Intrepid (CVS 11) - Naval Cruise Book

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A NEW 1 TREPID GQES TO W R 1943-1945 The preparations are over, and we are now steaming at high speed for our launching point tomorrow morning. To the best of our knowledge, the presence of our force is still undetected by the enemy. We arrive at a point some 150 miles to the west of Roi lKwaielein Atolll. We hope to destroy any aircraft on the field at that time. At 0630 the INTREPID launches its first strikes-21 dive bombers and eight fighters. At 0715 we send off 12 torpedo planes, each loaded with a 2000-pound message. . . The description is almost a timeless one in Naval history. It was written more than 22 years ago on 29 January 1944, the day before the USS INTREPID made her first strikes on Kwaielein in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. It could well have been written today with only minor modification in the kinds of aircraft involved and in the place detailed. Indeed, the account might well be that of INTREPID's initial strikes in the Vietnamese War, for there is a remarkable similarity in events now, as in the past, despite technological advancement and political alteration. The con- cept of battle has not changed, though the weap- ons be more sophisticated, the adversaries of different names. There remains the enemy, his threats and his concentrations. . . and he must be stopped. The carrier INTREPlD's first iourney to the Far East to fight aggression began in Decem- ber, 1943 whenithe fully-loaded, 29,000-ton, 3000-man '1Mighty I left Norfolk to join the Cen- tral Pacific Forces. She was ,a new ship then, commissioned but four months earlier fan 16 August 19431 and heir to a name whose proud tradition bridged a century and a half of Amer- ican Naval history. The 13,000-mile trip to the point of first contact with the enemy in the Pacific took the 872-foot-long carrier through the Panama Canal and westward to the combat zone. In the ensuing months the intrepidity of the crew was put to the severest tests. On 17 February 1944, near the island of Truk, an enemy torpedo struck the ship aft, exploded, killed 11 men, wounded 17 others, o iammed the rudder so that it was necessaryt 3 steer with the engines. literally under sail part of the iourney Q 3000 square feet of canvof' rigged from the flight deck down to the fore, castle to provide wind resistance to ease straiii on the propellersj, INTREPID returned to Peail Harbor, then to Hunter's Point, Calif. for repairsi? The day after the torpedo hit the ship, lNTREPID's Plan of the Day carried a note whicli challenged the enemy's luck: You think boys threw a little scare into us last night, donft you? Well. . .as always you just can't understandf Americans. You thought a new ship and would be 'duck soup' for you, but you iust couldnltj know it was INTREPID MEN YUU Will? TANGLING WITH. This time. . .you weltlf too far. . .and next time, oh boy! We'll be back Returning to battle in late summer, 1944,'tl19 Mighty l engaged the enemy with promised determination. In October she took the first of four suicide planes which were to crash into her flight deck before the war was over. Ten meh were killed in that first crash on October 29th, and 65 died on November 25th after a second kamikaze made the carrier its target. Both of these incidents were off the island of luzon In the Philippines. By late winter, 1945, the enemy had been beaten back to his own front door but continued to resist with fierce stubborness. On March 19th, as Task Force 58 of which INTREPID was PGY' fought off enemy aerial attacks near Kyushu, 0 kamikaze plummeted to the sea close by the carrier and as one report told, showered her flight deck with burning fragments. One man was killed and 13 wounded. On April 16th INTREPID aircraft were making assaults OD the enemy's home islands, when a suicide plane broke through heavy anti-aircraft fire, plvnged into the ship's flight deck, and tore through mio the hangar deck..ln all, eight carrier crewmen died, 72 were wounded, and one was reported missing. For all of the punishment inflicted on the uMi9l'l'Y l she paid the enemy back in full. Re' r u .4 rf i ll' -1. 1