Visited USS Lexington Aircraft Carrier Museum, Corpus Christi with three colleagues of mine from Shanghai - Leo, Wu Tao and William.
The USS Lexington was one of the US Navy aircraft carriers built during World War II and was the oldest remaining aircraft carrier in the world. It was also made famous as the filming scene for the movie Pearl Harbour.
The USS Lexington was nicknamed the "Blue Ghost" as it was painted dark blue - being the only aircraft carrier that did not wear a camouflage. Also, several Japanese have reported the USS Lexington to have sunk on four different occasions but then only to return and fight again.
The place where the Japanese flag was shown was where the Japanese Kamikaze plane hit and destroyed most of the structure and causing fire to spread in all directions. The fire was under control within 20 minutes - this should be one of the occasion when the Japanese declared her destroyed.
Aircrafts were actually launched using the catapult system on the aircraft carrier. The photo below shows the system which was situated directly under the flight deck.
F-18 Hornet
F-14 Tomcat
"State-of-the-art" communication device
This was where the crew slept. Can you imagine that? Life is tough on a ship.
Main control room
During World War II, on each ship, an officer was chosen to be the censor. The censor had the unique task of reading each and every piece of mail that left the ship. If a letter contained information that was considered classified, he blackened the inappropriate words and mailed the letter.
GPS Coordinate:
27°48'53.37"N 97°23'19.72"W
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