Before ship’s second birthday: USS Intrepid cruising on July 23, 1945, during a war that saw it survive five kamikaze attacks. (AP)
Seventy years ago on Aug. 16, 1943, USS Intrepid was commissioned and was sent forth into the global conflict that was World War II.
The ship hasn’t stopped serving our country since.
Intrepid – now the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum — has played a vital role in the history of our nation: as warship, historic landmark and educational classroom.
But for all the amazing milestones in Intrepid’s storied career, the ship almost never made it here.
In the Pacific theater of World War II, Intrepid’s crew was part of a US floating force that fought from island to island, from Leyte Gulf to Okinawa, scrapping with the Japanese navy every step of the way.
Hits from five separate kamikazes could not sink it. Battle scar after battle scar, Intrepid kept coming back — each set of extensive repairs giving the ship new life and new upgrades.
The ship’s pilots and crew fought with determination in every battle. By war’s end, Intrepid’s aviators had shot down over 300 Japanese aircraft and helped sink over 120 ships.
These victories came at a terrible cost: the loss of brave young men.
Lt. Cdr. William Lindenberger was overseeing a gun crew on April 16, 1945 as Intrepid fought off Okinawa. Its pilots and gunners repelled incoming Japanese aircraft, but one plane made it through the ship’s defenses, plunging through the flight deck.
In his diary, Lindenberger described the kamikaze attack: “An explosion resounded through the decks, followed by two distinct shuddering vibrations. It felt as if some giant sledge hammer had fallen with all its force. A moment later, smoke poured out of the hangar deck . . . as we coughed and choked we wondered how many guys had gotten it.”
Over its full active-duty career, more than 200 men perished in service aboard Intrepid, giving all they could to protect the ship and their shipmates.
In the Cold War, Intrepid served with distinction tracking Soviet submarines in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. For a time in the 1960s, ship and crew answered a different kind of call, serving as a NASA recovery ship for the Mercury and Gemini programs, plucking astronauts Scott Carpenter, Gus Grissom and John Young from the Atlantic after splashdown from orbit.
Then it served three tours in Vietnam. The crew worked around the clock, while pilots faced enemy fire on missions over North and South Vietnam.
Truly a ship of many talents, Intrepid was beloved by its crew. Yet after the final decommissioning in 1974, the Navy approved plans to scrap “The Fighting I.” Time and technology had simply outpaced the ship’s ability to keep up with a modern fleet.
Once again, people rose to Intrepid’s defense. New York developer Zachary Fisher, who never wore a uniform but was a tireless advocate for our military men and women and their families, thought scrap an unfitting fate for such a gallant hero.
Defying cynics and detractors, Zachary and the Intrepid Museum Foundation brought Intrepid to New York, converting it into a museum with a new mission — to educate the public about the human cost of conflict and to honor the sacrifices of those who wear our nation’s cloth into battle.
The museum opened to the public in August 1982, and soon became a foothold for expanded West Side Manhattan development. Intrepid was heralded once more.
In the 30 years that Intrepid’s been berthed at Pier 86, the ship has seen New York evolve, its skyline reaching ever higher. It witnessed the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, and afterward opened its doors to the FBI as a temporary base of operations.
Just last year, the museum received the space shuttle Enterprise, another one-of-a-kind vessel without which we’d have neither an International Space Station nor a Hubble Telescope. Inside its pavilion, Enterprise offers a glimpse of what man can achieve when reaching for the stars.
After a 2006-2008 retrofit brought its offerings into the new century, Intrepid now serves as a living classroom — honoring our heroes and educating the public by telling the stories of wartime service, and using these great artifacts and extraordinary programs to inspire our youth to become the next generation of scientists and explorers.
But this weekend, we’ll pause to look backward, just for a moment, as more than 300 of Intrepid’s former crew return to her decks to celebrate the 70th birthday. Some haven’t seen the ship since the day they walked off a gangplank on their way home from war.
Our honored veterans of World War II and Vietnam will once more visit the hangar deck and walk along the rails. They’ll peer out portholes and gaze from the captain’s bridge, as the whispers of the past meet the laughter and the tears of the present.
We are honored to have them in our midst, as we celebrate the long career of service of our beloved ship.
Susan Marenoff-Zausner is president of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.