USS Lexington

USS Lexington. . , USS Lexington (CV-16) is the fifth U.S. Navy ship named for the Revolutionary War Battle of Lexington. The previous USS Lexington (CV-2) was sunk on May 8, 1942, during the world war two Battle of the Coral Sea. To Honor CV-2, workers at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, petitioned the Secretary of the Navy to change the name of the carrier under construction from Cabot to Lexington. The request was approved and USS Lexington (CV-16) was commissioned on February 17, 1943. , The USS Lexington's first combat operation was against the air base at Tarawa in September 1943. She and her crew then served in nearly every major battle in the Pacific until the end of the war. Japanese propagandist Tokyo Rose referred to Lexington as "The Blue Ghost" due to the blue tint of her paint scheme and because she always reappeared after reportedly being sunk. The nickname was adopted with pride by the ship’s crew. Two of those incorrect reports of sinking were after a torpedo hit to the starboard quarter on December 4, 1943, and after a kamikaze attack on November 5, 1944. In both cases, the ship returned to the fight relatively quickly. USS Lexington was the first foreign heavy carrier to enter Tokyo Bay in August 1945, leading to the saying, "Tarawa to Tokyo." , The U.S. Navy decommissioned Lexington in 1947. However, the escalation of the Cold War in the 1950s brought the ship back to service as CVA-16 with renovations to operate jet aircraft in support of missions near Taiwan, Laos and Cuba. In the 1960s, CVS-16/CVT-16 became the U.S. training carrier for naval aviators. In 1980, AVT-16 became the first aircraft carrier with female crewmembers. The U.S. Navy decommissioned Lexington for the last time on November 8, 1991, as the longest-serving Essex-class carrier. Since 1992, she has been berthed in Corpus Christi a historic museum.