Built to Last

What can play key roles in multiple WWII battles, earn 8 battle stars and survive twwo atomic blasts?  The USS Independence of course.  The Independence aircraft carrier was the namesake of her class and was orginally launched in 1942.  Depolyed in the Pacific against the Japanese, the ship took place in numerous battles and took place in the sinking of Japan's largest battleship.  Eventually the independence was damaged in 1943, returned to port, and then amazingly wa redoplyed in 1944 to serve out the rest of the war.

After the war, the independence took place in two nuclear test bombs in the pacific.  There the ship sustained visible damage and was returned for decontamination and sinking.  Amazingly the Ship is still intact on the bottom of the ocean some 60 years later.  in sonar images taken by the NOAA, two planes are even visible on the flight deck elevators.  This ship is an excellent example of a time when things we're built to last.  it is one of the last testaments of the greatest genereation and what they gave to win World War Two.