a brief training cruise to
Pearl Harbor, then wintered at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. In March 1947, she
deployed again, calling at Pearl Harbor and Sydney, Australia. When she
returned to the United States, Shangri-La was decommissioned and placed in the
Reserve Fleet at San Francisco on 7 November 1947.[3]
Shangri-La after her SCB-125 refit in
1956 Shangri-La recommissioned on 10 May 1951, Captain Francis L. Busey in
command. For the next year, she conducted training and readiness operations out
of Boston, Massachusetts. Reclassified as an attack carrier (CVA-38) in 1952, she
returned to Puget Sound that fall and decommissioned again on 14 November, this time for modernization at Puget
Sound Naval Shipyard. During the next two years, she received an angled flight deck and twin steam catapults, and her
aircraft elevators and arresting gear were overhauled. At a cost of approximately $7 million, she was virtually a new ship
when she commissioned for the third time on 10 January 1955, Captain Roscoe L. Newman commanding; she was the
second (after USS Antietam (CVA-36)[4]) operational U.S. carrier with an angled flight deck. She conducted intensive
fleet training for the remainder of 1955, then deployed to the Far East on 5 January 1956. Until 1960, she alternated
western Pacific cruises with operations out of San Diego. On 16 March 1960, she put to sea from San Diego en route to
her new home port, Mayport, Florida. She entered Mayport after visits to Callao, Peru; Valparaíso, Chile; Port of Spain,
Trinidad; Bayonne, New Jersey; and Norfolk, Virginia.[3]

After six weeks of underway training in the local operating area around Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, she embarked upon her
first Atlantic deployment, a NATO exercise followed by liberty in Southampton, England. Almost immediately after her
return to Mayport, Shangri-La was ordered back to sea—this time to the Caribbean in response to trouble in Guatemala
and Nicaragua. She returned to Mayport on 25 November and remained in port for more than two months.[3]

Between 1961 and 1970, Shangri-La alternated between deployments to the Mediterranean and operations in the western
Atlantic, out of Mayport. She sailed east for her first tour of duty with the 6th Fleet on 2 February 1961. She returned to
the United States that fall and entered the New York Naval Shipyard. Back in Mayport by the beginning of 1962,
Shangri-La stood out again for the Mediterranean on 7 February. After about six months of cruising with the 6th Fleet,
she departed the Mediterranean in mid-August and arrived in Mayport on 28 August.[3]

Following a month's stay at her home port, the aircraft carrier headed for New York and a major overhaul. Shangri-La
was modified extensively during her stay in the yard. Four of her 5 in (127 mm) mounts were removed, but she received
a new air search and height finding radar and a new arrester system. In addition, much of her electrical and engineering
equipment was renovated. After sea trials and visits to Bayonne and Norfolk, Shangri-La returned to Mayport for a week
in late March 1963; then put to sea for operations in the Caribbean. Eight months of similar duty followed before
Shangri-La weighed anchor for another deployment. On 1 October 1963, she headed back to the 6th Fleet for a seven-
month tour.[3]

Vietnam War
Shangri-La continued her United States Second Fleet and Sixth Fleet
assignments for the next six years. From 15 February 1965 to 20 September
1965, she made a Mediterranean deployment with Carrier Air Wing 10
embarked.

In the fall of 1965, Shangri-La collided with the destroyer Newman K. Perry off
Sardinia. Shangri-La was struck below the waterline, breaching the hull. On the
destroyer, one man was killed and another injured.[5] The ship itself suffered a
Shangri-La in 1970 on her last
bent hull. There were no casualties on the carrier and the hole was quickly
deployment
patched at sea by the crew of the tender ship Shenandoah. As a result of this
incident, Shangri-La underwent an extensive overhaul during the winter of 1965
and the spring of 1966, this time at Philadelphia, then resumed operations as before. On 30 June 1969, she was
redesignated an antisubmarine warfare carrier (CVS-38).[3]

In 1970, Shangri-La returned to the western Pacific after an absence of 10 years. She got underway from Mayport on 5
March, stopped at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 13 to 16 March, and headed east through the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
She arrived in Subic Bay, Philippines on 4 April, and during the next seven months launched combat sorties from Yankee
Station. Her tours of duty on Yankee Station were punctuated by frequent logistics trips to Subic Bay, by visits to Manila
and Hong Kong, in October, and by 12 days in drydock at Yokosuka, Japan, in July.[3]

On 9 November, Shangri-La stood out of Subic Bay to return home. En route to Mayport, she visited Sydney, Australia;
Wellington, New Zealand; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She arrived in Mayport on 16 December and began preparations
for inactivation. After inactivation overhaul at the Boston Naval Shipyard, South Annex, Shangri-La decommissioned on
30 July 1971. She was placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet and berthed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.[3]

Fate
Shangri-La remained in the reserve fleet for the next 11 years, and was stricken
from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 July 1982. She was retained by MARAD
for several years to provide spare parts for the training carrier Lexington. On 9
August 1988, she was sold for scrap and later towed to Taiwan for demolition.[3]

One of Shangri-La's four propellers is on display outside Meding's Seafood in

Milford, Delaware.[6]

On 6 September 2017, USS Shangri-La's bell was placed on display at

Shangri-La (left), Wisconsin (center),
Jacksonville University NROTC Building as a permanent loan. The bell was and Iowa mothballed at Philadelphia
found by a farmer in his field at Hudson, Florida, in June 2017. He notified the Naval Shipyard, July 1978
USS Shangri La Reunion Group, who repaired and restored the bell before
loaning it to the NROTC unit.[7]

Awards
Shangri-La earned two battle stars for World War II service and three battle stars for service in the Vietnam War.[8]

Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation

Navy Expeditionary Medal
 American Campaign Medal
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (2 battle stars )
World War II Victory Medal
Navy Occupation Medal (with Asia clasp)
China Service Medal (extended)
National Defense Service Medal (2)
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
Vietnam Service Medal (3 battle stars)
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal

Gallery

F9F-8 Cougar of
Shangri-La in VA-63 after
Shangri-La in Shangri-La in A-4C of VA-12
Sydney, 1947 barrier landing on
January 1945 January 1957 launching from
Shangri-La in
1957 Shangri-La in
1970

UH-2C of HC-2
on Shangri-La in
1970

See also
List of aircraft carriers

References
1. Hamilton, Curtiss (6 August 1943). "He Flew From 'Shangri-La' to Bomb Tokyo - The War Illustrated" (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20191218100550/https://www.thewarillustrated.info/160/he-flew-from-shangri-la-
to-bomb-tokyo.asp). The War Illustrated. J.C. Koppes. Archived from the original (https://www.thewarillust
rated.info/160/he-flew-from-shangri-la-to-bomb-tokyo.asp) on 18 December 2019. Retrieved
15 November 2021. "For a year the world knew no more than that U.S. planes had bombed Japan from a
base which President Roosevelt called "Shangri-La" in playful allusion to the mythical country of James
Hilton's novel, Lost Horizon."
2. "Revenge of the Shang"
http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/457/Revenge-
of-the-Shang.aspx Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20201030153315/http://www.vintagewings.ca/
VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/457/Revenge-of-the-Shang.aspx) 30
October 2020 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2020-07-14.
3. "Shangri-La (CV-38)" (https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/s/shangri-la.ht
ml). Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage
Command. 19 May 2020.
4. "USS Antietam (CV 36)" (https://www.navysite.de/cv/cv36.htm).
5. Arkin, William M.; Handler, Joshua (June 1989). "Neptune Paper No. 3: Naval Accidents 1945-1988" (htt
ps://uploads.fas.org/2014/05/NavalAccidents1945-1988.pdf) (PDF). Washington, D.C.:
 Greenpeace/Institute for Policy Studies. p. 34. Retrieved 5 May 2024.
6. "Propeller from Aircraft Carrier Shangri-La, Milford, Delaware" (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/19
107).
7. Eppinger, Mike (13 October 2017). "Famous WWII ship's bell finds new life after found rusting in field" (htt
ps://www.militarytrader.com/militaria-collecting-101/famous-wwii-ships-bell-finds-new-life-found-rusting-fi
eld). Military Trader/Vehicles. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
8. "Aircraft Carrier Photo Index: USS SHANGRI-LA (CV-38)" (http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/38.ht
m).
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The
entry can be found here (http://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/s/shangri-la.ht
ml).

External links
USS Shangri-La Reunion Association homepage (http://www.uss-shangri-la.com)
Naval History and Heritage Command (http://www.history.navy.mil/search.html?q=uss+shangri-la)
NavSource - USS Shangri-La (https://www.navsource.org/archives/02/38.htm)

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