USS Intrepid (CV-11)

USS Intrepid on 17 October 1968
History
United States
NameIntrepid
NamesakeUSS Intrepid (1904)
BuilderNewport News Shipbuilding
Laid down1 December 1941
Launched26 April 1943
Commissioned16 August 1943
Decommissioned15 March 1974
Reclassified
  • CVA-11, 1 October 1952
  • CVS-11, 31 Mar 1962
Stricken23 February 1982
MottoIn Mare In Caelo "On the sea, in the sky"
StatusMuseum ship at the Intrepid Museum in New York City
General characteristics
Class and typeEssex-class aircraft carrier
Displacement
Length
  • 820 feet (249.9 m) (wl)
  • 872 feet (265.8 m) (o/a)
Beam93 ft (28.3 m)
Draft34 ft 2 in (10.41 m)
Installed power
Propulsion
Speed33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Range14,100 nmi (26,100 km; 16,200 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement2,600 officers and enlisted men
Armament
Armor
Aircraft carried
  • 36 × Grumman F4F Wildcat
  • 36 × Douglas SBD Dauntless
  • 18 × Grumman TBF Avenger

USS Intrepid (CV/CVA/CVS-11), also known as The Fighting "I", is one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. She is the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in August 1943, Intrepid participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, including the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s as an attack carrier (CVA), and then eventually became an antisubmarine carrier (CVS). In her second career, she served mainly in the Atlantic, but also participated in the Vietnam War. She was the recovery ship for a Mercury and a Gemini space mission. Because of her prominent role in battle, she was nicknamed "the Fighting I", while her frequent bad luck and time spent in dry dock for repairs—she was torpedoed once and hit in separate attacks by four Japanese kamikaze aircraft—earned her the nicknames "Decrepit" and "the Dry I".

Decommissioned for the second time in 1974, she was put into service as a museum ship in 1982 as the foundation of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum Complex in New York City.