USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31)
1944 Essex-class aircraft carrier
USS Bon Homme Richard (CV/CVA-31) was the 14th of the 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers completed during or shortly after World War II for the United States Navy. She was the second US Navy ship to bear the name, the first one being named for John Paul Jones's famous Revolutionary War frigate by the same name. Jones had named that ship, usually rendered in more correct French as Bonhomme Richard, to honor Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, the American Commissioner at Paris, whose Poor Richard's Almanack had been published in France under the title Les Maximes du Bonhomme Richard.
Bon Homme Richard was commissioned in November 1944, the last of the Essex class completed in time to serve in what would be the final campaigns of the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning one battle star. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was recommissioned in 1951 for the Korean War. In her second career she operated exclusively in the Pacific, playing a prominent role in the Korean War, for which she earned five battle stars, and the Vietnam War. She was modernized and recommissioned in 1955. She was decommissioned in 1971, and scrapped in 1992.
Construction and commissioning
Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) was laid down on 1 February 1943 at the New York Navy Yard, being the first Essex-class carrier to be built at the New York Navy Yard. She was launched 29 April 1944 by Mrs.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q562057. VIAF identifies the subject as 141940188. The Library of Congress control number is n84021618. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1951, 1955 and 1971.
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