USS Lexington Museum

 museum, aircraft carrier, open air museum, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, interesting place, historic landmark, United States Navy

The USS Lexington (CV-16) was the sixth member of the Essex Class of Aircraft Carriers built for the US Navy, laid down at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, MA as the USS Cabot in July 1941. Just shy of a year after her keel was laid and with the Carrier still under construction on the ways, the Battle of the Coral Sea raged half a world away, claiming the USS Lexington (CV-2) after a pitched fight to check Japanese plans to capture Port Moresby in New Guinea. In accordance with US Navy traditions, the name of the fallen Carrier was passed to the next Carrier due to be launched, and on the 16th of June 1942 the Cabot was renamed Lexington. Christened and launched in September of that year, the Lexington commissioned into US Navy service as a member of the US Atlantic Fleet in February 1943.

Following her shakedown cruise and training operations, the new Carrier shaped a course for the Pacific, arriving at Pearl Harbor in August 1943. Wasting no time in taking the fight to the Japanese Empire, the Lexington and her crew took part in air raids on Tarawa, Wake Island, the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands. December 1943 found the Carrier in action off Kwajalein, where her string of successful operations came to a sudden end at the hands of a single Japanese torpedo bomber, which succeeded in penetrating the Carrier's AA screen and planted a single torpedo into Lexington's Starboard Quarter. Heavily damaged, left without steering controls and with nine of her crew killed, Lexington's gun and damage control crews fought valiantly to save their ship, and by daybreak she was back under control and heading for Pearl Harbor and eventually San Francisco for full repairs.

Returning to the fray in March 1944, the Lexington became the Flagship of Task Force 58 under the command of Rear Admiral Marc Mitscher and began offensive operations across the South Pacific. First supporting operations off Hollandia, TF58 moved East and carried out airstrikes on Truk and Saipan before beginning operations against Japanese-held Guam in June. The presence of the large American force off the Marianas brought what remained of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Carrier Force out of the Philippines for what would become the Battle of the Philippine Sea, known in Allied circles as the Marianas Turkey Shoot. In her first action against her direct counterparts, the Lexington's aircrews contributed to the over 300 enemy aircraft shot down on the first day of the battle and the eventual victory, permitting her advancement with TF58 into the waters off the Philippines later that year.

After taking a leading role in the Battle Of Leyte Gulf, Lexington's aircraft once again contributed heavily to the final destruction of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the waters around the Philippines, though her part in the victory came at the cost of several more crewman killed by a kamikaze attack which sent the Carrier to Ulithi Atoll for repairs lasting until the end of 1944. Back in action by January 1945, the Lexington began what would turn into two straight months of airstrikes against Japanese forces, ranging from Indochina to the very home islands of Japan itself as the Flagship of Task Group 58.2 before returning stateside for a much-needed overhaul which lasted until May 1945. Returning to the waters off Japan in July, the Lexington once again carried out airstrikes on mainland Japan until the cessation of hostilities, after which she remained in Japanese waters supporting occupation forces until finally returning stateside in December 1945.

Remaining operational with the US Pacific Fleet through 1946 and into 1947, the Lexington fell victim to postwar budget cuts and was decommissioned in April 1947 and placed into layup at the Puget Sound Naval Yard. Remaining inactive for the next six years, the Lexington was eventually pulled from her layup and placed into an extended refit program intended to fully modernize the World War Two-era ship to a jet age naval asset. With a combined SCB-27C & SCB-125 conversion completed after two years of work, the Lexington recommissioned into active service in August 1955 sporting a new bow, island and angled flight deck designed to facilitate the operation of the most modern jet aircraft. Joining the US 7th Fleet at Yokosuka, the Lexington served in the Western Pacific through early 1962 when orders came for the Carrier to replace the USS Antietam (CV-36) as the Fleet Aviation Training Carrier in the Gulf of Mexico.

Taking up her new duty in December 1962, the Lexington became the primary Carrier Training vessel for Naval Aviators based in Pensacola, New Orleans and Corpus Christi, a duty she would continue to perform until her advancing age and size disparity with modern SuperCarriers brought about her decommissioning in November 1991 after 41 years of service. As a decorated World War Two Veteran, the final serving member of her Class of Carriers and a major part in over three decades of Naval Aviator training, the Lexington was selected by the US Navy for preservation as a museum ship and was officially donated to the City of Corpus Christi in June 1992. Returned to her former homeport, the Carrier now operates as the USS Lexington Museum on the Bay.

Declared a National Historic Landmark in 2003, USS Lexington earned the Presidential Unit Citation and 11 Battle Stars for World War II service and has recorded well over 200,000 arrested landings across her deck. She is the fouth oldest preserved Aircraft Carrier in the world, after her sisterships USS Yorktown (CV-10), USS Intrepid (CV-11) and USS Hornet (CV-12).

www.usslexington.com/
www.navsource.org/archives/02/16.htm
aeroweb.brooklyn.cuny.edu/museums/tx/usslmotb.htm