Daily News from New York, New York • 277

7 4. 4 r--f 'f Sailors battle fires on Intrepid's flight deck after carrier was hit by two Kamikaze planes off Luzon, Nov. 25, 1944. t. mmmm By GUS DALLAS rE0MAN JOHN BONOMO felt fairly comfy in his below-decks office aboard the carrier Intre ten I sz-it-Jut f-jL- ssWf xi4lrPri)ii? mrJ 4 -ji il t.

pid when it was under attack near Luzon on Nov. 24, 1944. A Japanese bomb would have to have his name on it to reach him. He was off the hangar deck, two levels below the flight deck, mentally identifying the carrier's anti-aircraft guns from the sounds. There were the long-range five-inchers, now the 30-mm.

"pumpers" firing on approaching planes and then his scalp prickled as he heard the because they fired only when a plane was right on top of. Whammo! His cozy office shuddered and there was a racket like boiler works outside the door. The door flew off its hinges and whacked him in the chin. The hangar deck was a holocaust Bonomo squeezed out the port hole and climbed a ladder to an exposed gun deck, which seemed much healthier. Bonomo, now residing in Maspeth, Queens, then learned that a bomb-carrying Kamikaze pilot had smashed through the wooden flight deck and the ready deck beneath it into the hangar level.

Minutes after he climbed out, another suicide pilot crashed through, dropping a bomb that skidded along the armored hangar deck and exploded among crewmen battling the fire. tinuous, he said. The island housed three separate captain's bridges. "The Intrepid was a flagship, which meant an admiral occupied a bridge from which he directed the carrier's task force," he said. "The captain had a bridge of his own, from which he ran the carrier.

The commander directing the planes had his own bridge. When planes took off and landed, this officer told the captain how to move the ship." When the bridges and such vital centers as radar and communications are restored, uniformed mannequins and live people will "operate" them for visitors, Sowinski said. Volunteers are being sought for those jobs and to work on restorations. He asked anyone interested to phone 245-2533. The first Intrepid was a prize captured from Tripolitan pirates in 1803; Lt.

Stephen Decatur was its first captain. In September 1804, it was blown up by its crew after it was boarded by pirates as it tried to destroy their fleet in Tripoli Harbor. HE NEXT Intrepid was commissioned in 1864 to base Abraham Lincoln's Balloon Corps, carrying and releasing manned observation balloons. It was America's first aviation unit. Sowinski said.

Another Intrepid was commissioned in 1907. Construction work on the present carrier began six days before Pearl Harbor. It received its first serious damage on Feb. 16, 1944, off Truk Island when a lone Japanese pilot sent a torpedo into its stern and then tried to crash into the flight deck. Former crewman Joseph Liotta of Bay Ridge.

Brooklyn, recalled the pilot missing him "by 20 feet" as he stood on the bow, "because the bow went down as the stern went up." Ed Groger of Manhattan was asleep in his bunk when the torpedo hit. "I woke up bouncing between the sacks (bunks)," he said. The rudder was de HE INTREPID survived. It was seriously damaged five times in battle. It was headed for the Former sailors, including Ed Groger (c.) commemorate fallen shipmates with roses.

At left, Intrepid today. business groups have held luncheons or dinners aboard the Intrepid, and others are scheduled. "Corporations are interested in uniqueness, and a meeting aboard an aircraft carrier is unusual," he said. The Board of Education has agreed to send 100,000 pupils annually to the museum, he said. The nearby Park West High School holds maritime classes aboard the carrier.

"The Intrepid will never close. It's too important to the Navy and New York City," Fisher said. The Navy donated the carrier and exhibits, but is barred from giving funds, he said. Exhibits occupy only the flight and hangar decks of the seven-level carrier. Three other decks will be renovated completely and two partially for vastly more exhibition space, Sowinski said.

When the water-level deck is rebuilt, a submarine will be positioned next to it so that visitors can pass through it, he said. New exhibits will be dedicated to submarines and undersea explorations; ocean liners and freighters; the operation of surface vessels; air and sea transportation displays surrounding a model of the Port of New York-New Jersey; and a functioning "island," the huge metal castle rising Part of the island is already open to the public, and restoration is con-at one edge of the flight deck. to scrap heap in 1976, when a patriotic-minded New York builder, Zachary Fisher, was moved by a group of Naval and aviation buffs to save the ageing flat-top and launch it as a Sea, Air, and Space Museum. The Intrepid is still surviving, docked in Manhattan, on the Hudson River at 46th despite a deficit first 16 months, blamed on a long run of poor weekend weather that hurt attendance, as did the delayed completion of the Convention Center and the proposed West Side development adjacent to the Intrepid, on which museum officials counted for more visitors. Still, expansion plans are steaming ahead, fueled by optimism.

Hotels are expected to rise along 12th Ave. to accommodate convention visitors and a 12th Ave. bus route is likely, which officials anticipate will boost business. Fisher said he and other officials went "into the museum business" rather naively and at first, neglected I such things as promoting and publicizing it. "We've got good response since we began marketing it," he said, saying corporations "are looking us over" with an eye to making donations.

The museum has received major contributions to continue restorations, he said. The state is including $850,000 for the Intrepid in the National Heritage Trust Fund, which helps support and preserve historic institutions, Fisher said. The Astor Foundation gave $250,000 to build conference and class rooms on the deck below the flight deck. Larry Sowinski, the museum's historian, said the Chicago Board of Trade, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Olympic Ski Team, and more stroyed, and the Intrepid could move only in circles.

Groger, a carpenter's mate, helped construct a 50-foot wood "sail" that was set up on the bow, at an angle where the wind compensated for the circling movement so the carrier could travel a straight course. Left behind by the task force with two destroyers, the Intrepid reached Pearl Harbor, 2,000 miles away, in 10 days without being spotted by Japanese planes or submarines. If that luck holds out, Sowinski said, the Intrepid will survive on the Hudson..