Posted on 06/06/2007 6:03:57 PM PDT by george76
The USS Intrepid aircraft carrier, glistening from a full-body makeover, arrived in style at Staten Island on Wednesday to the cheers, hoots and hollers of former crew members and World War II veterans.
"It's like running into an old girlfriend who had a facelift," said 82-year-old Ray Stone, a former Navy radar man who served on board the Intrepid from 1943 to 1945.
"I nearly broke down in tears when I saw her," said Stone. "Her bottom has been scraped of barnacles and she looks just like she did way back when."
Stone was among about 400 people who attended the arrival and a wreath-laying ceremony on the 63rd anniversary of D-Day, one of the most momentous events of World War II. Some 10,000 servicemen lost their lives that day.
"I feel so humbled to be in the presence of World War II veterans and all our veterans," said Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. "We will never forget their sacrifices."
As the allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, the Intrepid was at Alameda Naval Base in California, preparing to leave for Pearl Harbor, and Stone was "kicking butt, helping to win the war."
About five months later, Stone, a highly decorated veteran from Salem, N.Y., was the only survivor among 40 men in the Intrepid's radio room to survive a Japanese kamikaze attack.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
If that’s CV-11, she picked up Gus Grissom and John Young at the end of the Gemini 3 flight.
Nice to see the ole girl back home.
Post or FReepmail me if you wish to be enlisted in or discharged from the Navair Pinglist.
This is a medium volume pinglist.
It would have been fun to listen to the old stories.
The old salts likely had fun telling the sea stories too ?
I’d like to hear the stories about how they kept that bucket running.
I served my 4 year hitch on the Intrepid from Sept. 1968 to May 1972. The first 2 years were on her last war cruise, Yankee/Dixie Station off Vietnam. She was designated a CVA (Special) - which meant she was operating as an Attack carrier. We had Scooters, (A-4's), Crusaders (F-8's), and Spads (Skyraiders), plus a couple of Fudds (E1-B's). Intrepid, believe it or not, was running Alpha Strikes.
My Uncle served aboard in 1944, and other than the angled deck, and the steam cats, she was pretty much the same as she was when HE served. We slept exactly the same way my dad did in '44, three racks stacked, hanging from chains. He told me later, my berth in OS was an 20mm magazine back then.
The third time I ever flew was my delightful tour of California, Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Cam Rahn, to the Intrepid on the line. In 3 days. 45 minute stopovers the whole way.
4th plane ride was in the back of a C-1 Trader (COD), and the last landing was a trap. Great introduction to Naval Aviation. (you don't even want to know how you take a leak in a Trader)
After mess-cooking, was a deck ape in 2nd Div, working UNREP station in hanger bay 1, chipped/painted every foot of that starboard sponson.
Got TAD'd to G Div, spent 3 mo.'s doing fin/fuse/wire to Mk. 82's in bay 1 by the bomb elevator. (well, the PO didn't trust me to fuse.) (g) Worked 12 on, 12 off, and I can't even believe how many tons of ordnance I pushed in those little yellow wheelbarrows.
Spent the rest of that cruise in 1A Div, got to do all my chipping and painting inside hurricane bow anchor station. Till I found out how you chip/paint the OUTSIDE of that nice hurricane bow in port ... think cargo nets strung under the catwalks, tied off through the line ports. LOTS of nice gaps around those nets, 60 feet above the filthiest water in the filthiest ports in the world. (Hong Kong, Singapore) I USED to be afraid of heights. I'm not anymore.
Came back to the world round the horn of South America, and 'cause I kept my nose mostly clean in Weapons I got sent to BE&E school in Great Lakes and Sonar C school in Key West while Intrepid got her Steam Cat's boilers replace in Philly Naval Shipyard.
Came back when Home Port was changed to Quonset Point, spent the last couple of years in OS Div. as a ping jockey. Betcha didn't know Intrepid had a AN-SQS 23C sonar. Sonar dome was so far down, it usually stuck through the thermocline in the North Atlantic and the Baltic. Almost never got to ping, though. (I know, target. But with those 4 screws churning, it wasn't like we could exactly HIDE.)
Weedy little Div. Officer, Ensign, degree in Astronomy, yet. Good pick for a Sonar officer, huh? He got idea to get in good w/Ops boss by having OS replace the transducers in sonar dome in port, w/out drydock. Crawled down the voids, through the cutwater, pumped out dome w/firehoses, waded around in that stinking dome replacing EVERY ONE of those heavy things. I USED to be claustrophobic. I'm not anymore.
Aw damn, I could go on forever, but my fingers're tired.
Thank you for your service and your sea stories.
“They’d even ask tourists to go below and fetch a bucket of ‘live steam’ for coffee and describe the techniques of greasing the Relative Bearing.”
You could always set them up with a set of sound-powered phones, and post them as the “Mail Bouy Watch”....I have pictures somewhere of one poor slob we convinced to do that onboard USS Ike; he stood in the driving rain for four hours, because we quizzed him on his General Orders before we posted him, and he was scared to death he would miss that bouy...
a favorite of mine..”hey booter, go to the forward bosun’s locker and get some height line.”
Here’s a ping for you.
Orions’ new test: hunting bombers in Iraq
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1846857/posts
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.