USS SARATOGA
- Commissioned in 1927, the Saratoga was often seen at
Panama. During the decade before the war, she exercised in the
San Diego-San Pedro area, except for annual fleet problems and
regular overhauls at the Bremerton Navy Yard.
Between 14 and 29 October 1940, Saratoga transported
a draft of military personnel from San Pedro to Hawaii, and, on
6 January 1941,
she entered the Bremerton Navy Yard for a long deferred
modernization, including widening her flight deck forward and
fitting a blister on her starboard side and additional small
antiaircraft guns. Departing Bremerton on 28 April 1941,
the
carrier participated
in a landing force exercise in May and made two trips to Hawaii
between June and October as the diplomatic crisis with Japan
came to a head. When
the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Saratoga was
just entering San Diego after an interim drydocking at
Bremerton. She did not return to Nremerton until the
summer of 1944. She was back in the Pacific by September.
Towards the end of the war, she was eclipsed by the larger Essex
class carriers.
