First Anniversary of Finding the Wreck of USS Lexington March 4, 2019

I dedicate this post in memory of those 216 crew who lost their lives on USS Lexington (CV-2), also known as Lady Lex, in World War II during the Battle of the Coral Sea (04 May – 08 May 1942) and on the first anniversary of Lady Lex being found, 04 March 2018. Lady Lex was found by the same group that recently found the USS Hornet (CV-8) Wreck of USS Hornet Found. The post is also dedicated to Paul Allen (1953 – 2018) – https://www.paulallen.com/ who was in charge of the group that has found or explored a number of wrecks over the years – https://www.paulallen.com/?s=&category_type=Expeditions with a few more ships listed on https://www.paulallen.com/?s=&category_type=RV%20Petrel.

You can view more about the expedition at https://www.paulallen.com/uss-lexington-wreck-located-rv-petrel/ or https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/03/06/national/history/paul-allen-led-team-finds-wreckage-wwii-aircraft-carrier-uss-lexington-coral-sea/. Some additional history on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lexington_(CV-2). A number of YouTube videos on finding Lady Lex: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=uss+lexington+wreck.

It’s often difficult to pinpoint where a ship went down. Even if other ships were able to determine latitude and longitude, a ship that sinks deep enough like Lady Lex could easily drift a far distance from where it started sinking. Lady Lex is just under 2 miles (3,000 meters or 9,800 feet) deep. She went down around 19:52 (7:52 P. M. local time) after being torpedoed by the destroyer USS Phelps (DD-360) to prevent her from falling into Japanese hands.