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"Lady Lex": The USS Lexington (CV-2)

Good article on the CV-2's career, and some related value-added info.

Here's more about a "Lady Lex" SBD pilot that shot down 5 Japanese aircraft at the Battle of Coral Sea in a previous post.

Talyn

Thread 'How a ‘Dauntless’ dive bomber became a WWII ace at Coral Sea'

Lt. Edward “Butch” O’Hare, the F4F-3 Wildcat pilot whose five aerial victories in defense of the carrier Lexington on Feb. 20, 1942, made him both the Navy’s first World War II fighter ace and its first WWII aviator to receive the Medal of Honor.

Meanwhile, hard on O’Hare’s heels in Lexington lore was a Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless team whose activities seemed just as much devoted to fighters as to dive bombers.

www.airforcetimes.com

How a ‘Dauntless’ dive bomber became a WWII ace at Coral Sea

Navy pilot John Leppla was credited with shooting down five Japanese aircraft in aerial combat before he was shot down and declared Missing in Action.
www.airforcetimes.com www.airforcetimes.com

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The flight deck...​

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Another previous post on the Lexington's sister ship the USS Saratoga (CV-3) that carried on through WW2 and unfortunately ended up as a sacrifice ship at Bikini Atoll.

Talyn

Thread 'From The Archives: Aircraft Carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3) Launched 100 Years Ago'

Built to carry 72 aircraft with the most powerful engines ever put into a vessel, the USS Saratoga (CV-3)—the U.S. Navy’s first “fast” aircraft carrier—was launched at the New York Shipbuilding Corp. shipyard in Camden, New Jersey, on April 7, 1925.

Saratoga was a Lexington-class aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy during the 1920s which entered service in 1928. She was originally laid down as a battlecruiser, but was changed to an aircraft carrier to comply with the Washington Naval Treaty. Built at a cost of $45 million ($8.2 billion in current dollars), the...
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And CV-2's namesake, the Essex Class carrier, USS Lexington CV-16's career.

Talyn

Thread 'Lady Lex Clocks in to Cap TH-57 Career'

The Essex-class fleet carrier USS Lexington (CV/CVA/CVS/CVT/AVT 16) had a legendary service career.

The fifth American warship to carry the name, she was commissioned in 1943 and took the name of CV-2, which had been lost just nine months prior– like a phoenix of old. Lexington went on to collect the Presidential Unit Citation and 11 battle stars for her World War II Pacific service.

After receiving her angled deck and new catapults in 1953, she continued to serve with the fleet through the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then, in January 1962, she transitioned to the Atlantic to...
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While the author stated that the CV-16 USS Lexington had a higher number....

Although her surviving sister ships — including the USS Yorktown (CV-10), USS Intrepid (CV-11), and USS Hornet (CV-12) have lower hull numbers, CV-16 was laid down and commissioned earlier,...

He didn't mention the reason. It is (from Wikipedia)....

The ship was laid down as Cabot on 15 July 1941 by Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. In May 1942, USS Lexington (CV-2), which had been built in the same shipyard two decades earlier, was sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea.
In June, workers at the shipyard submitted a request to Navy Secretary Frank Knox to change the name of a carrier currently under construction there to Lexington. Knox agreed to the proposal and Cabot was renamed Lexington on 16 June 1942.
 
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