USS Intrepid Sail Picture?

has anyone found a pic of the ship using a sail? I've had no luck. Its mentioned in the Revell instructions and google found this.

thx - Craig

That night torpedo planes attacked the task force, one of them scoring on USS INTREPID; a "tin fish" exploded portside at the waterline, tearing a huge gash in her hull and killing five enlisted men (six others were missing). INTREPID retired from her second combat operation a cripple, it being necessary for the ship to steer by her engines since the rudder was jammed hard to port.

By speeding up the port and idling the starboard screws, Captain Sprague kept his ship trimmed and on a comparatively controlled course for a couple of days. Then the winds came up. As her skipper described it: "She (the ship) was like a giant pendulum, swinging back and forth. She had a tendency to weather-c*ck into the wind ... turned her bow toward Tokyo. But right then I wasn't interested in going that direction."

It was at this point, INTREPID traveling in circles with a rudder resembling a "huge potato chip," that Commander Philip Reynolds, USN, damage control officer, collaborated with Chief Bo'sun Frank E. Johnson; together they improvised a makeshift sail of hatch covers, scrap canvas and anything available outside of a burlap sack. Attached to the forecastle, open forward of the hangar deck and on the same level, the sail served to ease the strain on the screws and, with all planes moved forward and all possible cargo weight aft to put the stern low in the water, wind resistance was created.. INTREPID swung about, swayed momentarily, and grudgingly held her course.

Orders which had originally routed INTREPID to Eniwetok had been countermanded, setting Pearl Harbor as her destination.. No speed records were set on that run, and the carrier's course on the chart looked like a seismograph reading gone wild. Her escorts, destroyers STEMBEL and STEPHEN POTTER, were hard pressed to figure what she would do next.

Said Captain Sprague of the trip to Pearl: "No enemy sub could have ever figured out her zigzag plan. As a matter of fact there was no plan; the pattern was created as we went along, and no one knew for sure how long she'd keep on anything like a straight course." But INTREPID made the long haul to Oahu, standing into the navy yard there on 24 February 1944.

"That sail," said Commander Reynolds, "looked pretty rough. I can't say I was proud of its looks. I wanted to take it off before we came into Pearl Harbor but the captain laughed and said 'Nothing doing."' That sail was soon famous.

Reply to
crw59
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No luck on the sail yet, but here's her "potato chip" rudder:

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'll keep digging.

Pat

Reply to
Pat Flannery

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