Has any U.S. aircraft carrier been fired upon since WWII?

[chacoguy]

My Google-Fu is failing me, anyone?

[Little_Nemo]

Are you talking about a full-size carrier? Because there was the successful attack in 1964 on the USNS Card, which was an escort carrier.

[Asuka]

At least from what I remember, the Iraqi Air Force sent aircraft armed with Exocet missiles to attack the American carriers in the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War but they were all shot down en-route. I don’t think the North Vietnamese ever attempted an actual carrier attack by the air at all.

[Dissonance]

Define “fired upon” - there were a number of serious accidents during Vietnam on aircraft carriers, two involved Zuni rockets accidentally firing:

USS Forrestal (CVA 59) fire and explosions on flight deck during combat operations off Vietnam. After an inadvertent firing of a Zuni rocket which struck an A-4 aircraft igniting its JP-5 fuel, other aircraft loaded with bombs and missiles were consumed leading to explosions. Sixty aircraft were damaged or destroyed. Ship damage totaled $72.1 million. 134 killed and 161 injured. 29 July 1967.

During flight operations in the Tonkin Gulf, an accidental Zuni rocket ignition in USS Coral Sea (CV-43) injured nine sailors. 25 October 1967.

A couple of other odd accidents on aircraft carriers, the USS Kitty Hawk rammed the Soviet submarine K-314:

In March 1984, Kitty Hawk participated in “Team Spirit” exercises in the Sea of Japan. The Soviet Victor-class nuclear attack submarine K-314 shadowed the task group. On 21 March 1984, at the end of the Sea of Japan part of the exercise, K-314 surfaced directly in front of Kitty Hawk, time was 22:05, too dark and far too close for Kitty Hawk to see and avoid the resulting collision, with minor damage to the aircraft carrier, and significant damage to the Soviet submarine. At the time of the accident, Kitty Hawk is estimated to have carried several dozen nuclear weapons, and K-314 probably carried two nuclear torpedoes. Kitty Hawk was thereafter considered the first antisubmarine carrier weapon and a red submarine was painted on her island near the bridge but was ordered removed upon return to home port North Island San Diego, CA.[11][12]

Kitty Hawk went to the U.S. Naval Base at Subic Bay in the Philippines for repairs. A piece of one of K-314’s propellers was embedded in Kitty Hawk’s bow, as were some chunks of the Soviet anechoic coating, from scraping along the side of the submarine. The result was something of an “accidental” intelligence coup for the U.S. Navy.

The USS Saratoga fired upon the Turkish destroyer Muavenet during a NATO exercise in 1992:

During an exercise planning session on 1 October 1992, the Battle Group commander, Rear Admiral Philip Dur, did not order that a simulated attack on nearby opposition forces use Sea Sparrow missiles. Sea Sparrow missiles, an anti-aircraft defensive system, were not part of existing doctrine for fighting surface targets and had not been used before, either in exercises or in live combat operations against surface targets.

Without providing prior notice of the exercise, officers on Saratoga woke the enlisted Sea Sparrow missile team and directed them to conduct the simulated attack. According to U.S. Navy, certain members of the missile firing team were not told that the exercise was a simulation drill, rather than an actual firing event.

As the drill progressed, the missile system operator used language to indicate he was preparing to fire a live missile, but due to the absence of standard terminology, the supervisors failed to appreciate the significance of the terms used and the requests made. Specifically, the Target Acquisition System operator issued the command “arm and tune”, terminology the console operators understood to require arming of the missiles in preparation for actual firing. The officers supervising the drill did not realize that “arm and tune” signified a live firing and ignored two separate requests from the missile system operator to clarify whether the launch order was an exercise. As a result, shortly after midnight on the morning of 2 October, Saratoga fired two Sea Sparrow missiles at Muavenet. The first missile struck in the bridge, destroying it and the Combat Information Center. The second missile struck in the aft magazine but did not detonate. The explosion and resulting fires killed five of the ship’s officers and injured 22. Nearby US Navy ships responded in aid to the Turkish ship which was now without leadership. Fire and rescue teams boarded the ship and put out the fires in the bridge and the aft magazine preventing any secondary explosions.

[Corry_El]

@chacoguy

My Google-Fu is failing me, anyone?

No.

USNS Card is closest but only had been an aircraft carrier (originally laid down as a merchant ship, but definitely a carrier in WWII), was a civilian manned aircraft transport (though also used to transport other stuff) of the Military Sea Transport Service ship not a commissioned USN vessel when attacked by Viet Cong diver in 1964.

If we ignore that change in status, we’d have to say the Japanese first sank a US a/c carrier on Feb 27 1942 because USS Langley had been an a/c carrier, but had been converted to a seaplane tender in the 1930’s and was serving as an a/c transport when sunk, still a commissioned USN vessel though.

There was one potential air attack on coalition ships in the 1991 war, by 3 Iraqi Mirage F1’s believed to be carrying Exocets. Two were shot down by a Saudi F-15 and the other got away after firing a missile which didn’t lock onto any coalition ship. This was in the upper part of the PG far from the stations of the US carriers, much closer to air defence picket ships, and can’t IMO be called an attack on the carriers.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

The Forrestal fire is well-remembered; not so the Enterprise fire, which galls my plank-owning FIL no end. The Big E fire was also caused by a Zuni rocket malfunction.