Home / General / Sunday Battleship Blogging (Independence Day Aircraft Carrier Edition): USS Intrepid

Sunday Battleship Blogging (Independence Day Aircraft Carrier Edition): USS Intrepid

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Last Friday we visited the USS Intrepid museum in New York City. Intrepid is one of four remaining Essex class carriers (Lexington, Hornet, and Yorktown are the others; Oriskany was mercifully turned into an artificial reef this last May) from a total of 24. While both the USN and the IJN lost four fleet carriers in 1942, the Japanese were unable to replace their losses. The first Essex class carriers, displacing roughly 28000 tons, capable of 33 knots, and carrying 90 or so aircraft, began to come into service in mid-1943. During the great battles of 1944, the Essex class carriers would provide the USN with an overwhelming advantage.

Commissioned in August 1943, Intrepid was the fourth Essex to enter service. Her first major operations involved raids on Kwajelein and Truk, the latter the premier pre-war Japanese naval base in the Pacific. During the raids on Truk, Intrepid was hit by a torpedo that badly affected her steering. A sail was rigged in order to help Intrepid steer, and she made it back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. Unfortunately, the damage prevented Intrepid from participating in the Battle of Philippine Sea, the last great carrier battle of the war. Intrepid did return in time for Leyte Gulf, and her aircraft helped sink the Japanese battleship Musashi and the carrier Zuikaku, last survivor of the Pearl Harbor raid.

Intrepid suffered badly from the Japanese kamikaze campaign, taking three hits and one near miss in the remaining year of the war. Nevertheless, her aircraft participated in the final raids against Japan, in the Okinawa campaign, and in the sinking of the battleship Yamato. After the war Intrepid went into reserve for several years along with most of the other Essex class. Like almost all of her sisters, however, Intrepid would be re-activated in the 1950s, and would serve, along with the larger Midway class, as the foundation for US naval primacy in the second half of the twentieth century. Intrepid was refit twice, changing her appearance dramatically, and was reclassified first as a CVA (attack carrier) and later as a CVS (anti-submarine carrier). Intrepid participated in operations off Vietnam in 1966 and 1967.

By the early 1970s, the Essex class had begun to lose its utility. Supercarriers of the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes now constituted the primary fighting capacity of the USN. Most of the Essexes were scrapped in the early 1970s, although a few lingered on in reserve, in reduced training roles, or as memorials. Intrepid was transformed into a museum ship and berthed permanently off Manhattan, where she serves as an aerospace museum. Oddly enough, her deck is full of aircraft that never served on the Intrepid, including a Kfir, a Mig-21, an F-16, an Entendard IV, and an A-12. Nevertheless, the ship remains in good condition, and the museum is reasonably well organized. I wish that there had been a little bit more information about how the crew lived and how the ship functioned, however.

Happy July 4!!!

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