USS Intrepid original crew member, a Plainview resident, joins celebration of ship's 80th anniversary

They laid her keel — the official start of her life as an aircraft carrier — six days before Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 1, 1941. Which, it turned out, was one day before Ed Coyne turned 16.

Little did Coyne, now 97, know that not much more than a year later, he’d leave behind his classmates at Power Memorial Academy and his parents in Manhattan, volunteer for the U.S. Navy in the midst of World War II and become a plank owner — that is, an original crew member — aboard the USS Intrepid.

The longtime Plainview resident was back aboard his old ship Wednesday, on hand at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum at Pier 86 in Manhattan to celebrate the 80th anniversary of her being commissioned into service with the Navy. He was joined by another original crew member, Edward Hill, 99, of New Jersey, as well as dignitaries, including Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, and more than 200 veterans who later served aboard the carrier known as “The Fighting ‘I.’ ”

“I was a 17-year-old kid, looking around, gawking,” Coyne, who was born Dec. 2, 1925, recalled of the first time he stepped aboard the Intrepid. “Back then, all I could think was I’m going to have a chance to get back at the Japanese for Pearl Harbor, maybe have an opportunity to help get my brother John, who was in the Army, home sooner. You don’t know what’s in store. you don’t think about that. You’re just a kid. What do you know?”

Rich wartime history

Commissioned on Aug. 16, 1943, it wasn’t long before the Intrepid and her carrier-based aircraft and crew were involved in some of the fiercest naval battles against the Japanese in the Pacific Theater. The Fighting I was in on the action, and the horrors, at Kwajalein, at Truk Lagoon, at Peleliu.

It was a focal point in the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which took place from Oct. 23 to 26, 1944, and involved hundreds of ships and more than 200,000 personnel from the United States, Australia and Japan — fighting for the liberation of the Philippines.

During his tenure, the ship that carried Coyne, a Seaman First Class who worked in phone operations on the carrier flight deck, and his crewmates was struck by bombs, torpedoes and multiple times by Japanese kamikaze planes.

“They used to kid that the crews aboard all the other aircraft carriers loved us,” Coyne said, “because they knew they’d never get hit until we got hit … My mother-in-law would joke that I wasn’t good enough to die but I was too good for the devil. I just know I’m lucky to be here.”

During her service, the Intrepid, which was decommissioned in March 1974, went from the piston-powered propeller age to the Space Age, from wartime to peacetime and, ultimately, having been saved from the scrap heap of history, became a living museum that opened at Pier 86 in 1982. Now, it’s the centerpiece of a complex that includes the USS Growler, a Grayback-class nuclear missile submarine and aircraft from World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam — as well as more modern aircraft and space explorers, including a British Airways supersonic Concorde and the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

Intrepid museum teaches kids, inspires sailors

The museum draws more than 1 million visitors a year and officials said more than 55,000 New York City schoolchildren have visited, learning first hand the history of the carrier and the U.S. Navy.

Del Toro, a native of Cuba who grew up on 12th Avenue in Manhattan, just a block from where the museum stands, spoke to that importance Wednesday, noting that in his time as secretary of the Navy he has come across numerous sailors who’ve told him they joined after having visited the Intrepid and the museum.

He actually was aboard the moored ship for a meeting when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

“This museum,” Del Toro said, “and several others like it around our country, serves as a poignant reminder that we are, indeed, a maritime nation, that a strong Navy has always been a cornerstone of our ability to preserve peace — both here, and afar.”

During her history, the Intrepid was the recovery ship for astronaut Scott Carpenter and his Project Mercury space capsule, Aurora 7, and also served as an auxiliary attack carrier off Vietnam, beginning in 1966. Aviator John Williams Jr., who was on hand Wednesday, served on the Intrepid in 1968-69, and was the first African American pilot to fly from her deck.

Statistics show that 250 crew members died aboard the Intrepid during her service, a point not lost Wednesday on Ed Coyne.

After leaving the Navy, Coyne became a drug enforcement agent for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, now known as the Drug Enforcement Administration. He’s met two presidents, given a presentation at the White House. He and his wife, Audrey, have been married 74 years, had two children, and have four grandchildren — one who just last week left for Pensacola, Florida, en route to training as a Navy aviator.

“The Japanese bombed us, torpedoed us, hit us with kamikazes,” Coyne said. “But, thank God the one thing they couldn’t do was sink us … It isn’t a piece of steel. It’s a piece of history. Thank God it’s still remembered and we still remember the people who served on it.”

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”