This piece originally ran in the February 2023 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.

This small piece of Douglas fir was once part of the flight deck of the USS Enterprise (CV-6) — the most decorated U.S. Navy vessel of World War II. Commissioned in 1938, Enterprise escaped destruction at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and went on to participate in all but two major naval battles in the Pacific theater. The Enterprise and its crewbecame synonymous with the desperate early battles of Midway, the Eastern Solomons, and Santa Cruz. “The Big E” would fight on with the fleet at later battles in the Philippine Sea, at Leyte Gulf, and off Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Despite numerous postwar efforts to preserve the ship, Enterprise was sold for scrap in 1958, leaving only small artifacts such as this simple deck piece to remember one of the truly great ships in history.