USS Saipan, lead ship of a pair of 14,500-ton small aircraft carriers built at Camden, New Jersey, was commissioned in July 1946. From then until 1953, she mainly operated in the western Atlantic and the Caribbean on training service, routine operations and operational development duties, including conducting carrier qualifications for VF-17A, the Navy's first jet fighter squadron, in May 1948. During this period, Saipan also made a diplomatic cruise to Venezuela in February 1948, a rescue mission to Greenland late in that year and a Mediterranean tour in March-May 1951.

In October 1953, Saipan transited the Panama Canal and soon crossed the Pacific to begin a 7th Fleet deployment that included a mission delivering aircraft to French forces in Indo-China in April 1954. The carrier completed her Far Eastern cruise in late May and returned to the east coast via the Suez Canal, thus steaming around the World. For nearly three more years, Saipan served as training carrier out of Pensacola, Florida. In October 1954 and again a year later, she assisted hurricane relief activities in Haiti and Mexico.

Decommissioned at Bayonne, New Jersey, in October 1957, Saipan was redesignated as an aircraft transport in May 1959, with the new hull number AVT-6. She remained in "mothballs", however, until March 1963, when she began conversion to a command ship. Saipan was redesignated CC-3 in January 1964, but was again reclassified in September of that year, becoming a major communications relay ship with hull number AGMR-2. In April 1965, while still in the shipyard, she was renamed Arlington, a name retained until she was sold for scrapping in June 1976.