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World War 11 produced some great fighting ships, several of which have been preserved as floating museums. Now another great ship is joining the ranks. The ex-USS Intrepid (CV-11, CVA-11, and CVS-11) will open this month as an exciting sea-air-space museum and educational center in New York City.
The Intrepid is the fourth U. S. ship to bear this name. Construction of the aircraft carrier began just six days prior to our entry into World War II. On 3 December 1943, she left Norfolk tojoin the Central Pacific forces. One of the 24 carriers comprising the Essex class, she cost $44 million and carried 360 officers and 3,008 enlisted men.
The Intrepid's World War II record included action in the battle for Kwa- jalein, the raid on Truk, the invasion of Peleliu, reentry into the Philippines, and the savage series of kamikaze battles around Okinawa. The Intrepid opened up one of the largest battles in naval history at Leyte Gulf, where her air group helped to sink the Japanese super-battleship Musashi. Six months later, her aircraft repeated the feat by sinking the super-battleship Yamato. By war’s end, her air wing had destroyed 650 enemy planes and sunk or damaged 289 enemy ships.
The Intrepid also sustained severe structural damage and suffered from massive fires. More than 100 of her men were lost in torpedo and kamikaze attacks on the ship, and more than 100 of her airmen were killed in action over enemy targets.
In 1956-58. the Intrepid was modernized at the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn, New York, and given a new angled flight deck. She remained an attack carrier until 1962, when she was redesignated an antisubmarine warfare carrier. In May 1962, she recovered Lieutenant Commander Scott Carpenter and his Aurora 7 Mercury Capsule. She later participated in the recovery of astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young and their ‘‘Molly Brown" Gemini spacecraft.
In April 1965, the Intrepid entered the New York Naval Shipyard for a six-month $10 million fleet rehabilitation and modernization.
In 1966. the Intrepid exchanged her antisubmarine air group for light attack aircraft in preparation for a deployment to Vietnam. She served three tours of duty as an attack carrier, hitting enemy targets in Vietnam while deployed in the Tonkin Gulf. Former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas Hayward served as the air wing commander on board the Intrepid during one of those combat tours.
Following Vietnam, she reverted to the antisubmarine warfare role, serving in the Atlantic and Mediterranean until her retirement from active ser-
vice in 1974. She came alive again during 1976, serving as the host ship for the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps Bicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia. She remained in Philadelphia until March 1982, when she was towed to Bayonne, New Jersey, for rehabilitation and preparation for another exciting chapter in her long and significant life: serving as a sea-air-space museum and memorial.
The hangar deck will be divided into four major exhibit halls with different themes:
► The main entrance takes visitors into the brightly colored United States Navy Hall. Featured are the modern, professional Navy and its peacekeeping responsibilities throughout the world. The centerpiece is contemporary carrier aviation. A major theater presentation captures the spirit and drama of today’s carrier operations, enhanced by special sound effects. The hall also highlights surface ships and submarines.
► Visitors then pass from bright lights and colors and enter the dimly lit, blue- gray Intrepid Hall, as they step on board the Intrepid in the middle of the Pacific War. The highlight of this hall is the Grumman F6F Hellcat, the plane which won the air war in the Pacific. The atmosphere of the hall dramatically changes as scrims come alive and re-create the Intrepid's life and death struggle:
► The mood then changes as visitors travel into the bygone era of the turn of the century and enter the Pioneers Hall. The contrast of rudimentary flying machines is enhanced by the bright sights and sounds of America’s pioneering aviation from 1903 to the late 1920s.
► Visitors then leap to today’s technology and tomorrow’s “could be” as they enter the vast Technologies Hall, which is full of breakthroughs which have greatly influenced modern man. The hall includes several galleries: Vertical Flight, Commercial Flight, Man on the Moon, Mercury and Gem
The Intrepid is seen, facing page, on sea trials in November 1943 shortly before joining the Pacific Fleet, and afire off Okinawa on 16 April 1945. She was reconfigured as an attack carrier during the Vietnam War, left, became an /1.S VV carrier once again in 1969, and after several years in mothballs, she is admired by two dockworkers as she moves in for reconfiguration as a museum.
ini, The Space Shuttle, Guided Missiles, Rockets and Satellites, and Designs for the Future.
Visitors departing the museum should feel as though they had participated in the dramatic elements of the sea-air-space historical experiences. Filled with that spirit, the visitors will hopefully want to support and participate in the development of this experience in the future.
The Intrepid is scheduled to open on 4 July 1982 as the Sea-Air-Space Museum at Intrepid Square on the Hudson River at West 46th Street in New York City.
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Proceedings / July 1982