The north western tip of Alameda Island, located across the bay eastward from San Francisco (California), is an ideal location for a ghosts movie.
Former host to Naval Air Station Alameda (NAS Alameda), the area was only partly redeveloped into housing facilities after the base’s closure in 1997 and most of its facilities still remain in place and remain abandoned or have been recycled into a variety of civilian businesses.
In addition to the Alameda Naval Aviation Museum, an A-4A Skyhawk gate guardian behind NAS Alameda old entry point and a lonely A-7 Corsair II plynth-mounted at West Atlantic Avenue between Orion and Corsair streets, the area is host to mythical aircraft carrier, USS Hornet (CVS-12).
The eight United States Navy (USN) ship to bear the “Hornet” name, CVS-12 is also known as the “Grey Ghost”, both because of its operational call sign and due to over thirty volunteers and staff members experiencing unusual presences and sounds on board since the vessel was berthed at NAS Alameda pier 3 in 1995.
As a result, USS Hornet ghosts have been the subject of frequent media coverage and dedicated expeditions, from “My Ghost Story” (Biography Channel’s “Ship Of Lost Souls”, 2012) to “All aboard the USS Hornet, the most haunted ship in America” (Localish, 2019) to countless written reports and testimonies and the museum’s trademark “History Mystery Tours”.
USS Hornet is dead… long live USS Hornet!
Some authors, however, theoretize that Hornet’s ghosts come not from CVS-12 itself but from its predecessor, short-lived Yorktown-class carrier CV-8, which was sunk in battle by Japanese torpedo and dive bombers during the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands on 10/26/1942.
Its short-lived combat record during World War II included launching lieutenant colonel James Doolittle’s (himself a native of Alameda!) famous raid on Tokyo, the Battle of Midway, the Buin-Faisi-Tonolai raid as well as the capture of Guadalcanal and earned it a well-deserved name revival when Essex-class carrier CV-12 was commissioned on 11/29/1943.
Unlike its predecessor, whose career spanned only one year and seven days, CV-12 remained operational for nearly three decades and went on to log an impressive service career, both in combat in two United States foreign wars, the space race and miscealeous duties.
In its original configuration, Hornet fought the last 16 months of World War II recording an impressive combat log: Her aircraft downed 1,410 Japanese aircraft, destroyed or damaged 1,269,710 tons of enemy shipping and scored the critical first hits in sinking Japanese super battleship Yamato.
Also launched the first carrier aircraft strikes in support of the liberation of the Philippine Islands and the first air strikes against Tokyo after the 1942 Doolittle Raid and, having been 59 times under air attack, she was never seriously damaged…
After the great war and 4.5 years in mothballs, the carrier was recomissioned in the early 1950s and became a specialized attack carrier (CVA-12) after undergoing a US $50 million renovation process fitting her with more powerful catapults and arresting gear, a strengthened flight deck, a new streamlined island, new ammunition lifts and numerous other improvements facilitating adoption of new jets and heavy attack bombers that placed her at the forefront of aircraft carrier technology.
Cold War & Vietnam
In the late 1950s, a new renovation gave Hornet her final configuration and pennant number as a specialized antisubmarine warfare support carrier (CVS-12), incorporating and angled flight deck, an enclosed hurricane bow and helicopters and piston-engine aircraft into its flying wing.
Little over a decade after WW2, Hornet was again involved in (near) combat action when Chinese anti-aircraft gunners shot at two of Hornet’s aircraft but, other than minor damage, both aircraft returned to Hornet safely to complete one more of its many Western Pacific tours.
Fast forwarding to the second half of the 1960s, the vessel performed three Vietnam combat tours (in 1965, 1967 and 1968), its air wing performing search and rescue, helicopter support for strike aircraft, submarine tracking, anti-submarine warfare and surveillance duties.
Hornet was also involved in the search for survivors of the “Hainan Incident”, when a Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 airliner was shot down by two Chinese La-7 Fin fighters in 1954, and a historical Hollywood Hills fire that devastated the Los Angeles suburb in 1961, her two diesel generators being used to feed electricity into the Southern California power grid.
Space Age pioneer
Her last and most notorious peace-time duties, however, saw Hornet participating in the United States space program as a spaceships recovery vessel, starting in 1966 with a suborbital space flight by Apollo AS-202, an unmanned capsule that was recovered 300 miles north of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
Three years later, she was again designated the primary recovery ship for the first two missions to reach the moon: Apollo XI (Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins, 07/1969) and Apollo XII (Pete Conrad, Alan Bean and Dick Gordon, 11/1969).
In 1970, Hornet’s operational career came to an end after an S-2E Tracker performed the carrier’s last arrester landing in February and the ship was finally decommissioned at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Washington) in June.
Almost two decades later, Navy ordered Hornet stricken from the Naval register and, still berthed at Puget Sound, it was designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service.
Alameda ghosts & relics
In 1998, Hornet was donated to the Aircraft Carrier Hornet Foundation, relocated to Alameda and opened to the public at today’s USS Hornet Naval, Air & Space Museum, becoming a California State Historic Landmark one year later.
The author visited the museum before the 2022 end of year amidst a cold, cloudy, rainy and windy storm front which added ambient sensibility to the carrier’s spooky fame.
While no spectre showed-up during our three-hour evening tour, exhibits from the Second World, Korea and Vietnam wars and the Apollo program provided more than adequate entertainment for an aviation buff and “via satellite” witness to the 1969 lunar landings.
Destination: Alameda
As noticeable in this Pista 18’s inventory logged during the visit, Alameda Island was host to a total 17 aircraft: Two gate guardians on the ground and 13 complete airframes plus two nose sections on display at the aircraft carrier itself (all but two dutifuly kept under cover inside the carriers hangars).
Aircraft on display show a representative sample of World War II through to Gulf War participants and the types operating from USS Hornet’s throughout its multifaceted career as a generic, attack, ASW support and spaceship recovery carrier.
How to reach the USS Hornet
If you happen to visit the San Francisco Bay Area, don’t miss the chance to tour this interesting piece of naval, air & space history: It may not be easy to get there… but the time spent onboard will be fully rewarding!
Getting there from San Francisco is relatively easy on working days using the Alameda Seaplane Ferry Route, while access from eastern bay locations requires taxi or application services (or just plenty of walking time!) to enter Alameda Island, NAS Alameda and the USS Hornet museum themselves.
Internet sources: CAG-17 VT-17 Torpedo Squadron Seventeen, LinkedIn, Oakland Magazine, Scramble, Skyhawk Association, USS Sea, Air and Space Museum and Wikipedia.
