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Oriskany completed her yard overhaul in Feb. 1955 and deployed for a third time to the Western Pacific. During this cruise which lasted from Mar. through Sept., Oriskany distinguished herself by capturing her
first Battle Efficiency Award. In Oct. 1958, Oriskany was again de-activated,
and entered San Francisco Bay Naval Shipyard for an extensive angled deck conversion and modernization. She was decommissioned on Jan. 2, 1957. During the next 2 years
the Mighty O was sculptured into a striking new shape, complete with an angled flight deck and a streamlined hurricane bow. The old hydraulic catapults were replaced by steam driven ones capable of launching
much heavier aircraft. The cramped Combat
Information Center was re-located to a more protected area of the ship and the crew's
berthing areas were modernized, Oriskany was recommissioned on May 7, 1959 and Captain James Mahan Wright, who served as her executive officer
in 1951 and 1952, assumed command prior to Christmas 1959. During the early months
of 1960 Oriskany conducted intensive operations and held carrier qualifications for various squadrons. In May 1960 Oriskany departed for her 4th Far East deployment. She operated with the Seventh Fleet until December 1960, visiting Japan, Hong Kong, Okinawa, and the Philippine Islands. In March 1961, Oriskany once again entered the San Francisco Bay Naval Shipyard for
a 5 month overhaul period which included the installation of the Naval Tactical Data System (NDTS), an extremely compact electronic
computing system. NTDS collects, stores, sorts and evaluates technical data from
the ship's radar and communications systems in electronic computers. Oriskany
was the first ship to employ this sophisticated system, which is still the most modern and capable of anti-warfare control
systems. In June 1962, Oriskany was once again enroute to the Western Pacific. Returning shortly before Christmas 1963, the Mighty O entered her home port of San Diego for a leave and upkeep period.
President John F. Kennedy was a guest aboard Oriskany on June 6, 1963. The President witnessed an operational readiness demonstration and observed NTDS in
operation. Honors went to Oriskany's commissarymen in July 1963 when the ship
was named runner-up in the fleet-wide Ney Award competition for the best large general mess afloat.
Oriskany became the flagship
for Commander Carrier Division One in August 1963, and sailed for the Far East on her 6th Western Pacific deployment. While in Iwakuni, Japan, news broke of a coup d'etat in South Vietnam. In response, Oriskany joined other Seventh Fleet ships in international
waters off the coast of that country. Oriskany completed the remainder of her
cruise and returned to San Diego in March 1964. Next stop
was Bremerton WA for a short overhaul
period prior to a year of operations along the West Coast. The early months of
1965 were spent in preparation for WestPac, during which Oriskany played an important role in the giant amphibious landing
exercise, Silver Lance. International tensions resulted in cancellation of this
exercise and the ship left San Diego on April 5, 1965,
for the Far East. There, in the South China Sea, she joined the Seventh Fleet units comprising Task Force 77. Oriskany's
pilots of Carrier Air Wing 16 flew their first combat sorties of the Vietnam conflict on May
8, 1965.
Exceptional demands were made on the ship and her crew, but the veteran combat carrier never missed a single day's
combat commitment. Not content with flying ordnance off the ship at a record rate, the crew captured the Pacific Fleet "underway
ordnance replenishment" record. Her combat record was impressive with more than
12,000 combat sorties flown by Carrier Air Wing 16. This was the largest number
ever achieved by any carrier in naval history during a single combat deployment. Oriskany
returned to San Diego from combat on Dec. 16, 1965 and began a period of leave and upkeep in preparation for her imminent eighth deployment to the Far East, which occurred in late May 1966. Again in the combat zone, the Mighty
O set another ordnance replenishment record when an average of 435.5 tons per hour was transferred at sea from the ammunition
ship USS Mt. Katmai (AE 16).
While Oriskany was carrying out her mission in the Gulf of Tonkin, tragedy struck. At 7:28 a.m. on Oct. 26, 1966, fire broke out in a
forward magazine and raged through 5 decks, claiming the lives of 44 Oriskanymen. Many
of those killed were veteran combat pilots who, a few hours earlier, had flown on raids over Vietnam. Serious damage to the 21-year-old combat veteran
ended Oriskany's 1966 Western Pacific deployment. After arriving in San Diego on Nov. 3, Oriskany immediately headed to her new home port at Alameda CA, and extensive fire-damage repairs at the San Francisco Bay Naval
Shipyard, Hunters Point. After 4 months, Oriskany was once again back in operation
off the coast of California in preparation for her 1967 deployment to the Western Pacific and
Seventh Fleet combat operations. She departed her home port of Alameda on June 16, 1967. After a brief stopover in Hawaii and Subic Bay, Philippines in June, Oriskany was
once again "on the line" as she began her 1967 and 3rd consecutive Vietnam combat deployment.
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