USS Block Island

Three United States Navy escort aircraft carriers, two commissioned and one Lend-Lease, have been named USS Block Island, after Block Island Sound, which is off the south coast of the state of Rhode Island, between it and Block Island.

• Block Island (CVE-8) was built by Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp., Pascagoula, Mississippi, transferred to the United Kingdom under Lend-Lease on 9 January 1943 and commissioned the following day as HMS Hunter. The vessel was returned to US custody 29 December 1945 and sold 17 January 1947.

• The first commissioned Block Island (CVE-21) went into service in March 1943, sinking U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic until herself sunk by U-549 in May 1944.

• The second Block Island (CVE-106) was commissioned in December 1944 and active in the closing months of the Pacific War, and periodically in use until 1954.

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