On Saturday, October 3, 1936 Enterprise was christened by Mrs. Lucy ("Lulie") Lyons Hall Swanson, wife of Claude A. Swanson, Secretary of the Navy. She quoted William Shakespeare's Othello: "May she also say with just pride: I have done the State some service."

Mrs. Lucy ("Lulie") Lyons Hall Swanson, ship's sponsor, photographed when she was received at St. James Palace, London.

USS Enterprise (CV-6), left, and USS Yorktown (CV-5) under construction at Newport News, Virginia, 8 February 1937. National Archives photo.

USS Yorktown (CV-5) foreground, and USS Enterprise (CV-6) under construction at Newport News, Virginia, 8 February 1937. National Archives photo.

Official photo, most likely taken during trials in 1938. (Note this is not the same photo as NS020681.)

USS Enterprise (CV-6), 13 May 1938, a day after commissioning. Norfolk, Virginia.

At anchor, location unknown, early in her career.

At anchor, pre-war, exact date an location unknown.

At anchor, pre-war (1939?), location unknown. (Note this is not the same photo as NS020675.)

Off Puerto Rico, July 23, 1938.

"Shellback" Initiation. These photos were taken on August 20, 1938 as USS Enterprise (CV-6) headed south to Rio de Janeiro during her shakedown cruise.

Unknown sailor on Big E flight deck.

Circa 1939. From Our Navy magazine, 1 October 1943 issue.

Aerial, underway, aircraft on deck; April 12, 1939. Image # 80-G-463246.

"Norfolk, Va., April 12 [1939]—A plane carrier rides at anchor—The airplane carrier Enterprise, its decks loaded with the Navy's latest war planes, is shown riding at anchor in Hampton Roads after its arrival with three other carriers [Lexington (CV-2), Ranger (CV-4) and Yorktown (CV-5)] and scores of fighting craft today to take part in the greatest concentration of the Fleet here since 1907. On April 27 the Fleet will pass in review before proceeding to New York. AP wirephoto WRW41730CPG."

Events in Europe, however, reached a crisis, the United Kingdom gathered her fleet in the Mediterranean and the U.S. Fleet was immediately ordered back to the Pacific, six weeks ahead of schedule (see NS020617). The naval review (in connection with the opening of the New York World's Fair early in May) was cancelled.

In the Panama Canal, en route to the Pacific, 27 April 1939.

USS Enterprise (CV-6) entering San Francisco Bay, 3 July 1939. Official U.S. Navy photo.

USS Enterprise (CV-6) en route to Pearl Harbor, 8 October 1939. Photographed from USS Minneapolis (CA-36).

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives (photo # 80-G-13554).

USS Enterprise (CV-6) photographed circa 1940, with TBD and SBC aircraft parked on her flight deck, aft.

Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives (photo # 19-N-29688).

USS Enterprise (CV-6) operating in the Pacific, circa late June 1941. She is turning into the wind to recover aircraft. Note her "natural wood" flight deck stain and dark Measure One camouflage paint scheme. The flight deck was stained blue in July 1941, during camouflage experiments that gave her a unique deck stripe pattern.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives (photo # 80-G-K-14254).

Douglas TBD-1 Devastator torpedo plane landing on board USS Enterprise (CV-6), in about July 1941. Note landing signal officer is in the foreground, and plane guard destroyers in the center distance. The original photo caption gives a date of 8 April 1942, which is highly improbable as the plane is in mid-1941 vintage overall gray paint and the destroyers are wearing peacetime light gray paint.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives (photo # 80-G-17531).