USS Wright (CVL-49)
History of the USS Wright Aircraft Carrier
The USS Wright was ordered for the U.S. Navy during World War II. Her keel was laid down by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of New Jersey on August 21, 1944. She was launched on September 1, 1945 and commissioned on February 9, 1947 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard of Pennsylvania under the command of Captain Frank T. Ward.
On March 18, 1947, USS Wright departed Pennsylvania for the Naval Air Training Base at Pensacola, Florida via Norfolk, Virginia. She began gunner practice, air defense drills and carrier qualifications for the student pilots there. The carrier continued training operations until October, when she headed back to Pennsylvania for repairs and alterations at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
In December 1947, the USS Wright returned to Pensacola to continue training and qualifications. She put in at Norfolk Naval Shipyard for overhaul in January 1949. The carrier then shifted to Newport, Rhode Island for antisubmarine warfare training. After a visit to New York City, she then sailed to Rhode Island and Florida for carrier qualifications, exercises and air defense tactics.
USS Wright departed Norfolk in January 1952 for her first Sixth Fleet deployment in the Mediterranean. On this cruise, she visited Gibraltar, Algeria, Sicily, Crete, Lebanon and France before returning home to Newport, Rhode Island on March 31. She then entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard for overhaul and received further repairs at Boston Naval Shipyard in Massachusetts.
After conducting exercises along the East Coast and in the Caribbean, the USS Wright conducted antisubmarine warfare operations along the East Coast in June 1952 as the flagship for Carrier Division
14. She arrived at New York City on June 27 along with the rest of Task Group 81.4. The carrier then proceeded to Quonset Point, Rhode Island for training operations. In August, she moved on to participate in NATO exercises and maneuvers with the Second Fleet. The aircraft carrier arrived home at Newport, Virginia on October 9.
From there, USS Wright resumed carrier qualification duties before she returned to the Mediterranean from in February and March 1953. After returning home to Newport, she headed to the Gulf of Mexico for a visit to Houston, Texas. She sailed north to Rhode Island for a month before heading down to operate out of Mayport, Florida.
The USS Wright put in at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Pennsylvania for overhaul from July to November 1953. When she departed Pennsylvania, she conducted refresher training in the Caribbean until February 1954. From there, she got underway for her first Far East deployment to Yokosuka via the Panama Canal, California and Hawaii. With Marine Attack Squadron 211 embarked, she operated with the Seventh Fleet off Korea, Okinawa and Hong Kong. The carrier arrived in San Diego, California on Halloween before putting in at Long Beach Naval Shipyard for overhaul.
Once her yard work was completed in February 1955, USS Wright joined Carrier Division 17 for local operations out of San Diego. In May, she sailed with Task Group 7.3 for Operation Wigwam, atomic testing in the Pacific Ocean.
USS Wright was decommissioned at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington on March 15, 1956. She was reclassified as an auxiliary aircraft transport, AVT-7, on May 15, 1959. On March 15, 1962, she was taken to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for conversion as a command ship, reclassified as CC-2. Conversion lasted for a year, and she was recommissioned on May 11, 1963 under the command of Captain John L. Arrington.
In November 1963, the USS Wright embarked civilian engineers and personnel at San Diego, California for a survey of communications and air conditioning equipment along the coast of Mexico. She picked up a distress call on December 1 and altered her course to send her medical officer to the Israeli merchant ship SS Velos to treat a seaman who had kidney stones. The ship then proceeded to Balboa.
From there, USS Wright sailed to Hampton Roads, Virginia via the Virgin Islands. Over the next several years, she operated out of Norfolk as an emergency command post afloat, traveling as far as Maine, Brazil and Uruguay. The ship was decommissioned on May 27, 1970, struck from the Naval Vessel Register on December 1, 1977 and sold for scrap on August 1, 1980.
The use of asbestos was common in shipbuilding components for much of the 20th Century because of its resistance to heat, fire, water and corrosion. Because of their asbestos exposure onboard ship and in the shipyards, seaman, shipyard workers and longshoreman are at risk for developing asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma .
Sources include:
John Hedley-Whyte and Debra R Milamed, "Asbestos and Ship-Building: Fatal Consequences," Ulster Med. J. 77(3):191-200 (Sep 2008)
U.S. Navy, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships—USS Wright
