USS Lexington (CV-2)

USS Lexington (CV-2), which her crews called the Lady Lex, was one of the United States Navy's first two aircraft carriers, converted from a battlecruiser hull under the Washington Naval Treaty and commissioned in 1927. Through the 1930s she helped shape American carrier doctrine in the annual Fleet Problems, and in early 1942 her air group struck Japanese positions in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands and raided Lae and Salamaua in New Guinea. In May 1942 she joined Yorktown in the Coral Sea to turn back the Japanese thrust toward Port Moresby. On 8 May, in the first carrier battle in history, her aircraft helped sink the light carrier Shoho, but Lexington herself was hit by two torpedoes and two bombs. Her damage-control parties restored her to full speed, and the battle seemed survived — until leaked fuel vapours ignited and a series of internal explosions shook the ship. She was abandoned that afternoon and sunk by torpedoes from the destroyer USS Phelps, the first American fleet carrier ever lost in combat. Shokaku's damage and Zuikaku's air losses kept both Japanese carriers away from Midway a month later.