FOUND!!! USS Lexington (CV-2)

[parsifal]

I once read that many of the fittings in the Lex had been installed to a civilian standard, and were easier to knock out due to shock damage. Possibly. Her sister Saratoga showed a propensity to take damage fairly easily as well.

It has also been said on occasion that if the Lex had suffered hits in 1944 similar to those she sustained at Coral sea, she would easily have survived. That is very plausible IMO

 

[tomo pauk]

Looks like the naval warfare in ww2 happened only in Pacific - Lexington was the 1st aircraft carrier that sunk: link
Amazing.

I once read that many of the fittings in the Lex had been installed to a civilian standard, and were easier to knock out due to shock damage. Possibly. Her sister Saratoga showed a propensity to take damage fairly easily as well.

It has also been said on occasion that if the Lex had suffered hits in 1944 similar to those she sustained at Coral sea, she would easily have survived. That is very plausible IMO

Battle damage control learned plenty from 1942 to 1944.
Both Lex and Sara were from 1920s, no wonder their protection lagged behind what was produced after ~1935. Check out how much of punishment was the POW able to sustain vs. Repulse.

 

[MIflyer]

Before we lost the Lady Lex:
The HMS Courageous was sunk on 17 Sep 1939 by a U-boat.
The HMS Glorious was sunk by gunfire from the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on 9 Jun 1940
The HMS Ark Royal was sunk by a U-boat in 1941.
The HMS Hermes was sunk by IJN aircraft on 9 April 1942

The loss of the HMS Glorious was especially absurd. The carrier was supporting the defense of Norway but the captain requested permission to return to England so he could court-martial one of his officers. The ship set out for home with only a destroyer for escort and without putting up air patrols. The Captain died in the sinking, which I guess eliminated the need for his own court-martial.

 

[BiffF15]

Does or did the Devastator have cloth elevators / rudder? From looking at the picture the wrinkles make it appear to be canvas? Would be impressive for cloth to have lasted that long and still hold the paint as well.

Cheers,
Biff

 

[Njaco]

Latest Update is:
7 Devastators
3 Dauntless
1 Wildcat

 

[Capt. Vick]

I know right! I thought the same thing.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Another contributing factor to her loss was the policy of painting. Instead of stripping off the old coat, year after year new coats were applied. It was believed it helped cause a number of explosions and fires later on.

The US's first carrier USS Langley (CV-1) was lost on Feb 27th of 1942 loaded up with crated P-40's IIRC. However she had been converted to a Seaplane tender (AV-3) by then.

 

[Bad-Karma]

I hope this doesn't come across as insensitive but why is she considered a war grave? Were the dead not evaced with the rest of the crew?

 

[MIflyer]

Supposedly the Lex had VT-2 on board and 19 of her TBD's were taken on board the USS Yorktown. Note that before the big FAE that took her out she was unable to launch or receive aircraft due to other damage. 36 airplanes went down with her, 13 of them TBD's.

 

[Njaco]

Note that a number of them have their wings folded. Especially T-4 and T-9

 

[Capt. Vick]

I have not seen a Dauntless picture yet.

 

[MIflyer]

"It has also been said on occasion that if the Lex had suffered hits in 1944 similar to those she sustained at Coral sea, she would easily have survived."

The US Navy had the very great advantage of having some reserve officers who were firefighters in civilian life. They introduced the USN to the latest fire fighting techniques, including the type of nozzle that produced a fine mist. The techniques and equipment went into use during WWII and provided the Navy with vastly superior fire fighting and damage control capabilities.

In the case of the USS Lexington if they had sent someone down to verify that the conditions in the generator compartment were suitable before turning off the nitrogen blanket the ship would not have suffered that massive explosion and would not have sunk. I would guess the USN implemented that policy very soon thereafter.

The largest displacement aircraft carrier in WWII, the IJN Shinano, built on a Yamato Class battleship hull, was lost due to the same problem. The USS Archerfish hit the Shinano with 6 torpedoes while it was on its maiden cruise, en-route to the PI with a load of the new Ohka bombs. But given the armor on that ship 6 torpedo hits was not that big of a problem. Satisfied that things were well in hand, the day after the attack the senior damage control officer turned over the job to a junior officer. The avgas tanks had been ruptured, filling the ship with fumes. The junior officer decided to get rid of the fumes by turning on the blowers; this created the world's biggest FAE. When it detonated that was the end of the ship.

 

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

"It has also been said on occasion that if the Lex had suffered hits in 1944 similar to those she sustained at Coral sea, she would easily have survived."

The US Navy had the very great advantage of having some reserve officers who were firefighters in civilian life. They introduced the USN to the latest fire fighting techniques, including the type of nozzle that produced a fine mist. The techniques and equipment went into use during WWII and provided the Navy with vastly superior fire fighting and damage control capabilities.

In the case of the USS Lexington if they had sent someone down to verify that the conditions in the generator compartment were suitable before turning off the nitrogen blanket the ship would not have suffered that massive explosion and would not have sunk. I would guess the USN implemented that policy very soon thereafter.

The largest displacement aircraft carrier in WWII, the IJN Shinano, built on a Yamato Class battleship hull, was lost due to the same problem. The USS Archerfish hit the Shinano with 6 torpedoes while it was on its maiden cruise, en-route to the PI with a load of the new Ohka bombs. But given the armor on that ship 6 torpedo hits was not that big of a problem. Satisfied that things were well in hand, the day after the attack the senior damage control officer turned over the job to a junior officer. The avgas tanks had been ruptured, filling the ship with fumes. The junior officer decided to get rid of the fumes by turning on the blowers; this created the world's biggest FAE. When it detonated that was the end of the ship.

FAE- when the blowers were turned on to vent the ship, would it have been an electric spark that caused the explosion?

 

[buffnut453]

I hope this doesn't come across as insensitive but why is she considered a war grave? Were the dead not evaced with the rest of the crew?

No. Over 200 personnel went down with the Lexington.

 

[MIflyer]

The blowers assured there was plenty of air to mix with the avgas fumes, creating a Fuel-Air Explosive. Once that condition existed any number of things could have set it off.

As to what they should have done, I don't know. Probably flooded the areas where the gasoline was with seawater and then pumped it all overboard. My High School physics teacher was in the USN before WWII and commanded a seaplane tender going through the Panama Canal on 7 Dec 41. He said they never pumped gasoline directly but would take two identical pumps and hook their drive shafts to each other. Then they would take another pump and use it to pump seawater through one of the connected pumps, making it a motor to drive the other pump, which pumped the fuel. That way the fuel was not in contact with a pump that was being driven by an electric motor, eliminating the possibility that a spark could set it off. I suppose that was a pre-war example of an "explosion proof" pump.

 

[parsifal]

Standard DC procedure these days is to seal off the compartment with the leak, hence the term sealed off airtight passageways ways. In a battle situation, you would make attempts to get the people out of there, before pumping CO2 to a pressure above that of surrounding compartments. containment containment containment is the name of the game.

If there is a fire, you try to keep the latent temperature down and starve the fire of both fuel and oxygen. Easier said than done. Your DC crews will go in and attempt to compartmentalize the fire and then gradually bring each compartment under control by bringing the temperature down.

The other less immediate issue is what to do with all the water that is being used to put the fire out. Water can cause electrical shorts and stability issues so sometime the DC officer in charge will need to make a call to discontinue the efforts to fight the fire, because there is a greater risk of capsize or short circuit. And finally a fire that is supposedly in the process of being put out will often generate a lot more smoke, increasing the

It aint easy folks

 

[XBe02Drvr]

I hope this doesn't come across as insensitive but why is she considered a war grave? Were the dead not evaced with the rest of the crew?

Sometimes in the inferno you have to save the living and let the dead rest. First thing you learn in Shipboard Firefighting in boot camp.
They send 6 of you with a 1 1/2" hose into a forward compartment aboard USS Neversail over a pool of diesel fuel, close the hatch, and touch it off. If one or more of you goes down, the "survivors" evacuate, the fire is quenched by remote control, and instructors retrieve the "victims". Otherwise you use the hose to sweep the fire into a corner and kill it.
I was there not too long after the Oriskany and Forrestal disasters and the Navy was seriously hard core about damage control. Your shipmates are depending on you.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[Juha2]

"It has also been said on occasion that if the Lex had suffered hits in 1944 similar to those she sustained at Coral sea, she would easily have survived."

The US Navy had the very great advantage of having some reserve officers who were firefighters in civilian life. They introduced the USN to the latest fire fighting techniques, including the type of nozzle that produced a fine mist. The techniques and equipment went into use during WWII and provided the Navy with vastly superior fire fighting and damage control capabilities.

In the case of the USS Lexington if they had sent someone down to verify that the conditions in the generator compartment were suitable before turning off the nitrogen blanket the ship would not have suffered that massive explosion and would not have sunk. I would guess the USN implemented that policy very soon thereafter.

The largest displacement aircraft carrier in WWII, the IJN Shinano, built on a Yamato Class battleship hull, was lost due to the same problem. The USS Archerfish hit the Shinano with 6 torpedoes while it was on its maiden cruise, en-route to the PI with a load of the new Ohka bombs. But given the armor on that ship 6 torpedo hits was not that big of a problem. Satisfied that things were well in hand, the day after the attack the senior damage control officer turned over the job to a junior officer. The avgas tanks had been ruptured, filling the ship with fumes. The junior officer decided to get rid of the fumes by turning on the blowers; this created the world's biggest FAE. When it detonated that was the end of the ship.

Now you confuse two different cases, Shinano, hit By 4 US sub torpedoes simply flooded, Taiho was the CV that blow up because of the fuel fumes were spread all over the ship after fatal mistake By a junior damage control officer.

 

[MIflyer]

I read a book specifically on the sinking of the Shinano and it said what I described occurred. Maybe the author researched a whole book and got it wrong.

 

[Juha2]

Both cases are very famous and at least from Morison's series all books I have seen say that Taiho blew up and Shinano capsized after massive flooding, reasons: overconfidence, design flaws and the ship was not complete so there was flaws in watertighteness.