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Anatomy of the Ship: The Aircraft Carrier Intrepid
John Roberts
1982

Although it's best known these days as a floating museum and a permanent fixture of New York harbor, the Essex-class carrier Intrepid had an illustrious three-decade long career. One of 24 ships in her class, Intrepid fought in almost every major campaign of the Pacific War from 1943 to 1945, taking hits from torpedoes and kamikazes on numerous occasions. The ship continued to serve after the war, receiving several major refits, and was decommissioned in 1974. Intrepid now serves as the centerpiece of Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, moored alongside that historic embodiment of American seapower, the Concorde.

Coming hot on the heels of Roberts' "Anatomy" of the HMS Hood, this book suffers occasionally from being a sophomore effort. The quality of the drafting is bit blunter this time around, lacking the finesse of it's predecessor. At 96 pages (versus Hood's 127), it's also a bit cramped for space, and doesn't include a single drawing or photograph of the ship as it appeared post-war. Finally, there isn't a single drawing depicting the ship's hull lines, although considering that the Lexington, the last surviving Essex, wasn't decommissioned until 1991, that information might have been still classified at the time.

Fortunately, big things often come in small packages, and Roberts manages to cram plenty of detail into those 96 pages, providing a comprehensive overview of Intrepid's layout, construction, machinery, and weapons. The introduction is even briefer than usual, but still provides interesting details on the ship's hull structure, machinery, and armament, a number of specifications tables, and a short timeline of the ship's service. 19 photographs are included, several of them showing modifications to the island, the AA gun platforms added during the war, and detail shots of torpedo and kamikaze damage.

As always, the drawings section opens with general arrangements of the ship. The port and starboard side of the hull and island are shown at 1:300 scale, each deck in the island at 1:150 scale, and each of the 10 hull decks at 1:600 scale. Finally, there are three transverse and one longitudinal sections through the hull. The next section covers the structure of the hull, with detailed illustrations depicting the arrangement of hull plating, the construction of the inner bottoms and keel, the layout of protective plating, a detailed perspective view of the midships hull structure. The section also depicts the various types of structural beams and brackets used in the ship's construction, and examples of welded and riveted joints.

A brief section on machinery shows the arrangement of the main and auxiliary machinery spaces, a series of plans showing the arrangement of steam supply pipes in the No 2 boiler and No 1 engine rooms, and depictions of a boiler, turbine set, and turbo-generator. The anchor gear is depicted by a single detailed perspective cutaway, while Section E details the superstructure. This section includes scrap views showing the AA gun platforms added during the war, while perspective views show the arrangement of the hangar deck, island, and navigating bridge. The rig is also briefly covered, showing the arrangement of signal yards, radar antennae, and the boat boom at several points during the war.

Another short section details flight deck equipment such as the arresting gear, deck edge elevator, crash barrier, and gasoline stations, and another set of drawings depicts the 5-inch, 40mm, and 20mm guns and their directors in detail. Fittings such as watertight doors, rope reels, ladders, and guardrails are also detailed, along with the ship's 26-foot whaleboats and the crane which raised and lowered it.

Of Roberts' three anatomies, this one is probably the weakest, although it's still better than many of the books in this series. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if this book was optioned at the same that The Battlecruiser Hood was, or if it evolved from a side-project started in the late 70s. Thankfully, Roberts is such a fine draughtsman that the relative lack of material isn't that big of a drawback. The General Arrangement plans do an excellent job depicting the dizzying maze of compartments in the ship's bowels (no wonder sailors always got lost!), and the perspective views do an excellent job at depicting interior arrangements. I wouldn't call anything here "art," but once again, Roberts attention to detail is frequently mind-blowing, whether it's in a cross-section through an armor bolt, a close-up of a dog on a quick-acting door, or a perspective view of the navigating bridge that shows every piece of equipment contained within. The only real misstep lies with a two page filler section that includes clip-art quality renditions of five of the aircraft carried during the war.

The biggest downside of this book is that it only depicts Intrepid's World War II appearance. Warships that stay in commission for extended periods are evolutionary beasts, and while Roberts does a decent job showing her wartime refits, there isn't a single word outside the introduction suggesting the ship didn't disappear after 1945. Outside of that frustrating omission, this book offers plenty of fascinating material for the serious, close-eyed naval enthusiast. I especially enjoyed the plans showing the shell plating and triple bottom - then again, I am kind of crazy!

Final score: 8/10