Essex was the name ship of the fleet-carrier class. Newport News laid her down on 28 April 1941, launched her on 31 July 1942, and the Navy commissioned her on 31 December 1942. Captain Donald Bradley Duncan had her. The ship's history prints his name as D. B. Duncan.
The dates after the commissioning are the NavSource list compiled by Wolfgang Hechler and Ron Reeves. Ralph Andrew Ofstie relieved Duncan on 6 November 1943. Carlos Wilhelm Wieber had her from 7 August 1944, which covers the Iwo Jima operation, until 30 June 1945. Roscoe Leroy Bowman, Laurence Oldham Mathews, Jr., and Lieutenant Commander John Roberts Strane, as officer in charge, carried her to the decommissioning on 9 January 1947. The list here stops before she was brought back for Korea.
She struck Kwajalein on 4 December 1943. Ralph Andrew Ofstie had her when she went back with Task Group 58.2 from 29 January to 2 February 1944.
On 25 November 1944 a kamikaze damaged her. She stayed in the combat zone. In February 1945 her task force struck the Tokyo area on the 16th and 17th, and again on the 25th, to blunt Japanese air power before the landings on Iwo Jima. Her planes then flew support missions against the island and the islands nearby. From 23 March to 28 May she worked mainly at Okinawa. The Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf were carrier fights shared across the force.
She was decommissioned on 9 January 1947. She was brought back for the Korean War and was later sold for scrap.