OT: Wreckage of USS Lexington Located in Coral Sea
Nearly 76 years after crippling damage sustained during the Battle of the Coral Sea the wreckage of the "Lady Lex" has been discovered by Paul Allen and the expedition crew of Research Vessel (R/V) Petrel on March 4.
The Lexington was found 3,000 meters (about two miles) below the surface, resting on the floor of the Coral Sea more than 500 miles off the eastern coast of Australia.
The USS Lexington was originally commissioned as a battlecruiser but was launched as an aircraft carrier in 1925. She took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 4-8, 1942) along with the USS Yorktown against three Japanese carriers. This was the first carrier versus carrier battle in history and was the first time Japanese forces suffered a permanent setback in its advances on New Guinea and Australia. However, the U.S. lost the Lexington and 216 of its distinguished crew.The Lexington had been hit by multiple torpedoes and bombs on May 8 but it was a secondary explosion causing uncontrolled fires that finally warranted the call to abandon ship. The USS Phelps delivered the final torpedoes that sank the crippled Lady Lex, the first aircraft carrier casualty in history. With other U.S. ships standing by, 2,770 crewmen and officers were rescued, including the captain and his dog Wags, the ships ever-present mascot.
The Battle of the Coral Sea was notable not only for stopping a Japanese advance but because it was the first naval engagement in history where opposing ships never came within sight of each other. This battle ushered in a new form of naval warfare via carrier-based airplanes. One month later, the U.S. Navy surprised Japanese forces at the Battle of Midway, and turned the tide of the war in the Pacific for good.
https://www.paulallen.com/uss-lexington-wreck-located-rv-petrel/#uss-le…
This is awesome - thanks for posting! Like many my age, I've been fascinated with WWII for a long time, with a special interesting in the Pacific theater, where my Grandfather served as a corpsman. I'll be devouring Allen's web page for the next few days!
My grandfather was on the Lexington. His handwritten account can be found here: https://wp.me/p3RzvV-rZ
This is the first of 7 pages:
thanks.
Historians love primary sources.
Thanks for adding this to the original post! I can't read enough of this stuff!!
was very important at an early point in the Pacific War when things could have gone either way. The Americans thwarted part of the Japanese expansion and helped set up the victory at Midway later in the year. A key factor was that the two of the main Japanese carriers at Coral Sea (both took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor) were damaged or too depleted to participate at Midway. That left the Japanese with only 4 large carriers -all of which the U.S. sank at Midway. If the two from the Coral Sea were available, it could have been the difference in the Japanese favor at Midway.
The Lexington's sister ship the Saratoga survived the war even though she was damaged in several battles and had to be repaired each time. After the war, she was used in one of the nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific and eventually sunk after sustaining a lot of damage.
The 2 Japanese carriers were the largest of their fleet too I believe. Sister ships. Zokaku and Shoikaku.
Also significant: the Japanese thought they had sunk Yorktown in the Coral Sea, meaning that among their other miscalculations, they thought only two American carriers even existed and expected minimal resistance at best at Midway.
The Lady Lex still floats. I mean the namesake CV-16 (https://usslexington.com/). She is docked at Corpus Christi. Fascinating history with a wonderful tour of the ship. They also offer overnight stays for scout troups. My son's troup spent a night a few years ago.
Interesting nugget - while going to the sleeping quarters, one of the parents banged his head on the door frame in spite of ducking. He is 6'2". The guide mentioned that the dimensions of the doorways were sized for an "average" person in 1940s which was about 5' 4". Don't know if that's true.
But, Mr. Allen got launching and commissioning backwards. A ship is launched as soon as her hull is complete and watertight, but with substantial work still to be completed. Then they float the ship to the dock where this work will be completed. A ship is commissioned when it is complete; it has passed its "builder's trials," and it is ready for service.
Therefore, USS LEXINGTON could never have been commissioned as a battlecruiser; she never got her big guns or any of the other things that makes a battlecruiser different from an aircraft carrier. However, when he hull was complete, she was launched with the intent to complete her as a battlecruiser, but then the plan changed. BTW, that was because of international treaties limiting naval armaments that restricted the number and size of battlecruisers the U.S. could construct. The Navy had this beautiful hull and brand new propulsion system, and some clever naval engineer said "gee, we could build a good aircraft carrrier on this bad boy."
Both Lexington and Saratoga were in fact commissioned with four 2x8" gun turrets, two forward and of the island and two aft. Just after Pearl Harbor Saratoga had her four turrets removed, Lexington had her's removed March of 1942.
So yeah, while they were technically aircraft carriers they both possessed a cruiser punch for much of their commissioned lives.
Two of the photos toward the beginning of the thread clearly show the turrets.
I cant wait to show these pictures to Pap Dotts (my wife's grandfather). We have dinner with him every Wednesday and the talk always turns to his navy days. He got his diploma and left high school early to join the navy at the tail end of WWII. He made a career of it and is still a navy man through-and-through.
He enjoys when I show him things like this or the history of the ships he was on and bases he visited.
The MGoBlog difference on display.
This was a great read.