When I first started researching aircraft assignments for the post-Korea Essex class carriers, I did find some resources for piecing together air group information and aircraft losses during the late '60s and early '70s deployments.
The gonavy site mentioned earlier has a
lot of info specific to carrier air wings
http://www.gonavy.jp/AirWingsf.html
Following "Carrier Deployments" leads to individual pages with aircraft deployments for each cruise, including specific aircraft lost and dates.
Essex Class Aircraft Carrier Data - This has data for the class from launching to scrapping or decommissioning of the Essex class.
http://www.steelnavy.com/essex_data.htm
It does give aircraft history for the ships, but starts over after ships modernizations, so skim to the end to see the later assignments.
This site gives specific information on individual air wings and squadrons.
http://www.seaforces.org/usnair/first.htm
It seems to be similar to the gonavy site, but searching from the air wing first instead of the ship deployments. I used it extensively for information on CVA 19 USS Hancock's aircraft during the South China Sea deployments during the Vietnam war.
Another resource I found somewhat helpful for Vietnam deployments was the book
Where We Were in Vietnam, 1945-75 by Michael Kelley (ISBN 978-1-55571-625-7). I recommend finding a used version or getting a copy for research through inter-library loan, as it's a very large, expensive book if you're just interested in ship deployments. It doesn't mention specific aircraft.
Using multiple sources helps to clarify and ct as a cross check for other sites.
When I first started researching aircraft assignments for the post-Korea Essex class carriers, I did find some resources for piecing together air group information and aircraft losses during the late '60s and early '70s deployments.
The gonavy site mentioned earlier has a [b]lot[/b] of info specific to carrier air wings
[url]http://www.gonavy.jp/AirWingsf.html[/url]
Following "Carrier Deployments" leads to individual pages with aircraft deployments for each cruise, including specific aircraft lost and dates.
Essex Class Aircraft Carrier Data - This has data for the class from launching to scrapping or decommissioning of the Essex class.
[url]http://www.steelnavy.com/essex_data.htm[/url]
It does give aircraft history for the ships, but starts over after ships modernizations, so skim to the end to see the later assignments.
This site gives specific information on individual air wings and squadrons.
[url]http://www.seaforces.org/usnair/first.htm[/url]
It seems to be similar to the gonavy site, but searching from the air wing first instead of the ship deployments. I used it extensively for information on CVA 19 USS Hancock's aircraft during the South China Sea deployments during the Vietnam war.
Another resource I found somewhat helpful for Vietnam deployments was the book [b][i]Where We Were in Vietnam, 1945-75[/i][/b] by Michael Kelley (ISBN 978-1-55571-625-7). I recommend finding a used version or getting a copy for research through inter-library loan, as it's a very large, expensive book if you're just interested in ship deployments. It doesn't mention specific aircraft.
Using multiple sources helps to clarify and ct as a cross check for other sites.