Texana Thursday: 4 Fun Facts about the Lady Lex

A view of the USS Lexington, now a museum, from Corpus Christ Harbor (Creative Commons photo courtesy Terry Ross)

The battleship USS Texas has earned its place in naval history, and is one of Texas’s most popular tourist attractions. The aircraft carrier USS Lexington, now decommissioned and permanently stationed in Corpus Christi, has also earned its place in naval history and is a popular tourist site.

Fun facts about the “Lady Lex” include:

1. The Lady Lex is the oldest aircraft carrier left from the World War II years.

Construction began on the ship in July 1941. She was commissioned in 1943.

2 The Lady Lex is the second aircraft carrier with that name.

The original Lexington aircraft carrier sustained heavy damage in 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea, which is near Australia. Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who commanded the American forces in the area, decided to have the ship scuttled instead of allowing the Lexington to become an easy target for Japanese capture.

The Lexington name has graced other Navy ships, though none presently. The first Lexington was built in 1776. It was a brigantine, a two-masted sailing vessel.

3. The Lady Lex was originally given another name.

The ship was to be named the Cabot. After the first Lexington aircraft carrier was lost in the Coral Sea, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox approved a suggestion to rename the new ship the Lexington.

4. The ship is also known as the “Blue Ghost”

The Lexington dished it out during World War II. She served in the Pacific Theater for just under two years, total, in combat. Among her accomplishments were sinking or destroying 300,000 tons of enemy cargo, with her guns shooting down 15 planes. Planes from the Lexington, meanwhile, shot down 372 enemy aircraft in the air, and destroyed 475 more on the ground.

But the Lexington could also take it. It served in combat, endured a hit from a kamikaze attack, and completed its missions. The Japanese claimed to have sunk the Lexington four different times. According to the museum’s web site, the Japanese propagandist Tokyo Rose referred to the Lexington as the “Blue Ghost.”

The Lexington was decommissioned from 1947-55, but returned to serve, eventually becoming a training ship in 1962. Thirty years later, in 1992, the USS Forrestal succeeded the Lexington as the Navy’s training aircraft carrier, and the Lexington was moved to Corpus Christi.

The Lexington has also served, with the Navy’s permission, as a filming location. Part of the movies Midway (1975) and Pearl Harbor (2001) were filmed there, as well as part of the television miniseries War and Remembrance (1988).