USS Intrepid (CV-11)

USS Intrepid on 17 October 1968
History
United States
Name	Intrepid
Namesake	USS Intrepid (1904)
Builder	Newport News Shipbuilding
Laid down	1 December 1941
Launched	26 April 1943
Commissioned	16 August 1943
Decommissioned	15 March 1974
Reclassified	CVA-11, 1 October 1952 CVS-11, 31 Mar 1962
Stricken	23 February 1982
Motto	In Mare In Caelo "On the sea, in the sky"
Status	Museum ship at the Intrepid Museum in New York City
General characteristics
Class and type	Essex-class aircraft carrier
Displacement	27,100 long tons (27,500 t) (standard) 36,380 long tons (36,960 t) (full load)
Length	820 feet (249.9 m) (wl) 872 feet (265.8 m) (o/a)
Beam	93 ft (28.3 m)
Draft	34 ft 2 in (10.41 m)
Installed power	8 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers 150,000 shp (110,000 kW)
Propulsion	4 × geared steam turbines 4 × screw propellers
Speed	33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Range	14,100 nmi (26,100 km; 16,200 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement	2,600 officers and enlisted men
Armament	12 × 5 in (127 mm) DP guns 32 × 40 mm (1.6 in) AA guns 46 × 20 mm (0.8 in) AA guns
Armor	Waterline belt: 2.5–4 in (64–102 mm) Deck: 1.5 in (38 mm) Hangar deck: 2.5 in (64 mm) Bulkheads: 4 in (102 mm)
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.