Intrepid adds 1952 CG rescue helicopter

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The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Aug 22, 2008 7:18:40 EDT

NEW YORK — When the USS Intrepid returns to its Hudson River pier later this year, it will have a 1952-vintage Coast Guard rescue helicopter in its aircraft museum collection.

A derrick lifted the Korean War-era relic Wednesday onto the ship’s deck at Staten Island, where the World War II aircraft carrier is undergoing an 18-month overhaul.

Intrepid official Eric Boehm said the Sikorsky S-55 operated for years at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field as a Coast Guard rescue helicopter.

“There’s no way to know how many lives it saved,” he said.

Later a crop-duster in Texas, it was recently acquired by the Intrepid from a defunct aircraft museum and refurbished. It is painted in original yellow Coast Guard colors.

The S-55 was a civilian version of the H-19 Chickasaw, used by the U.S. military to carry troops in Korea and later in Vietnam.

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