When searching for longevity in aircraft carrier performance, one need look no further than the former USS Lexington, now a museum in Corpus Christi Bay, Texas. Her active service lasted so long that she ran through an alphabet soup of hull numbers: CV-16, CVA-16, CVS-16, CVT-16, and AVT-16. They reflected her changing roles over the years, beginning with service as an attack carrier, later as an antisubmarine carrier, and finally as the training platform for at least two generations of naval aviators.
Her career began with commissioning in 1943 and combat service throughout the remainder of World War II. She and her sisters of the Essex (CV-9) class formed the core of the striking force that carried the war through the Central Pacific campaign and then to the Japanese Home Islands. The "Lex" was Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher's flagship as he commanded the fast-carrier striking force during two great air-sea battles of 1944: "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" in June and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October.
"Pete" Mitscher had been a naval aviator since 1916 and was involved in many of the advances in the art over the years. As task force commander in World War II, he habitually sat in a high swivel chair on the port side of the Lexington's flag bridge and faced the stern. Some speculated that he had been looking ahead for so long he now wanted to see where he had been. Others suggested he enjoyed seeing planes land after they had successfully completed their missions. Mitscher himself finally offered an explanation: "Only a damned fool would ride with his face in the wind."
My own exposure to Mitscher's former flagship came more than a quarter century after he had left. In the summer of 1971, I served as part of her crew for two weeks during my annual Naval Reserve active duty. It was intriguing to observe her physical characteristics long after her heyday had passed. Since 1962 she had been home-ported in Pensacola, Florida, from which she got under way frequently in the Gulf of Mexico so aviators in both primary and advanced training could achieve their carrier-landing qualifications.
Her crew of 1,300 was a fraction of its former self because she no longer needed weapons or plane-support personnel such as mechanics. She had been stripped of her gun mounts and had no ordnance in her magazines or armory beyond a few small arms. Her crew comprised engineers to run the propulsion plant, men to handle planes on the flight deck, and enough extras to carry on functions such as communications, radar, administration, and the feeding of the crew. She was only partially air-conditioned, so temperatures in the engineering spaces often exceeded 100 degrees. Crewmen had to use ingenuity at times to find relatively cool places to sleep—especially during summer in the gulf.
Because of her age, she had become the beneficiary of what one would call recycling, or perhaps cannibalism. In her engine room was an electrical generator that had been scavenged from the battleship Washington (BB-56), a near-contemporary that had been scrapped. In an engine room was a reduction gear taken from sister ship Franklin (CV-13), a carrier that had been badly damaged by Japanese bombs in 1945 and not returned to service.
Because of her ready availability and short trips into the Gulf of Mexico, the Lexington was often the hostess for visitors getting an exposure to Navy life. While in port, she was habitually moored with her starboard side against a wharf in Pensacola, and that side was kept in fine condition. The port side, normally away from public viewing, was another story. It presented a picture of running rust and weathered gray paint.
Some crew members with whom I talked in 1971 liked her existence as a training carrier because she offered stability and predictability. The ship was never going to deploy again, so one could count on staying in the area to be with family members. For other crewmen, that same schedule could be a damper on fulfilling the famous recruiting promise: "Join the Navy and see the world." One officer articulated the ship's role as necessary but also unglamorous. As he put it: "We're out in the backwaters of the Navy. We're listed with the fleet auxiliaries, right under the YOGs." (YOG is the Navy's designation for a gasoline barge.)
The Lexington's mission carried a monotonous degree of sameness. Day after day after day she trapped planes with the arresting wires at her stern and then launched them to go around and land again. When I was there, she was closing in on 300,000 arrested landings for her service life, but she still had many productive years ahead. The ship's final trap—number 493,248—was achieved on 8 March 1991 by Lieutenant Kathy Owens.
In November 1991, the Lexington was decommissioned. She was leaving a Navy that was far different from the one she had joined nearly a half-century earlier—different in mission, different in weaponry, and different in personnel. The following year she began her current role as a source of information and hands-on experience for the visitors who come to learn about her past. The ship's longevity continues.