The USS Lexington served during WWII and many years as a training craft for hundreds of pilots. She is moored in Corpus Christi now to allow us to see first hand how these amazing aircraft carriers operated.  Huge elevators move planes from hanger deck to flight deck every 45 seconds.  Craft are catapulted off the deck at over 200MPH every 30 seconds.  At the end of the flight (they call it recovery not landing!) tail hooks snag a cable stretched across the deck, treaded though giant pulleys, and linked to an enormous shock absorber to bring the plane to a stop in less than 300 feet.  All this while folks are shooting at them and their own guns are blazing all around them.  It is hard to imagine what it must be like in the midst of that highly choreographed pandemonium.

We toured from galley to engine room and seaman’s quarters to captains quarters. We checked out the dentist and sick bay and learned much about how damage control personnel responded to catastrophic damage at sea.  I’d have been a terrible sailor with all the places to trip and hit your head and steps so steep they are scary to navigate.  Never mind the cramped quarters and the ever present smell of diesel fuel and grease.  Add to that torpedo and kamikaze strikes……yikes.

Scattered throughout the ship are displays commemorating sister ships and honoring Medal of Honor recipients, collections of model aircraft and ships, tutorials on seafaring flag communication and the evolution of landmines plus lots more. We spent the day and didn’t see it all.

On the lighter side

Any mouse boxes.

Cool socks