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A Veteran of the Pacific, Mired in the Hudson

Bill White of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum calls the work around the USS Intrepid
Bill White of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum calls the work around the USS Intrepid "a major military-style dredging operation." The aircraft carrier was supposed to be moved for repairs, but it is mired in silt off Manhattan. (By Kathy Willens -- Associated Press)
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"Salvage is more about what you don't know than you do know," said Michael Herb, the Navy's civilian director of salvage operations. "We don't know how compressed that mud is, how easily we can drag it out." It could take four or five weeks, he said. On Tuesday, Intrepid Foundation officials got a month-long extension on a federal dredging permit.

The ship, gunmetal gray and 17 stories tall at the top of the main mast, was launched in 1943 and spearheaded the naval defeat of Japan in the Pacific. It also served in the Cold War and in Vietnam, and as a recovery ship for NASA capsules.

When it became a museum, the Intrepid housed fighter planes on its decks.

The total cost of its restoration project will be $60 million, White said, and will include federal, state, city and private funding. The main effort, completely rebuilding the structurally damaged Pier 86, will cost $40 million, he said, and take about two years. The vessel itself needs repairs in Bayonne, N.J. The cost of the first attempt to move it there added up to at least $1.7 million, White said, and the next attempt will cost even more.

"There are certain things that, no matter what the cost, you're willing," former mayor Koch said in a phone interview.

At a time when the military news is often bad, he acknowledged, the Intrepid is a monument to the fighting equipment of a war that was won.

"How do you get that city to pay attention to anything?" asked White, standing beside the ship, as he turned to face the unresponsive din of the Midtown traffic, and waved his arms in a wide gesture that took in the whole of Manhattan. His answer: "Put an aircraft carrier right here."

During World War II, the ship survived five kamikaze attacks, White said. Kamikaze strikes set fire to the Intrepid's wooden deck, he said. "The sailors put them out. The sailors kept plugging leaks that were occurring as fast as they could," he said.

"Human beings kept it afloat."

And in tribute, human beings are now making their best effort to get the Intrepid out of the mud.


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