The Beginning
The first INTREPID was a bomb ketch armed with four guns of unknown size. She had a length of 60′, a beam of 12′ and displaced 64 tons. Built in France in 1798 for Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition, she was subsequently sold to Tripoli and renamed MASTICO. The MASTICO was one of several Tripolitan vessels which captured the frigate PHILADELPHIA on 31 October 1803 after running fast aground on the uncharted Kaliusa reef about five miles east of Tripoli. On 23 December 1803k while enroute from Tripoli to Constantinople, the MASTICO was taken as a prize by the schooner ENTERPRISE and frigate CONSTITUTION and renamed INTREPID.
In February 1804 the INTREPID, in company with the brig SIREN, set out to destroy the PHILADELPHIA before the Tripolitans could fit her out for use against the U.S. squadron in the Mediterranean. At 1900 hours on the evening of 16 February the INTREPID entered the harbor at Tripoli while the SIREN took up station outside the harbor to stand by for rescue or assistance.
Since the INTREPID could pass as a North African vessel, she was able to enter the harbor unnoticed and two and a half hours later she was alongside the frigate PHILADELPHIA. The Americans, under the command of Stephen Decatur, boarded and, after a brief struggle with cutlasses and scimitars ( a backsword or sabre with a curved blade ), gained control of the frigate. The PHILADELPHIA was set ablaze and the INTREPID managed to escape during the confusion.
Be Because the INTREPID was able to enter the harbor at Tripoli with relative ease, the commander of the American squadron, Edward prele, decided to outfit her as a fire ship. The plan was to send the INTREPID into the harbor in the midst of the corsair fleet. The men were to set fuses and evacuate the ship where she would be blown up close under the walls of Tripoli. Conversion work was completed on 1 September and on the evening of 4 September the INTREPID, with a volunteer crew of three officers and ten men under the command of Lt. Richard Somers, entered the harbor at Tripoli. At 2130 hours, sometime before expeced, there was a violent explosion which destroyed the INTREPID. Commodore Preble reasoned that the Tripolitans must have suspected and boarded the INTREPID prompting the crew to blow her up to prevent the Tripolitans from seizing the valuable powder and explosives. All on board were lost.
The second INTREPID was an experimental, torpedo ram built by the Boston Navy Yard and launched on 5 March 1874. She was an iron hulled, screw steamer 170′ long, with a beam of 35′, displaced 438 tons and was armed with four 24-pound howitzers. In August 1882, work began to convert her to a light-draft gunboat. Still unfinished, work on the conversion was suspended in 1889. A survey in 1892 found the INTREPID unserviceable and she was stricken from the Navy List and sold on 9 May 1892.
The third INTREPID, built by the Mare Island Navy Yard was launched on 8 October 1904. She was a bark-rigged sail training ship with a length of 211′, a beam of 45′ and a displacement of 1,800
The fourth INTREPID was launched 26 April ’43, by Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Newport News, VA. She was the 4th Essex-class aircraft carrier to be launched and was sponsored by the wife of Vice Admiral John H. Hoover.
On 16 August ’43, she was commissioned with Captain Thomas L. Sprague in command before heading to the Caribbean for shakedown and training missions.Intrepid‘s motto was “In Mare In Coelo” ( “In the Sea In Heaven” ) or “On the Sea (and) In the Sky”.On October 2, ’08, it was the “Dawn of a New Era” for Intrepid. She was on her way to re-open as the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum located at Pier 86 on the Hudson River located at 12th Ave. & 46th Street in New York.
The Intrepid Museum features a range of interactive exhibits and eventsproviding a snapshot of Intrepid’s service history to our nation, heroism, education and excitement.The Museum is dedicated to the exhibition and interpretation of history, science and service as related to its home aboard the USS Intrepid, a National Historic Landmark.As you explore the Museum you will be able to examine original artifacts, view historic video footage, and explore interactive exhibits. Visitors can also ride in the A-6 Cockpit Simulator, visit the Virtual Flight Zone and tour the inside of the world’s fastest commercial airplane, Concorde and see the Museum’s new addition the space shuttle Enterprise that is now positioned in the Museum’s new Space Shuttle Pavilion located on Intrepid’s flight deck.Intrepid fought valiantly in WWII, survived 3 tours off Vietnam and played a vital role in submarine surveillance during the Cold War. She also escaped a grim fate.
For all their storied years and accomplished missions in the fleet, Navy ships are eventually decommissioned. With no mission nor crew, these ships are either adopted by a foreign military or abandoned for scrapping, sometimes forgotten for years in a ‘moth-ball’d’ or ‘ghost fleet’ decaying from the inside out before they’re sold for scrap.Intrepid was decommissioned after WWII, missed being scrapped and actually made her way back into service over the years. The Intrepid Museum now serves our nation as a venue providing the history of Intrepid, while also providing loving memories – not just for some of thosewho served her with pride and dedication, and still serve her as volunteers – but also for all former Intrepid crewmembers, many who still make an attempt to visit their once ‘home-away-from-home’.There are many sections of Intrepid open to the public that have been restored & maintained. Restoration costs are expensive so vast portions of Intrepid still remain unrestored and as they were when the ship left naval service in ’74. Some areas of Intrepid have been untouched for nearly 40 years.
Exploring these areas, Intrepid is seen as it was when President Nixon was neck-deep in the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam war still waged, and when the Intrepid was finally decommissioned. Well – maybe not just as it was then…after all, 4 decades have taken their toll on the 69 year old carrier, but – there were…and still may be – enough old personal items around to make one feel like the crew had just left.
Exploring these areas, Intrepid is seen as it was when President Nixontspr