USS Lexington (CV-2)

History
Aerial view of Lexington on 14 October 1941
United States
Name:	USS Lexington
Namesake:	Battle of Lexington
Ordered:	1916 (as battlecruiser) 1922 (as aircraft carrier)
Builder:	Fore River Ship and Engine Building Co., Quincy, Massachusetts
Laid down:	8 January 1921
Launched:	3 October 1925
Christened:	Mrs. Theodore Douglas Robinson
Commissioned:	14 December 1927
Reclassified:	As aircraft carrier, 1 July 1922
Struck:	24 June 1942
Identification:	Hull number: CC-1, then CV-2
Nickname(s):	"Lady Lex"
Fate:	Sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea, 8 May 1942
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type:	Lexington-class aircraft carrier
Displacement:	36,000 long tons (37,000 t) (standard) 47,700 long tons (48,500 t) (deep load)
Length:	888 ft (270.7 m)
Beam:	107 ft 6 in (32.8 m)
Draft:	32 ft 6 in (9.9 m) (deep load)
Installed power:	180,000 shp (130,000 kW)
Propulsion:	4 shafts, 4 sets turbo-electric drive 16 water-tube boilers
Speed:	33.25 knots (61.58 km/h; 38.26 mph)
Range:	10,000 nmi (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:	2,791 (including aviation personnel) in 1942
Armament:	4 × 2 – 8-inch guns 12 × 1 – 5-inch anti-aircraft guns
Armor:	Belt: 5–7 in (127–178 mm) Deck: .75–2 in (19–51 mm) Gun turrets: .75 in (19 mm) Bulkheads: 5–7 in (127–178 mm)
Aircraft carried:	78
Aviation facilities:	1 Aircraft catapult

USS Lexington (CV-2), nicknamed "Lady Lex", was an early aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy. She was the lead ship of the Lexington class; her only sister ship, Saratoga, was commissioned a month earlier. Originally designed as a battlecruiser, she was converted into one of the Navy's first aircraft carriers during construction to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which essentially terminated all new battleship and battlecruiser construction. The ship entered service in 1928 and was assigned to the Pacific Fleet for her entire career. Lexington and Saratoga were used to develop and refine carrier tactics in a series of annual exercises before World War II. On more than one occasion these included successfully staged surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The ship's turbo-electric propulsion system allowed her to supplement the electrical supply of Tacoma, Washington, during a drought in late 1929 to early 1930. She also delivered medical personnel and relief supplies to Managua, Nicaragua, after an earthquake in 1931.

Lexington was at sea when the Pacific War began on 7 December 1941, ferrying fighter aircraft to Midway Island. Her mission was cancelled and she returned to Pearl Harbor a week later. After a few days, she was sent to create a diversion from the force en route to relieve the besieged Wake Island garrison by attacking Japanese installations in the Marshall Islands. The island was forced to surrender before the relief force got close enough, and the mission was cancelled. A planned attack on Wake Island in January 1942 had to be cancelled when a submarine sank the oiler required to supply the fuel for the return trip. Lexington was sent to the Coral Sea the following month to block any Japanese advances into the area. The ship was spotted by Japanese search aircraft while approaching Rabaul, New Britain, and her aircraft shot down most of the Japanese bombers that attacked her. Together with the carrier Yorktown, she successfully attacked Japanese shipping off the east coast of New Guinea in early March.

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