30 Jan 2019 - USS Lexington

30 Jan 2019
It's really nice not having a schedule packed full here at Corpus Christi.  We are here for 12 nights and plan to pace ourselves with the touring.  We have some rain moving in so we decided to postpone visiting the Padre Island National Seashore until we have some sunshine at a minimum.  There is a museum and a few other stops on Padre Island and some more sights in downtown Corpus also.

 Today we headed downtown to tour the USS Lexington, a World War II aircraft carrier.   We parked across the street and walked to the shuttle that takes you up the long walkway to the ship. 

A-4B Skyhawk at the entrance to the park.  Shuttle in the background

As we entered the Hangar Deck of the ship it was obvious they have done an outstanding job of maintaining and preparing the ship for visitors.  The smell of fresh paint was everywhere, and the ship's brass was polished!

The USS Lexington tour consists of 11 decks and over 250,000 sq ft.  It was built in 1943 and served for over 40 years.  In 1990 to USS Lexington was retired as the last WWII aircraft carrier in the US Navy.  In 1992 Corpus Christi was awarded the USS Lexington designated as a museum and naval memorial and in 1992 was towed to it's permanent site here.

We were greeted by a very friendly tour guide who we later found out was waiting for a large school group.  He pointed us in the right direction to start, which was the 3D Mega Theater movie that was just starting.  We were issued 3D glasses to wear and entered the theater.  The movie was not specifically about the Lexington but more so aircraft carriers in general, including modern day.  The 3D experience really added to the visual impact.

After the movie we started the tour, which is broken down and color-coded into five categories, in the order we did them. I took almost 200 pictures and will try to limit what is posted here :-) .  Disclaimer - these may not be in the exact areas, but should be close:

Tour 1 - Flight deck:  
Aircraft, arresting gear, navigation bridge

5 inch 38 caliber guns on the deck

Inside the gun turret

T-34C Turbomentor

A-4B Skyhawk

A-7B Corsair II.  We had the A-7D and A-7K at the Des Moines Air National Guard base when I first joined

A-6E Intruder

KA-3B Sky Warrior

Doreen freezing on the flight deck!

 

One end of one of the arresting gears used to stop the aircraft when they landed

 There were many other aircraft on the flight deck, but we can't post all of the pictures here.

The Lex was very active during World War II in the South Pacific

The pilot house from the flight deck

The chart house - navigator and quartermaster work here

Inside the pilot house

Looking out the side of the pilot house to the flight deck

The flight deck.  I cannot image landing an aircraft on this!

Tour 5 - Hangar Deck: 
Engine displays, Fantail, Simulators, Mess Deck, Ship Store, WWII Aircraft

Jet engine cutaway display

Radial engine cutaway

Drone diosplay

Chief at the trigger - Aerial gunner!

Would put a lot of lead down range in a short order

A huge scale model of the USS South Dakota in incredible detail

Tour 3 - Gallery Deck: 
Various cabins, Combat Info Center, Library and Ready Rooms

Various displays of equipment and memoribilia

Tour 4 - Lower Decks:  
Chapel, Crew Quarters, Dental, Engine Room, Sick Bay, Texas Navy

Enlisted Barber Shop

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Memorial wall for those killed during a Japanese kamikaze attack in 5 Nov 1944

Berthing (sleeping) areas

Aircraft petroleum firefighting foam (aqueous film forming foam)

I would love to have this machine shop in my basement!

One of the turbines

My sister's husband was assigned to the USS Bennington during Vietnam and worked here.

Mess hall.  Plastic chow looks good enough to eat.... almost!

Food prep area.  

Dining area

POW remembrance table

Dental clinic

A tribute to the Texas navy from the early 1800's

Tour 2 - Foc'sle:  
Pearl Harbor exhibit, anchor system, officer & junior officer quarters and CV-2

An awesome movie about Pearl Harbor with added graphics

 

The anchor chain exiting the hull.  Not a good picture to illustrate the size of the chain links - as big around as my arm

A knot display - grand kids would love this!

Bottom line is this is one of the nicest military war ship displays I've seen.  It is immaculate and the displays are outstanding.  There was an elevator to get us from the hangar deck to the flight deck, but even with that there were a ton of stairs and ship's ladders to climb for Doreen.  I hope she can walk tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, that's it for tonight.  Was a great day.  Now we will see what tomorrow brings in Corpus Christi TX!