USS Bon Homme Richard (CV/CVA-31) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers completed during or shortly after World War II for the United States Navy. She was the second US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named for John Paul Jones' famous Revolutionary War frigate. Bon Homme Richard was commissioned in November 1944, and served in the final campaigns of the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning one battle star. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950's as an attack carrier (CVA). In her second career she operated exclusively in the Pacific, playing a prominent role in the Korean War, for which she earned five battle stars, and the Vietnam War.
John Paul Jones named the first Bon Homme Richard, usually rendered in more correct French as Bonhomme Richard, to honor Benjamin Franklin, the American Commissioner at Paris whose almanac, Poor Richard's Almanac had been published in France under the title Les Maximes du Bonhomme Richard. As USS Franklin (CV-13) was also named in honor of Benjamin Franklin, he was therefore the only person ever to have two commissioned US Navy warships named in his honor at the same time.
