Lady Lex Found on the Bottom of The Coral Sea

[Minimalist]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/05/politics/...index.html

Billionaire explorer discovers sunken US WWII aircraft carrier

Wreckage from the USS Lexington -- a US aircraft carrier sunk by the Japanese during World War II -- has been discovered 500 miles off the Australian coast by a team of explorers led by billionaire Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder announced on Monday.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Saved from the wrecker by negotiations at the Washington Naval Conference she and Saratoga were the backbone of US naval aviation for many years.

[Minimalist]

The Japanese converted two battle cruises to carriers, also,  Akagi and Kaga.  Only Saratoga survived the war but she was frequently laid up for the first couple of years of the war.  You'd think that the additional armor on a battle cruiser would have improved their survivability but no.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The Japanese converted two battle cruises to carriers, also,  Akagi and Kaga.  Only Saratoga survived the war but she was frequently laid up for the first couple of years of the war.  You'd think that the additional armor on a battle cruiser would have improved their survivability but no.

It wasn't all applied, of course, and some that was applied was removed to effect the conversion to a carrier, especially in the hangar area. 

https://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pre-war/1922/nav_lim.html

[Minimalist]

Lex was pretty well disabled by torpedo hits and then caught fire.  Akagi and Kaga were also set ablaze by dive bombers.  Our torpedo planes were shit at that stage of the war, virtually flying coffins.  Lex's hull was built at a time when the effectiveness of Japanese torpedoes was unknown.  

I seem to recall a special where they went looking for the sunken carriers of Midway.  They did find Yorktown and one of the Jap carriers, Kaga I think, but they could not find Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu,

[Succubus]

Lex was pretty well disabled by torpedo hits and then caught fire.  Akagi and Kaga were also set ablaze by dive bombers.  Our torpedo planes were shit at that stage of the war, virtually flying coffins.  Lex's hull was built at a time when the effectiveness of Japanese torpedoes was unknown.  

I seem to recall a special where they went looking for the sunken carriers of Midway.  They did find Yorktown and one of the Jap carriers, Kaga I think, but they could not find Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu,

I remember that documentary the surface ship had crew member of both Yorktown and one of the Japanese carriers on board. They said a few words and laid wreaths, quite moving.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Read about this today. Good on Allen for funding the nuts and bolts of historical work.

I'm pretty sure it was a torpedo which sprung Lexington's avgas storage, but the ship flew off and landed planes long after that hit, and several others. I think it was more a matter of damage control at that stage of the war being pretty primitive and unexplored, rather than armor being ineffective. The tank was sprung by shock, not penetration.

[AFTT47]

Paul Allen is my favorite billionaire after Elon Musk.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Paul Allen is my favorite billionaire after Elon Musk.

He's my favorite. a history freak with a taste for Jimi Hendrix ... and a lot of money.