USS Hancock, a 27,100-ton Ticonderoga class aircraft carrier, was built at Quincy, Massachusetts. Commissioned in April 1944, she arrived in the Pacific the following summer and conducted her first combat operations during raids on the Ryukyus, Formosa and the Philippines in mid-October. Later in the month, Hancock's planes hit Japanese warships during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. During the remainder of 1944, she continued to attack targets in the Philippines area, despite receiving modest damage from a suicide plane on 25 November and from a typhoon in mid-December.

In January 1945, Hancock helped prepare for landings on Luzon and took part in Task Force 38's raid into the South China sea. A tragic aircraft accident on her flight deck killed 50 of her men and injured many more on 21 January, but did not prevent her from sending planes to attack Okinawa on the following day. The carrier hit targets in the Japanese home islands in February and March, plus lending aerial assistance to the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. On 20 March, Hancock was lightly damaged when a "Kamikaze" crashed nearby. She was much more seriously hurt by a suicide plane on 7 April, while supporting the Okinawa operation, suffering the loss of 62 crewmen killed and requiring shipyard repairs in the United States. Returning to the western Pacific in July and attacking Wake Island while en route, Hancock struck targets in Japan during the final weeks of World War II. After Japan's August 1945 capitulation, she supported initial occupation efforts, then went back to the U.S. in October. The rest of 1945 and the first four months of 1946 were mainly spent transportating men and aircraft.

Hancock was inactive from April 1946 until February 1954, when she recommissioned after receiving an SCB-27C modernization that fitted her to operate heavier, higher-performance aircraft. Among her new equipment was a pair of steam catapults, the first installed on a U.S. Navy carrier. Reclassified CVA-19, she deployed to the Far East in 1955-56, then was further modernized with an angled flight deck and enclosed bow. Back in service in late 1956, Hancock began nearly two decades of continuous Pacific Fleet operations, including frequent western Pacific cruises with the Seventh Fleet. From 1965 through 1972, she was a regular Vietnam War participant, making seven combat deployments. In April and May 1975, while on her final WestPac tour, she was one of the ships that conducted the evacuation of South Vietnam when that long-suffering country was overrun by North Vietnamese forces. Redesignated CV-19 in June 1975, Hancock decommissioned in late January 1976. She was sold for scrapping in August of that year.