USS Ranger departed San Diego on January 4th, 1939 for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for fleet operations in the Caribbean. After the exercises were completed, she steamed back to Norfolk, arriving on April 20th, 1939. Ranger was then assigned to cruise the eastern seaboard out of Norfolk and into the Caribbean Sea as her normal patrol station. In the fall of 1939, after total war in Europe had broken out, she commenced Neutrality Patrol operations out of Bermuda along the trade routes of the middle Atlantic and up the eastern seaboard to Newfoundland. She was found to be lacking in sea keeping ability for she could not operate aircraft along her decks in heavy weather conditions.
On December 7th, 1941, Ranger was returning to Norfolk from a patrol around Trinidad and Tobago when the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor. Ranger arrived at Norfolk on December 8th where she was resupplied and took on normal scheduled personnel replacements. She sailed on the 21st for patrol in the South Atlantic and re-entered the Norfolk Navy Yard for repairs on March 21th,1942. Ranger was one of fourteen US Navy ships to receive the early RCA CXAM-1 radar system and also took on the new Grumman Wildcat fighter squadrons to replace her outmoded SBD-1 biplanes. Ranger served as flagship of Rear Admiral A. B. Cook, Commander, Carriers, Atlantic Fleet. She was ordered to Quonset Point, Rhode Island and was loaded with sixty-eight US Army Curtiss P-40 Warhawk pursuit fighters along with their pilots and ground crews of the Army's 33d Pursuit Squadron. Ranger put to sea on April 22nd and made landfall on May 10th at Aeera on the Gold Coast of Africa where she launched the Army P-40 squadron. This was the first time US Army planes were launched from a carrier flight deck. She returned to Quonset Point, Rhode Island on May 28th, 1942, and was loaded with seventy-two more Army P-40 pursuit planes, again destined for Aeera, Africa, finally arriving there and launching aircraft on the 19th.
Upon returning to Norfolk, she trained with four escort carriers that had been converted from exiting tankers. The escorts had new crews and Ranger gave valuable training on all phases of carrier operations. The escorts were brought online to help in convoy protection in the Atlantic crossing from German Navy attacks. Ranger was the biggest aircraft carrier in Atlantic waters and was assigned four Sangomon-class escort carriers for defense - each fielding 25 to 34 aircraft. This task force was to provide air cover for the upcoming amphibious invasion of German-controlled French Morocco on November 8th, 1942. Ranger and her task force was 30 miles north of Casablanca and launched her aircraft at 0615 hours, attacking Rabat airdromes and destroying 21 enemy aircraft on the ground and strafing the French headquarters without any losses. Additional planes from Ranger's force destroyed another seven enemy planes on the Port Lyautey airfield while others strafed four French destroyers in Casablanca Harbor.
The operation lasted three days and Ranger's task force launched a total of 496 sorties in support of the three-pronged landing. The French destroyer Albatros was bombed twice on her forward deck area causing 300 casualties. The French cruiser Primaugut was attacked and damaged as she sorted from Casablanca Harbor. Aircraft dropped depth charges on two submarines and destroyed coastal defenses and anti-aircraft batteries. Ranger's pilots reported 21 light enemy tanks were attacked with many destroyed along with 86 military vehicles. Overall, Allied planes destroyed 70+ enemy planes on the ground and shot down 15 in aerial combat. Ranger's task force lost 16 aircraft. Casablanca surrendered to the Allied Forces on November 11th, 1942 to which Ranger departed the Moroccan coast the next day and steamed into Norfolk, Virginia on the 23rd.
Ranger stayed in the Norfolk Navy Yard for needed repairs and aircraft replacement from December 16th, 1942 to February 7th, 1943. Returning to her ferrying role, she was loaded with seventy-five P-40-L Army pursuit planes headed to Casablanca, Africa, arriving there on February 23th, 1943. Returning to Norfolk, she patrolled the East Coast of America and steamed with the British Home Fleet at Scapa Flow, Scotland on August 19th, helping to patrol the sea approaches to the British Isles. The new mission was to attack German shipping in Norwegian waters. On October 2nd, she sailed and attacked a small convoy, sinking two ships and damaging a pair of merchantmen in the process. Further combat sorties destroyed a freighter and damaged another two ships. Air combat shot down two German planes with three Ranger Wildcats lost. Ranger and her squadron returned to Scapa Flow on October 6th, 1943 and she patrolled with the Home Fleet once more before reaching Boston on December 4th, 1943.
Soon after her return she began training but soon was ordered to Staten Island, New York to pick up seventy-six P-38 fighter aircraft along with US Army and Navy and French Naval personnel. Casablanca, again, was the destination to which she arrived there on May 4th, 1944. After Ranger unloaded her inventory, damaged US Army aircraft were loaded aboard for stateside repairs. Also, a number of military passengers were taken aboard for their return to New York. Arriving at New York on May 16th, Ranger returned to the Norfolk Navy Yard for repairs and new equipment. The flight deck was strengthened for installation of a new catapult and the radar was upgraded. Arresting gear was installed that provided her with a capacity for night fighter interceptor training.
On July 11th, 1944 Ranger departed Norfolk for San Diego, arriving there July 25th. She received the men and aircraft of Night Fighting Squadron 102 and a thousand US Marines. Ranger trained in Hawaiian waters for the next three months, conducting night carrier training operations. On October 18th, Ranger departed Pearl Harbor for San Diego to train air groups and squadrons along the California coast until the end of the war. On September 30th, 1945 she steamed for New Orleans for Navy Day scheduled for October 19th to which she then headed for the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on November 18th for an overhaul. She was decommissioned at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on October 18th, 1946, struck from the Navy Register on October 29th, 1946 and sold for scrapping to Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company of Chester, Pennsylvania on January 28th, 1947.
During World War 2, US Ranger served mostly in escort carrier roles for convoy escort, aircraft transport and amphibious support for she lacked sufficient speed or capacity to operate as a fleet carrier during her tenure. Of the eight pre-war U.S. aircraft carriers, these being CV-1 through CV-8, USS Ranger was one of only three to survive all of World War 2. The others became the USS Enterprise and the USS Saratoga. The USS Ranger received two battle stars for her service in the grand conflict and most of her operations were centered in the Atlantic.
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