USS Lexington 1942
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Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | USS Lexington | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1942 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | aircraft carrier, battlecruiser | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Scuttled | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | United States | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | United States Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War II, Battle of the Coral Sea | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | Coral Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Position | -15.3333, 155.5000 | Wikidata P793 significant event, coordinate qualifier (CC0) |
About the wreck
USS Lexington (hull number CV-2), nicknamed "Lady Lex", was the name ship of her class of two aircraft carriers built for the United States Navy during the 1920s. Originally designed as a Lexington-class battlecruiser, she was converted into one of the Navy's first aircraft carriers during construction to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which essentially terminated all new battleship and battlecruiser construction. The ship entered service in 1928 and was assigned to the Pacific Fleet for her entire career. Lexington and her sister ship, Saratoga, were used to develop and refine carrier tactics in a series of annual exercises before World War II. On more than one occasion these included successfully staged surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The ship's turbo-electric propulsion system allowed her to supplement the electrical supply of Tacoma, Washington, during a drought in late 1929 to early 1930. She also delivered medical personnel and relief supplies to Managua, Nicaragua, after an earthquake in 1931.
Lexington was at sea when the Pacific War began on 7 December 1941, ferrying fighter aircraft to Midway Island. Her mission was canceled and she returned to Pearl Harbor a week later.
Diving & visiting
Lexington's wreck was located on 4 March 2018 by research vessel Petrel during an expedition funded by philanthropist Paul Allen. A remotely operated underwater vehicle confirmed the ship's identity by the nameplate on its stern. It lies at a depth of 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) and at a distance of more than 800 kilometers (500 mi) east off the coast of Queensland. The wreck lies on the seabed separated into multiple sections. The main section sits upright on the seabed; the bow rests flat with the stern sitting upright across from it, both approximately 500 meters (1,600 ft) west of the main section. The bridge rests by itself in between these sections.
Location
- Recorded position: -15.3333, 155.5000 (Wikidata P793 significant event, coordinate qualifier (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Coral Sea
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article USS Lexington (CV-2) (revision 1378898112), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Wreck location”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Other wrecks of the World War II
- U-434 1941
- USS Arizona (BB-39) 1941
- USS Hopewell 1941
- Vasilefs Georgios 1941
- Zara 1941
- Akagi 1942
- Aviere 1942
- Diana 1942
- Giovanni delle Bande Nere 1942
- HMAS Nestor 1942
All 599 wrecks of the World War II →
Browse more: Open ocean wrecks · Coral Sea · Second World War