On August 29, 1990, the Navy announced that the aircraft carrier “USS Lexington” was to be decommissioned. The news was a blow to our “Homeport” at Ingleside where the Lexington was to have been permanently based. Almost immediately, a task force of Corpus Christi leaders was formed in an effort to bring the historic ship to the city as a floating museum. But at least four other cities….Miami, Pensacola, Mobile, and Quincy, Massachusetts….were thinking the same thing, and the competition was on! The Lexington officially left the fleet on November 8, 1991.
The USS Lexington (the 7th U.S. Navy ship to bear that name) was commissioned in 1943 and saw extensive battle action in the Pacific during World War II. Japan’s “Tokyo Rose” reported the Lexington sunk at least four times during the war….earning her the nickname, “The Blue Ghost”.
After the war, she was mothballed until undergoing an extensive modernization in the early 1950s and rejoining the fleet in 1955. In 1962, the Lexington served as part of the naval blockade of Cuba during the “Missile Crisis”. That December, her mission was changed from a combat vessel to an aircraft training vessel. For the next 29 years, the USS Lexington would be used to qualify student aviators for carrier landings.
I was privileged to make an arrested landing on the Lexington on September 21, 1989 as part of the “Civilian Orientation Program”. I spent the day on the carrier watching takeoffs and landings, and visiting with the pilots and crew members. When she was decommissioned in 1991 she was the oldest surviving fleet carrier in the world and the last of America’s operating World War II aircraft carriers. In August 1980, the USS Lexington also became the first carrier in U.S. Naval history to have women serve aboard as crew members.
The competition to land the Lexington as a floating museum ended on January 23, 1992, when the Navy announced that the ship had been awarded to the city of Corpus Christi. In the next few months, the ship was made ready to be moved from Pensacola.
Meanwhile, the city proceeded to prepare a berth for the ship on North Beach. In May, a 25-foot-deep hole was dredged just north of the North Beach jetty, into which the ship was to be berthed. Then, on June 16, five huge tugboats would tow the Lexington from its temporary berth at Naval Station Ingleside 11 miles across the bay to its permanent berth.
Thousands of spectators watched the move across the bay from their spots along the seawall, on North Beach, or from their high-rise office buildings. The Lexington would have no mooring lines. Once the ship was moved into position over the hole, 1.6 million gallons of water (treated with a rust inhibitor) were pumped into the ship’s fuel tanks, sinking the hull to the bottom. An additional 5 million gallons were then pumped in, increasing the ship's weight from 33,000 tons to 55,000 tons.
As a final measure, 87,000 cubic yards of clay were dredged from the ship channel and placed around the perimeter of the ship. Not even the most powerful hurricane would be able to dislodge the ship from its permanent berth.
Once the ship was secured in place, construction of an entrance ramp got underway. For the next 3 months, the ship was made ready for visitors. The first visitors (myself included) came aboard the Lex on October 14, 1992. A Grand Opening Ceremony and Dedication was to take place on November 14.
That story is coming in Part II.
(The USS Lexington Museum responded to this article with corrections to the above article. With respect to their wishes, we have published their corrections to this story here:
There are only 5 US Navy Ships that have had the name USS Lexington,
The 1917 USS Lexington II was a patrol boat, and while it does share a name, it was not officially commissioned the USS Lexington.
The 1922 CC-1 USS Lexington, a Lexington Class Battle Cruiser, was later converted to an Aircraft carrier and was redesignated CV-2 USS Lexington, a Lexington class Aircraft Carrier as part of the Washington Naval Conference Treaties. It was actually the same ship.)
https://usslexington.com/about-the-uss-lexington/the-ship/
Robert Parks is a special contributor to KRIS 6 News. Parks was a history teacher at Carroll High School for 19 years and is now retired. His knowledge of Corpus Christi history makes him a unique expert in the subject.
