USS Antietam, a 27,100 ton Ticonderoga class aircraft carrier built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, was commissioned in January 1945. She transited the Panama Canal to the Pacific in June and was en route to the Western Pacific war zone when Japan capitulated in August 1945. Antietam operated in Far Eastern waters during the first years of the post-war era, returning to the United States in 1949, when she was decommissioned and placed in the Reserve Fleet. Recommissioned in January 1951, in response to Korean War requirements, the carrier made one combat deployment, between September 1951 and March 1952.

In September-December 1952, after joining the Atlantic Fleet, Antietam was modified to receive the U.S. Navy's first angled flight deck. During the next few years, she served as the test platform for this feature, which was to revolutionize carrier flight operations. After being rated as an attack aircraft carrier (CVA-36) from October 1952 to August 1953, she was thereafter classified as an antisubmarine support aircraft carrier, with the hull number CVS-36. In that role, Antietam made Sixth Fleet cruises in the Mediterranean Sea in 1955 and in 1956-57. She was then assigned to carrier flight training duty, generally operating in waters near Pensacola, Florida. Relieved as training carrier in October 1962, she was decommissioned for the last time in May 1963. Following a decade in the Reserve Fleet, USS Antietam was sold for scrapping in February 1974.