USS Wright (CVL-49) - Construction

Construction

Wright was laid down on 21 August 1944 at Camden, New Jersey, by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, launched on 1 September 1945, sponsored by a niece of the Wright brothers, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 9 February 1947, with Captain Frank T. Ward in command.

Wright departed Philadelphia on 18 March 1947 and stopped briefly at Norfolk, Virginia, en route to the Naval Air Training Base at Pensacola, Florida. After her arrival there on 31 March, Wright soon commenced a rigorous schedule of air defense drills and gunnery practice while acting as a qualification carrier for hundreds of student pilots at the Naval Air Training Base, conducting 40 operational cruises—each of between one and four days' duration off the Florida coast. In addition, the carrier embarked a total of 1,081 naval reservists and trained them in a series of three two-week duty tours.

On 3 September 1947, Wright embarked 48 Midshipmen for temporary training duty and later welcomed 62 Army officers when she stood out to sea on 15 October in company with Forrest Royal to let her guests observe flight operations in the Pensacola area. The exercises included the catapulting of Grumman F6F Hellcats for rocket-firing operations.

That exercise was her last prior to her departure from Pensacola on 24 October to return north. She arrived at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard soon thereafter and, from 1 November to 17 December, underwent post-shakedown repairs and alterations before she returned to Pensacola two days before Christmas, where she resumed her regular schedule of pilot qualification training under the operational control of the Chief of Naval Air Training, Commander Air Atlantic. Wright spent the year 1948 engaged in those pilot carrier qualification operations, before she put into the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on 26 January 1949 to commence a four-month overhaul.

Following refresher training in Cuban waters, Wright returned to Norfolk on 1 August 1949 and, four days later, shifted to Newport, Rhode Island, for two weeks of antisubmarine warfare (ASW) training in the Narragansett Bay area with submarines and destroyers. She also visited New York City before taking up a steady schedule of carrier qualifications, air defense tactics and exercises out of Quonset Point, Rhode Island, Key West, and Pensacola. But for 10 days of maneuvers with the 2d Task Fleet from 21 to 31 October 1949, she continued that duty until 7 January 1951, when she embarked the last increment of personnel from Fighter Squadron (VF) 14 for temporary duty.