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

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Q , TT f ti LL,,LSf I X g jglff-J..g'J. 171 'Oo?v 'ro hav' Vase: 4xf1'l' A .SEV . 5, . 453353 5 iff E age-tae: - M QBWV LQQT' 14423 vt mes, we-sal'-ar' 5 5 1 D N it-915' 4:22 Q 1 'Fi s k v 123159 f 1' fn ' .f 9og, ff IW bil'-ss V31 it-P554 f Q53 ,f ,Ly ,b if if Q 'fffgxi i My Wi, ',, K sf f ' Q' A 'X X! X I 1 Q.--fs, Y N' .Ns NV.. , J' X! f X' , ,.,..-sf, 1945 - 1965 The Far East INTREPID returned home from West Pacific to a sad task-decommissioning. Resting quietly in the San Francisco Naval Shipyard with protective coatings covering her, she was officially placed out of com- mission in reserve on 22 March, 1947. As all the treaties of the war took effect and the ensuing changes in the world's balance of power began to take shape, the United States came face to face with the fact that the war had not really ended, its form andadversaries had merely altered. The new conflict began to take shape in the late Forties, and the American people soon knew well the meaning of the Cold War, The 17th Parallel, the Wall. The threat of the Sino-Soviet Bloc had become all too evident to freedom-loving peoples throughout the world. The United States and her allies were confronted on every hand by the face of Communism. Nowhere was this threat to become more urgent than in the Far East where the Bloc nations found the most fer- tile ground for the sowing of the seeds of Communism. infiltrating in every direction from her borders, China made her presence felt throughout the Far East. When the call came for aid, the United States met her commitments on every hand. Many thousands of Americans today know the cold of the Korean win- ter, the arduous duty of patrolling the Straits of Taiwan, and the steaming combat of the jungles of Laos and Vietnam. On October 15, 1954 INTREPID took her place as an active unit of the U. S. Atlantic Fleet to again make her presence felt as an instrument of U. S. Military power. Operating as a CVA until 31 March 1962 when she was reclassified CVS, INTREPID again made her mark both in the attack role and later as an anti-submarine warfare carrier. While she and her sisters of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet operated in support of U.S. policy in the Atlantic and Mediter- ranean, our allies in the Far East became harder pressed by the encroachment of Communist influence within their borders. Beginning initially as token aid and technical assistance, the U.S. commitment in the lrny Republic of Viet Nam grew larger. The confronta- tlon with the Communists became the test case fur freedom in the Far East. Faced with the expanding conflict in Vietnam and criticism both at home and abroad of our foreign policy, the President of the United States nevertheless strengthened our commit- ments and increased our aid to the Republic of Vietnam. 44-I