USS Lexington

Very Cool! Big boy sea hunt by billionaire Paul Allen. I'd spend my money the same way. Look at this article and some of the discoveries he's made, including the bell from Battleship Hood. If I recall correctly, the Bismarck sank this, all lost but three lives. Remember the Hood was the cry that resulted in the Bismarck being hunted down.

These are the grave yard of brave men, who fought to keep us free. God bless the home of the brave.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wreckage-from-the-uss-lexington-cv-2-located-in-the-coral-sea-76-years-after-the-aircraft-carrier-was-sunk-during-world-war-ii-300608295.html

 

Fantastic!

 

That last image is of a Douglas TBD Devastsator. The type is extinct in preservation. By the look of it, that is the best remaining wreck in existence. It would be nice if they could bring it up, stabilize it and place it in the naval aviation museum as a tangible tribute to the Lex.

Sincerely,

Art S.

 

I totally agree but there are those who will say that it is a grave and that it should be left alone.

 

Peter Gimble w new tech.
Amazing. Nice use of funds.

 

Lex was the Navy's first big carrier... supposed to be a cruiser, but converted to a carrier during construction. Along w/ sister ship the Saratoga.

Props turned by electric motors instead of turbines.
When Tacoma WA had almost no electricity, the Lex tied up and supplied power to the city for several months. In the 20's, I think.

Scuttled by the US; was badly damaged, to keep it out of Japanese hands.

 

I read (some) of the sailors had been assigned to the Lex, from the beginning. When I was a kid and would visit NYC, I would always remember the ship when I walked on Lexington Ave.

 

That's possible... it sunk only about 14 years after it was sailed.

 

None of us now realize the desperation that gripped every branch of the service and the population in the U.S. when we were attacked. We were unprepared and way behind every other country and the change in our national persona was immediate and encompassed all. The pace went from all slow to a race with everybody involved and our thinking was in one direction, to fight like hell. I'll never forget it. Every boy of 18 (and sometimes less) was inhaled by the Army, Navy, Marines, and USAC. Families were immediately stripped of able bodied males up to and including 40 year olds. I was only 14 when it started for our country but I remember how every thought and every bit of work was aimed at the war after that and it accelerated at an unbelievable pace. It wasn't long before there were military uniforms and equipment everywhere and the frame of mind entertained the war first and everything else second. 1941 and 1942 were deadly years for our services and not a day went by when someone you knew had a death to report. In the early stages of the war the fighting by our Navy in the Pacific will go down in the books as one of the finest hours of our history. We were outgunned and faced forces that were superior in numbers but not in grit, bravery, and resolve.

 

Well said Bob!

When WW2 started there was no guarantee we would win. And, the first 9 months didn't help change that possibility much. The loss of the Lexington was one of those events that may have helped stop the Japanese, but put us even farther behind to defend ourselves.

 

^ Battle of Midway was about 6 months after Pearl Harbor. Guadalcanal started about 8 months after Pearl Harbor. By the end of those, the Japanese were, more or less, sunk. Extremely impressive performance by our brave marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen considering that the Pacific war got second priority after Europe...T

 

6 Months... as tomc said. After Midway, 6 months in, the Japanese went from offence to defense... and they knew it.
Still took 3 1/2 years to end it.

It was also proof that the Battleship was no longer the most important ship of the line... the Aircraft Carrier became the winner. Midway was an air battle and they lost hugely.

 

We lived across the street from a large Catholic Church and witnessed a big wedding of a couple in the spring of 1942. He was a Naval aviator. Two weeks later we watched his funeral. This kind of thing happened many times.

 

Bob- Affirmative, everybody was affected. I lost an uncle in Normandy and another one lost a leg in France. Before I was born.

Funny thing is, things like sugar were rationed, but since everybody took their ration whether they needed it or not, both sides of my family said they had way more sugar during the war than before.

 

Never heard that about the sugar being in over abundance. We never seemed to have enough. The biggest headache was tires, gas, and meat but when we moved back to Florida, we didn't have a problem with much of anything because the fish were plentiful , fruit was in the front yard, and mom was on the Ration Board. That's when I was in high school and we accessed auto fuel from many sources. Our Model T would burn anything; cleaning fluid, kerosene, and even auto gas. I recall seeing long trains of flat cars loaded with tanks or trucks--hundreds of them. Next day they would come by with a couple more mile long loads. Boeing built 20 B-17's in one 24 hour period and the rest of the aircraft companies were pumping out fighters and medium bombers like cakes of soap. Kaiser Shipyards restructured the shipbuilding industry and were launching one per month. Then there were concrete ships that enjoyed success. Once the industrial might of this nation was turned on to high boost, the flow of wartime weapons and equipment astonished the people across the pond. The Axis powers made grave errors in not appreciating our manufacturing power. The other blessing was their lack of a strategic plan to attack us, therefore we were unimpeded in what we could do. I recall a statement by a German soldier, "We shoot ten of their trucks and the next day there are twenty more to replace them."

 

My step-Grandfather was a taxi driver, so getting gas and tires were not a problem for him. Most folks now, especially the young ones, have no clue what it was like to really be involved in a war, even if you were not in the service. We could not do that now, because about 2/3s of the military age group cannot qualify physically for the armed forces. Pretty discouraging and sad.

 

I didn't know that 2/3rds of our young people can't physically meet the qualifications. Looking at my generation , we walked a lot, rode our bicycles a lot , did hard work because there was no other way to get it done by a hired person because we either couldn't pay for it or we were simply expected to do it. The Depression forced some kids to shoulder things that we wouldn't have thought about. We were outside a lot and played sports. There was no TV, smart phones, ear buds, i pads, or computers ,so you were entertained by the radio and outside activities . Few of the young people had cars and those who did usually put them together from a collection of parts or rebuilt cars that were thrown away. Today, companies find that a great number of new hires have little experience in the use of tools and know little about mechanical things. Different times now and not good.

 

Bob- During that time a very large portion of the population still lived on farms and even those who did not led a much healthier lifestyle, like you said. Trying to draft out of the current generation would be very tough. Plus many of them are not mentally tough enough to put up with military training, much less combat.

 

Most of my high school buddies went in to the service and a few never came back but those who did classified it as a great adventure and hardly ever talked about it. Those from the Marine Corps were affected the most, I think, because they were in the first wave in several beach assaults and saw some heavy action. I knew several that were on Guadalcanal and they had some harrowing stories but again put on the back page. Overall, though, I don't think that there will ever be another scenario like WW2. It was so all encompassing and had such a nation changing effect that it shaped us forever.

 

Something that has always amazed me is the immediate transformation of clerks, farm boys, and school boys into a military force that eventually beat an enemy that had been trained for a decade or more in the art of warfare. Kasserine Pass wasn't the best start but it didn't take long for us to figure it out. I wondered where the drill instructors and hard nosed generals came from all of a sudden. What and how was the determination and sacrifice instilled into the brave souls that assaulted the beaches on D-Day and the islands in the Pacific? The bomber crews in 1942 and 1943 that faced the deadly onslaught of the Luftwaffe and went out day after day to get shot up. I knew many of them and they were obviously affected by their experiences but continued to live in the same world with everyone else. I could write a book about the freshman class at Duke in 1945-46. It was unlike any freshman class that ever was assembled at the school. It was the ex-military service going to college with every branch represented and thousands of stories about their past three years in action.

 

This was a great read this morning because of the creativity and perhaps optimism and grit described. Thank you to all posting.

I just had a long conversation yesterday about the removal of industrial arts from HS curricula. I think some (a lot) of the population thinks in 3D and/or wants to work some with their hands, still. But phones and pads are a poor substitute. There are membership spaces now that have CNCs, metal lathes, all kinds of cool but you have to choose to go experience it.

 

Great question. We owe an immeasurable debt to them. That's for sure.

 

I've always thought it's a bit of a shame that so many didn't talk about it. I understand the psychological trauma of it, but by not talking about their experiences, so many stories, lessons, etc were never recorded and are thus lost forever.