Outside the U.S.S. Lexington
February 8th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
February 8th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Class wasn’t in session Wednesday so we went to the beach a couple of hours early. Just south of Corpus Christi Beach is the U.S.S. Lexington, an aircraft carrier that had been converted to a museum. I was too cheap to buy a ticket and didn’t have enough time to see the whole thing, so we walked on the spit alongside the ship and took some cool pictures.
Outside the ship there was a 3in/50 deck gun, a 30000-lb anchor similar to the one carried on the Lexington, and a couple of floating mines. I did not dare to see if they were harmless. 
February 8th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
The “Lady Lex” replaced the USS Lexington that was sunk during the Battle of Coral Sea. She had an amazing tour of duty during WW II. Wikipedia gives the highlights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lexington_%28CV-16%29 . I grew up with the USS Lexington which ended her distinguished career as the training carrier for the US Navy. She was stationed in Pensacola, Florida. I spent many an hour on her, and in her, as a guest at numerous functions hosted by her officers. My dad, a Lutheran school principal, in Pensacola, had many Navy kids and we got invited out to the carrier a lot. I also got to go on two dependents day cruises on her and watch launch and recovery operations from her deck. Amazing.
Now, get this. Imagine that ship submerged 600 meters underwater and that is the size of a nuclear submarine today.
February 8th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Very cool, Pastor. Thanks.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I see we have the gun picture definition is updated to “3in/50″. Don’t forget to update the text above the pictures.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Fixed, thanks.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Ya know, now that you made all these changes… if anyone is confused by the ‘/50′ it would be just as correct to simply note “3in”. The 3in deck gun came in two barrel versions. The second was called 3in/50 to distinguish it from the original 3in gun, which was 55 calibers long. I must not be very busy today…
February 14th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Hey… was looking at your pictures form the Rockies. Some are close to my old stomping grounds. {sigh}
February 7th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Well, now I’m exploring your blog. I noted the push pins on the map near where I was a pastor at my last civilian congregation (Rockport, TX). One of the members at my church was a docent on the Lex. Through him, I made a contact that let me go out on the Harry S. Truman for two days! We flew out on a COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery) which was a C-2 so we got to experience a deck landing and catapault take off.
We also got a full tour of the working ship–including the flight deck during F/A-18 operations.
Anyone can request such an experience (and many are granted!) Just contact Navy Public Affairs. Their big thing is that the experience gets publicized–you could use this blog as evidence that you’d be able to publicize the trip.
The young sailors working on the ships don’t get much press because no one gets to see what they do, so the Navy has this program to help America see them hard at work.