USS Lexington (CV-16)

Lexington was one of many ships that was commissioned in the dawn of World War II and sent to the initial raids on Tarawa and Wake in the fall of 1943. Lexington also helped in the campaigns of the Gilbert Islands and the battle against the Japanese in the Marshall Islands. In December of that year, the ship was hit by a night attack, forcing her to return to the shipyard for two months of repairs. The USS Lexington was back on duty in early 1944 and was involved in many Pacific combats during the following months.

Lexington went home in 1945 after the Iwo Jima invasion for an overhaul, and then returned in July and August to help with the end of the Pacific War. In December, the USS Lexington was sent home and was then decommissioned in Bremerton, Washington in 1947. She sat in ‘mothballs’ for six years, and then underwent major modernizations that were completed in 1955 and was recommissioned as an attack aircraft carrier. She made five deployments to the Western Pacific up until 1961 and was then transferred to the Atlantic.

For 30 years after that, the USS Lexington operated in the Gulf of Mexico as a training vessel, and then was decommissioned in 1991. She was transferred to a private organization and was turned into a museum ship in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1992.