USS Hornet

Eight ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Hornet, after the stinging insect:

• USS Hornet (1775), a 10-gun sloop commissioned in 1775, served in the American Revolutionary War.
• USS Hornet (1805 sloop), also a 10-gun sloop, took part in the First Barbary War.
• USS Hornet (1805 brig), a brig-rigged sloop-of-war, was launched on 28 July 1805 and sank in a storm on 29 September 1829.
• USS Hornet (1813) was a five-gun schooner used as a dispatch vessel between 1814 and 1820.
• USS Hornet (1865), the first to be steam propelled, was an iron, side-wheeled steamer.
• USS Hornet (1898), a converted yacht, was a dispatch vessel in the Spanish–American War.
• USS Hornet (CV-8) launched the Doolittle Raid in 1942, fought at the Battle of Midway, and was sunk at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October 1942.
• USS Hornet (CV-12) was originally named Kearsarge, but renamed in honor of CV-8 and active through the rest of World War II; she is preserved as a museum ship in Alameda, California.

Memorial Plaque for American naval ships named Hornet from 1775 to 1970