She earned her nickname the hard way. The Japanese military reported her sunk no fewer than four times during World War II. Yet, the USS Lexington (CV-16)-now floating permanently in Corpus Christi bay-just kept showing up. Tokyo Rose called her "The Blue Ghost" because she wore a dark, non-reflective blue camouflage paint scheme instead of the standard gray. On November 5, 1944, a kamikaze pilot slammed his Zero fighter directly into her island superstructure. Fire consumed the deck. It killed 50 men. But her crew put out the flames in twenty minutes. Within hours, her planes were flying again. That relentless grit defined her carrier group's push across the Pacific, from Tarawa to Kwajalein and finally to Tokyo Bay.
She didn't retire after the war. In fact, she kept working for nearly another half-century. The Navy converted her to a training carrier in 1962. Generations of green naval aviators earned their tailhook wings on her wooden flight deck. Some of those pilots later flew in Vietnam and the Gulf War. By the time the Navy finally decommissioned her in 1991, she had logged over 48 years of active service. That is longer than any other Essex-class carrier in US history. Actually, she also holds the world record for the most aircraft landings on a single deck-nearly 493,000 traps. Today, she sits as a massive, floating museum. Walking through her dark engine rooms and narrow companionways today makes you realize just how massive this steel city really is. It isn't just about the scale, though. It's about the sheer survival.
