THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • March/April 2018 71 TheCoastalBend.com Coastal BendTour Guide top-left: The first USS Lexington carrier (CV-2) lost in the Battle of the Coral Sea. top-right: Plane landing on the current Lex in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, 1944. middle: Navy flying ace Alexander Vraciu shot down six Japanese bombers on a single mission from the Lex, June 19, 1944. mid-left: Chart room aboard the Lexington Museum. mid-right: U.S. Navy training jet on the flight deck of the Lexington Museum. left: Restored WWII fighter planes on the hanger deck. tanks at the rear of the ship. A makeshift, hand-operated steering system was assem- bled and installed, allowing the USS Lexington to return to port at Pearl Harbor, and live to fight another day. Just two and half months later, she departed the shipyard at Bremerton, Washington, fully repaired and headed back to the South Pacific. Japan’s English-speaking, female radio broadcasters, collectively dubbed Tokyo Rose, reported that the Lexington had been sunk at Kwajalein—the first of four occasions on which the ship would be reported sunk by the famed Japanese propagandists. When the Lexington returned to the battle, she was assigned to the newly formed Fast Carrier Task Force, led by legendary Admiral Marc Mitscher, who took her on as his flagship. Over the months of March and April, 1944, the Lex and its battle group conducted raids on Japanese forces in the Marshall Islands, supported the Army landing on Hollandia, Indonesia, and led the raid on Imperial Japan’s main naval base in the South Pacific, Truk Lagoon in the Chuuk Islands. Even though the Lexington’s pilots downed seventeen enemy aircraft, and suffered no damage throughout the campaign, Tokyo Rose once again reported her sunk. After raiding enemy forces at Saipan on June 11th, the Lexington successfully fought off a fierce attack by Japanese torpedo bombers launched from Guam on the 16th. Nonetheless, in their vain effort to boost moral, Japan’s propagandists reported the Lex sunk for the third time. Knowing that their masterpiece of warfare would once again reemerge after being claimed sunk by the enemy, the ship’s new nickname spread throughout the heroic crew—the“Blue Ghost.” The Battle of the Philippine Sea on the 19th and 20th of June, 1944, represented the Japanese navy’s last major effort to stop the Americans’progress at sea, and was launched in response to the amphibious assault on the Mariana Islands by U.S. Ma- rines. In what would be the biggest carrier-versus-carrier battle in history, and later known as the“Great Marianas Turkey Shoot,”over 300 enemy planes were shot down, including six on a single mission by Navy flying ace, Alexander Vraciu, from the deck of the USS Lexington. The fighting capacity of Japanese naval aviation was all but knocked out and the war in the Pacific took an irreversible turn. Just as satisfying was revenge for the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese aviators three years earlier. In September and October, 1944, the Lexington conducted raids on Guam and in the Philippines, and led attacks on Okinawa, Japan, and on Formosa (now Taiwan). The Battle of Leyte Gulf, Philippines, was the biggest naval battle in world history, and the decisive American victory in the war in the Pacific. Over the last week of October and first twelve days of November, Lexington pilots sank or assisted in the sinking of the enemy’s heaviest battleship and cruiser, along with three aircraft carriers, plus delivered torpedo strikes on three additional cruisers. After destroying the fleeing Japanese heavy cruiser, Nachi, on November 5th, the Lex was struck by a flaming Japanese Zero in a kamikaze attack near the ship’s island structure. A fire ensued and the island sustained moderate damage, but flight opera- tions soon resumed. After the ship’s crew returned to base for repairs, they learned that good ole Tokyo Rose once again declared the Blue Ghost sunk. Over the winter of 1944-45, the Lexington battle group inched closer to the Japanese main islands, conducting multiple raids on places like Okinawa, Formosa, and Hong Kong. By February her pilots were knocking out airfields and industrial plants near Tokyo itself, in support of the landings at Iwo Jima, and in preparation for an all-out land invasion of Japan. After a two-month overhaul at Puget Sound, Washington, the Lex returned to battle in late May, 1945, and participated in raids on Japan’s main islands that destroyed what was left of the Imperial fleet. The war finally ended in August, 1945, following the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Lexington’s final mission of World War II was its role in Operation Magic Carpet in December, ferrying thousands of American servicemen home for good. In the end, the Blue Ghost was the most decorated aircraft carrier in the history of the United States Navy. U.S.S. Lexington Museum by the Bay • 2914 N. Shoreline Blvd. on North Beach