USS Coral Sea CV-43 Aircraft Carrier Patch

The fleet called USS Coral Sea the Ageless Warrior, and she earned it: commissioned in 1947, she was still launching combat strikes in 1986, when her F/A-18 Hornets made the jet's combat debut over Libya. She was a Midway-class carrier built at Newport News, Virginia, and launched on April 2, 1946. Her crews had other names for her too, the Big C, Coral Maru and San Francisco's Own. She carried three hull designations over her life, and CV-43 is the one stitched across this patch. She served more than 42 years before she was decommissioned on April 26, 1990.

Her keel was laid as CVB-43 on July 10, 1944, she was commissioned on October 1, 1947, and she was reclassified CVA-43 on October 1, 1952, and CV-43 on June 30, 1975. Her aircraft struck North Vietnam in Operation Flaming Dart in February 1965 and in Rolling Thunder after it, and that April her pilots fought MiG-17s in the first American air combat of the Vietnam War. She took part in Operation Pocket Money, the mining of North Vietnamese ports, from May 1972. In April 1975 she covered Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of Saigon, and weeks later her aircraft flew protective strikes on Cambodian installations during the Mayaguez incident, which brought her the Meritorious Unit Commendation. In 1980 she supported the attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran, and on April 15, 1986, Carrier Air Wing 13 Hornets flew air defense suppression over Libya in Operation El Dorado Canyon.

The patch is 4.5 inches round on medium blue twill with a dark blue merrowed edge. CV-43 stands across the top in tall gold block letters, with yellow and gold rays flaring behind the numbers. Below them a white flight deck spreads out in perspective, the island and a black lattice mast rising above it, and a white jet climbs away at upper right. The dark blue hull narrows to the bow with white water breaking off the stem. A red scroll with white letters reads CORAL SEA across the bottom, for the May 1942 battle that gave the ship her name. It has an iron-on backing and can also be sewn on.

Over her career her flight deck handled everything from the AJ-1 Savage to the A-6 Intruder, the A-7E Corsair II, the EA-6B Prowler and the F/A-18 Hornet. She spent long stretches in the Western Pacific, where sailors knew her as the Operational Queen of the Seventh Fleet. Her motto was Older and Bolder, and every new crew found out why. She was sold for scrap in 1993, and the work was finished in 2000. The men who served aboard her across five decades still call her the Big C.

Put it in a shadow box with your cruise book and your air wing patches, or on the jacket you wear to a Coral Sea reunion. It makes a good gift for a father or grandfather who made a Westpac cruise on the Big C. CV-43, Older and Bolder.