So is today 43 then?

 

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USS Tennessee (BB-43), the lead ship of her class of battleship, was the third ship of the United States Navy named in honor of the 16th US state.[5] During World War II in the Pacific Theater, she was damaged during the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 but was repaired and modernized. She participated in shore bombardments at the Aleutian Islands, Tarawa, the Philippine Islands, Okinawa and several other amphibious landings later in the war, and participated in the sinking of the Japanese battleship Yamashiro in the Battle of Surigao Strait. After the war, she was placed on reserve in the "mothball fleet" for several years, before being scrapped in 1959.

 

 

 

 

 

USS Coral Sea (CVB-43, later CVA-43 and CV-43), 1947-1993

USS Coral Sea, a 45,000-ton Midway class large aircraft carrier built at Newport News, Virginia, was commissioned on 1 October 1947 to begin a career that lasted more than four decades. Following initial operations in the western Atlantic area, she made a midshipmen training cruise in mid-1948 that included visits to the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas. In May 1949, Coral Sea began the first of many Sixth Fleet deployments. These took place nearly annually as the Cold War intensified in the 1950s and included regular "flag showing" and nuclear deterrent missions along the European southern flank. Amid this activity, the ship was reclassified as an attack aircraft carrier in October 1952, changing her hull number to CVA-43. Climaxing the first stage of her long service, Coral Sea transited to the west coast, by way of South America, in February-April 1957 to begin an extensive modernization.

The greatly-altered Coral Sea returned to active service in January 1960. Her flight deck had been greatly enlarged, with an angled landing area, three deck-edge aircraft elevators and three powerful steam catapults to facilitate operation of the latest aircraft types. The work also included fitting the ship with an enclosed "hurricane" bow, greater beam and many other improvements.

Later in 1960, Coral Sea crossed the Pacific for the first of more than a dozen Seventh Fleet cruises. These included vigorous participation in the Southeast Asian conflict between 1965 and 1972 and in evacuation and other activities as the Republic of Vietnam collapsed in the the Spring of 1975. At the end of June 1975, Coral Sea was reclassified CV-43 to reflect expansion of her air group to include anti-submarine warfare aircraft.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Coral Sea's western Pacific deployments were extended to cover the vicinity of the increasingly tense Persian Gulf. In April 1980 she supported the abortive effort to rescue American hostages held in Iran. Beginning in March 1983 the ship redeployed westbound to the Atlantic, serving in the Far East for one last time and also operating in the Arabian Sea, Mediterranean and off South and Central America before the long cruise ended in September 1983.

Just over two years later, Coral Sea returned to the Mediterranean, where she launched air strikes against targets in terrorist Libya in April 1986. Two more Sixth Fleet deployments took place in 1987-88 and in 1989. USS Coral Sea decommissioned in April 1990 and was sold for scrapping in May 1993. She was slowly broken up at Baltimore, Maryland, over the next several years.