NEW YORK -- Almost two years after being pried ignominiously from the mud by a phalanx of huffing tugboats and towed off to a shipyard for a major overhaul, the historic aircraft carrier Intrepid is returning home.

Freshly painted in naval "haze gray" and once again shipshape from stem to stern, the fabled survivor of Pacific war battles and five kamikaze suicide attacks will be towed up New York Harbor and slotted into its familiar Hudson River berth on Oct. 2.

The floating military and space museum will reopen to the public on Nov. 8, with a large celebration on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.