USS Laurence DuBose

Light Aircraft Carrier USS Laurence DuBose

Type: Light Aircraft Carrier
Lenght: 192,5m
Beam: 20,8m
Draught: 7,5m
Propulsion: 2 x geared steam turbines, 2 x shafts
Speed: 53,5 km/h
Complement: 700-750
Armament: 30 x twin 40mm Bofors guns, 4 x 5in/38 DP single mounted guns
Aircraft Loadout: 25 aircraft
Aircraft Facilities: 2 elevators

- The first (and only) foreign-built aircraft carrier by the USN (even by the US), the USS Laurence DuBose started its carrer was the JAPANESE light carrier IJN Chiyoda. After its abandoned by the cruiser Isuzu (by the sight of 4 American cruisers and 9 destroyers), the Rear Admiral Laurence DuBose decided to board the ship and take it by force, was a revenge to the japanese have done to the Hornet (althrough the last one was abandoned). While the boarding party enter the ship, Captain Jō Eiichirō gave the order to scuttle the carrier and fight back was long was possible. During the fighting, one of the 12,7cm guns fired at the possition where Laurence was, mortably wounding him, but the carrier was taken, with a actual high prisioner number.
- Towed by the cruiser New Orleans to Guam, where it get its former crew load out and received the needed refits to be sent to Pearl Harbor. After its arrival, it was decided to add even more refits (this time by is own power) to be sent to the Guaymas harbor, in Sonora. After its arrival, the USN didn't know what to do with the ship. The vessel just keep at a drydock until an year-later after its capture, when Operation Downfall was been planned, and the US needed was much aircraft carrier in the Pacific was possible, even that it included the Chiyoda.
- When the vessel was been reffited, the USN decided to give it the name of the man that captured the ship. The refites, off course, included mostly american-weapons and tecnologies to it, althrough the elevators where made bigger, since most of the american aircraft where also bigger (Only operated FM Wildcats and FR Fireballs).
- Completed in October, 1945, it arrived to late to see participation on the landings of Kyushu, but helped in the afternath of the landing. Many commanders disliked to operate their own "superior" ships alongeside the Laurence, althrough the carrier had more defensive firepower that an normal light carrier of the same size. Shortly before Operation Coronet, the Laurence was hit by an kaiten while helping the attacks prior to the landings. Manage to limp back to Okinawa, where it received the refits to return back in service. After the Pacific War, the ship was reclassified was a training carrier and went to be stationed in Dutch Harbor, where it trained the carrier pilots in winter conditions, until the end of the war, where it was just sent to scrap, in Los Angeles, in 1950.