USS Lexington
Her construction was launched in 1941 at the Bethlehem Steel shipyards on the east coast of Massachusetts. She is the fifth US Navy ship to bear the Lexington name, in honor of the Battle of Lexington in Massachusetts during the American Revolution. She was originally to be called Cabot, but her name was changed to Lexington after the first aircraft carrier to bear that name, the USS Lexington (CV-2), was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 8, 1942.
The Lexington was launched in September 1942 and commissioned on February 17, 1943. She is sent to the Pacific, to the Gilbert Islands, to Hollandia. Torpedoed near Kwajalein on December 4, 1943, she was immobilized for two months. She then fought in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, at Palau. During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, she acted as a command ship. On November 5, 1944, a Japanese suicide pilot damaged her off Luçonin the Philippines. In 1945, she was at Iwo-Jima and then took part in raids on Japan.
Like many Essex class aircraft carriers, she was decommissioned shortly after the war. But she was modernized and recommissioned in 1955, re-classified as an attack carrier (CVA-16) and then as an anti-submarine carrier (CVS). During this second career, she operated in the Pacific as well as the Atlantic and Mediterranean, but spent most of her time - almost 30 years - on the East Coast, serving as a training carrier (CVT). She was definitively withdrawn from service in 1991. She was the longest-serving Essex-class aircraft carrier. She was donated for use as a museum ship in Corpus Christi, Texas. In 2003, she was designated a National Historic Landmark.
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