10. Ships heading for decommissioning went to the United States carrying veterans’ home
Every US Naval vessel which returned to the United State carried veterans of the war, from all branches of the service, with the exception of submarines. Even some of those picked up “hitchhikers” from time to time, conveying them to Midway Atoll and Pearl Harbor. The Navy sent combat ships to the west coast where they discharged their passengers and in many cases large contingents of their own crews, and then entered the shipyards for hasty conversion to carry greater loads of repatriating servicemen. The hangar decks of aircraft carriers made excellent housing areas, and they were stripped of combat and aviation equipment and rows of bunks were installed, some of them containing five tiers.
The Navy modified 57 aircraft carriers (most of them escort and light carriers) to serve as repatriation ships. In all, 369 US Navy ships took part in Magic Carpet, and as the operation went on more and more of the crews of the ships were comprised of new arrivals to the Pacific, the veterans on their way home. Some of the ships made just a few trips before entering the shipyards for preparation for mothballing or salvage of equipment before the ship was sold to breakers. Six battleships and 18 heavy cruisers, the backbone of the Navy before December 1941, but proven obsolescent by the war, were part of the armada used for Magic Carpet.
