On March 21, the Intrepid Museum in New York City officially unveiled a new 10,500 square-foot exhibition in the hangar deck of the USS Intrepid (CV-11), featuring a Goodyear-built FG-1D Corsair (Bureau Number 92013) on loan from the National Naval Aviation Museum. We have covered this Corsair’s arrival in October 2024 HERE, following its loan to the National Museum of the US Navy at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., and have covered the aircraft in other articles HERE and HERE.
Since arriving on the Intrepid, the FG-1D has been repainted in the markings of the Corsair flown by Alfred Lerch of USS Intrepid’s Fighting Squadron 10 (VF-10) “Grim Reapers.” On April 16, 1945, Lerch was on his first combat mission for the Battle of Okinawa when he and his squadron were ordered to intercept Japanese kamikaze aircraft attempting to hit the American task forces. In the ensuing battle, Lerch shot down seven Japanese aircraft despite five of his six guns jamming during the engagement and sustaining damage to his Corsair’s control surfaces. Lerch returned to the Intrepid, having become an ace in a day, and for this action, he was made a recipient of the Navy Cross on July 6, 1945.
The exhibit, which has been placed at the entrance point for the museum’s visitors and is in line with similar exhibits and experiences aboard The Fighting “I,” as those who came to live and work aboard the mighty Essex-class carrier came to call her, also features items that have never been displayed publicly at the museum before, from personal items from the ship’s crew, oral histories from veterans of the USS Intrepid, modules to represent the functions of the ship’s systems, such as the aircraft catapults, and touchable exhibits for visitors, from a model of a Corsair to one of the ship’s screws (propellers), tailhook, arresting cable, and WWII medals.
The Corsair now on display also represents the type flown by the subject of another exhibit on the Intrepid, Final Flight: The Story of a WWII Corsair, honors the life of Loren Isley, who was shot down and killed on his first combat mission on March 18, 1945. Fifty years later, a Japanese fisherman pulled up the remains of Isley’s Corsair, including the engine and propeller, and these were returned to the United States in 2016 as a gesture of goodwill between the two countries who were once bitter adversaries. Items donated by the Isley family to the Intrepid Museum are now on display in the new exhibit.
The new exhibit has already been received well and will complement and enhance the exhibits onboard and next to the Intrepid Museum. With the 80th anniversary of VJ-Day approaching, it makes these efforts to highlight some of the thousands of enlisted sailors and officers who served aboard The Fighting “I” during WWII. For more information, visit the museum’s website at Intrepid Museum.
