Intrepid was an Essex-class carrier. Newport News launched her on 26 April 1943, and she was commissioned on 16 August 1943 with Captain Thomas Lamison Sprague in command. Mrs. John Howard Hoover sponsored her.
She went out to the Pacific with Essex and Cabot. From 29 January to 2 February 1944 she raided Roi and Namur. Her planes strafed Ennuebing until ten minutes before the Marines landed. She then went on to Truk. On the night of 17 February a torpedo hit her quarter and jammed the rudder. The crew put up a jury sail of hatch covers and canvas and brought her into Pearl Harbor on 24 February. Through the fall her planes struck the Palaus and the Philippines. On 24 October planes from Intrepid and Cabot began the attack on the Japanese Center Force. American carrier planes sank Musashi. On 25 November two kamikazes crashed into her. She kept station. The next day she headed for San Francisco and arrived on 20 December.
She was back in fighting trim in mid-February 1945 and reached Ulithi on 13 March, after the landings on Iwo Jima. On 18 March her planes struck Kyushu. A bomb exploded close aboard that morning and started a hangar fire that the crew put out. On 16 April a plane dove through the flight deck, killing 8 men and wounding 21. Planes were landing again three hours later. She reached San Francisco on 19 May.
The commanding officers through this commission are the NavSource list compiled by Wolfgang Hechler and Ron Reeves. Richard Kenna Gaines had her twice, late March into April and again in May 1944, with William Dodge Sample between those tours. Joseph Francis Bolger, Giles Elza Short, Robert Edwin Blick, Jr., Henry Gabriel Sanchez, and Commander Arthur Arlo Giesser followed. She was decommissioned on 22 March 1947. She is preserved as a museum in New York.