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USS ''Lexington'' (CV-2), nicknamed "Lady Lex",〔Groom, p. 203〕 was an early aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy. She was the lead ship of the ; her only sister ship, , was commissioned a month earlier. Originally designed as a 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 ''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 cancelled and she returned to Pearl Harbor a week later. After a few days, she was sent to create a diversion from the force en route to relieve the besieged Wake Island garrison by attacking Japanese installations in the Marshall Islands. The island was forced to surrender before the relief force got close enough, and the mission was cancelled. A planned attack on Wake Island in January 1942 had to be cancelled when a submarine sank the oiler required to supply the fuel for the return trip. ''Lexington'' was sent to the Coral Sea the following month to block any Japanese advances into the area. The ship was spotted by Japanese search aircraft while approaching Rabaul, New Britain, and her aircraft shot down most of the Japanese bombers that attacked her. Together with the carrier , she successfully attacked Japanese shipping off the east coast of New Guinea in early March. ''Lexington'' was briefly refitted in Pearl Harbor at the end of the month and rendezvoused with ''Yorktown'' in the Coral Sea in early May. A few days later the Japanese began Operation ''Mo'', the invasion of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and the two American carriers attempted to stop the invasion forces. They sank the light aircraft carrier on 7 May during the Battle of the Coral Sea, but did not encounter the main Japanese force of the carriers and until the next day. Aircraft from ''Lexington'' and ''Yorktown'' succeeded in badly damaging ''Shōkaku'', but the Japanese aircraft crippled ''Lexington''. Vapors from leaking aviation gasoline tanks sparked a series of explosions and fires that could not be controlled, and ''Lexington'' had to be scuttled by an American destroyer during the evening of 8 May to prevent her capture. ==Design and construction== ''Lexington'' was the fourth US Navy ship named after the 1775 Battle of Lexington, the first battle of the Revolutionary War.〔 She was originally authorized in 1916 as a , but construction was delayed so that higher-priority anti-submarine vessels and merchant ships, needed to ensure the safe passage of personnel and materiel to Europe during Germany's U-boat campaign, could be built. After the war the ship was extensively redesigned, partially as a result of British experience.〔Friedman 1984, pp. 88, 91, 94, 97–99〕 Given the hull number of CC-1, ''Lexington'' was laid down on 8 January 1921 by Fore River Shipbuilding Company of Quincy, Massachusetts.〔 Before the Washington Naval Conference concluded, the ship's construction was suspended in February 1922, when she was 24.2 percent complete. She was re-designated and re-authorized as an aircraft carrier on 1 July 1922.〔 Her displacement was reduced by a total of , achieved mainly by the elimination of her main armament of eight 16-inch (406 mm) guns in four twin turrets (including their heavy turret mounts, their armor, and other equipment).〔〔Friedman 1984, p. 471〕 The main armor belt was retained, but was reduced in height to save weight.〔Stern, p. 82〕 The general line of the hull remained unaltered, as did the torpedo protection system, because they had already been built, and it would have been too expensive to alter them.〔Stern, p. 28〕 The ship had an overall length of , a beam of , and a draft of at deep load. ''Lexington'' had a standard displacement of and at deep load. At that displacement, she had a metacentric height of .〔 Christened by Mrs. Theodore Douglas Robinson, the wife of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, ''Lexington'' was launched on 3 October 1925. She was commissioned on 14 December 1927 with Captain Albert Marshall in command. By 1942, the ship had a crew of 100 officers and 1,840 enlisted men and an aviation group totaling 141 officers and 710 enlisted men.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「USS Lexington (CV-2)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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