USS Enterprise CV-6: Between her major drydock period following severe bomb damage at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (late 1942) and her next major scheduled overhaul/drydock in the U.S., she operated for roughly 18 months straight through grueling, high-tempo combat operations.

The ship had spent well over a year facing tropical heat, pounding salt spray, and near-constant high-speed maneuvering.
The Paint: Her ocean-gray camouflage paint was oxidized, flaking, and heavily stained with streaks of orange rust along her hull and waterlines.
The Marine Growth: Having missed normal peacetime drydock scrapings, her underwater hull was covered in a thick layer of biofouling (barnacles and algae), which was noticeably dragging down her maximum speed and fuel efficiency.

Every 2-3 months they'd rotate the ww2 carrier battle groups off the front into a forward deployed anchorage. That's not a real shore leave, it's just a logistics stop to reload and rearm before going back to the front. If you were very lucky and didn't have duty, you could get off the ship for 2 hours to play baseball on ------ patch of coral.

Anybody else ever spent the night on a WW2 carrier? USS Yorktown, CV-10. Big rooms, tiny bunks strung on chains floor to ceiling 5 or 6 racks high. Not for the claustrophobic. The greatest generation was tiny, but made of iron.