USS Thetis Bay (CVE-90) - Recommissioning As CVHA-1

Recommissioning As CVHA-1

In May 1955, Thetis Bay was towed to the San Francisco Naval Shipyard where she began conversion to the Navy's first assault helicopter aircraft carrier. On 1 July 1955, her designation was changed from CVE-90 to CVHA-1. With that change, she became a complement to the attack transport. Her helicopters supplemented landing craft to give the Navy and Marine Corps the flexibility of a vertical assault capability. She was recommissioned on 20 July 1956, Captain Thomas W. South, II, in command, and completed conversion six weeks later on 1 September.

The carrier arrived at her new home port, Long Beach, on 20 September. There, helicopter teams from Marine Corps Test Unit No. 1, Camp Pendleton, demonstrated landing and take-off techniques. Thetis Bay participated in amphibious training exercises off the California coast before deploying to the Far East on 10 July 1957. She returned to Long Beach on 11 December 1957 and resumed local operations. On 28 May 1959, her designation was changed to LPH-6, amphibious assault ship.

In August 1959, Thetis Bay was serving with the 7th Fleet when floods in Taiwan left thousands homeless. On the 12th, she was ordered to proceed from Hong Kong to Taiwan and use HMR(L)-261's (USMC) 21 large troop-carrying helicopters to aid the flood victims. By the end of the assistance operation, at noon of the 20th, the ship had delivered a total of 1,600,540 pounds of supplies to the Chinese. In addition, HMR(L)-261's helicopters had lifted 850 passengers to and from various sites in the flooded area.

In May 1960, Thetis Bay participated in a practice night assault landing at Camp Pendleton during which her helicopters carried 1,300 troops and 33 tons of cargo to the objective area. This was the first large-scale night landing of ground forces by carrier-based helicopters.

Thetis Bay deployed to the western Pacific in the spring of 1961. After the assault ship returned to Long Beach, she was transferred to the Atlantic Fleet. She arrived at Norfolk, her new home port, in early December 1961.

During the next three years, the ship operated along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. The highlight of her service with the Atlantic Fleet came during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 when she proceeded to the quarantine area with her embarked marine landing team and helicopter squadron ready for action. In September 1963 Thetis Bay proceeded to hurricane-stricken Haiti. She anchored off Port-au-Prince and launched Marine helicopters carrying medical aid and food supplies to thousands of victims of Hurricane Flora.

Thetis Bay stood out of Norfolk on 5 January 1964 en route to Philadelphia for deactivation and arrived there the next day. She was decommissioned and struck from the Navy List on 1 March 1964. Her hulk was sold in December 1964 to Peck Iron & Metal Co., Inc., Portsmouth, Virginia, for scrap.