USS Lexington

I took a tour of the USS Lexington.  It was a self tour, where you just wander around the ship and check everything out.  I knew it was a big ship, but until you get on it and see all the planes it puts it into prospective.  Here is a picture from the front of the ship where they land and take off.  It’s massive, but I couldn’t imagine trying to land a plane in that space.

This ship was the oldest working carrier in the United States Navy when it was decommissioned in 1991.  The Lexington was at Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese reported sinking the Lexington at least 4 times.  Each time it returned to fight again.  This is where the nickname “The Blue Ghost” came from.  Corpus Christi, Texas was selected as the permanent home for the USS Lexington and is now a museum for the public to view.  The flight deck is 90,000 square feet, and the flight deck length is only 910 feet.  It holds 1,550 crew members of men and women.  During WWII there was 3,000.