Tag Archives: CV-2

Don’t hold your breath for more great wreck finds from R/V Petrel

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In the past few years, the research vessel R/V Petrel has been combing the Pacific to find and document the most famous lost warships of WWII. This included the carriers USS Hornet, Wasp, and Lexington as well as the mighty USS Indianapolis and the first destroyer to fire a shot at Pearl Harbor, USS Ward. Added to this were the Japanese Asagumo, Fuso, Michishio, Yamagumo, and Yamashiro along with the doomed carriers Kaga and Akagi.

Well, that long series of discoveries is hitting the pause button, if not the full-stop.

From the vessel’s social media:

The impact of the COVID-19 crisis has changed the world for the long term in ways that we never could have imagined.

As a result of operational challenges from the pandemic, R/V Petrel will be placed into long-term moorage and she will not be deployed for the foreseeable future.

We were tasked with a monumental mission – discover, educate, and honor – and we’re hopeful we will eventually be back in service.

Lady Lex still has one of the most amazing airwings in the world

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Paul Allen keeps doing it. This time, his research ship, Petrel, has located the final resting place of USS Lexington (CV-2), the nation’s first real fleet carrier.

“On March 5th 2018, the research vessel RV Petrel, led by billionaire Paul Allen, discovered the wreck of Lexington during an expedition to the Coral Sea. She lies at nearly 2 miles below the surface and 500 miles off the coast of Eastern Australia. An ROV confirmed the identity of the wreck by finding her nameplate on her stern. She lies in three sections. The main section lies upright. A mile to the west, the bow and stern sections lie across from each other, with the bridge lying by itself between the three sections. Further to the west, a concentration of aircraft consisting of seven Douglas TBD-1 Devastators, three Douglas SBD Dauntlesses, and a single Grumman F4F Wildcat was also located.”

Note the lifeboat panel behind the cockpit has popped free

 

The F4F-3 of Ens. Dale W. Peterson and later Lt Albert Butch Vorse. Fox-5 was a VF-2 ship, transferred in from VF-3, and the deck crews did not have time to over-paint Felix during the Battle of the Coral Sea..

More on the importance of this particular F4F from NHHC here.

TBD Tare-3 of Vt-2 flown by Ensign N. A. Sterrie USNR who claimed a hit on the carrier Shoho during second attack. Tare-4 flown by Lt. R. F. Farrington USN who claimed a hit during first attack. This is amazing as there are only four known TBDs in existance anywhere in the world– all crashed. Only 130 were made and 35 lost at Midway alone

TBD Tare-5. Dig the meatball.

Here are a list of the Aircraft that went down with Lexington:

TBD-1 271 VT-2
TBD-1 273 VT-2
TBD-1 275 VT-2
TBD-1 290 VT-2
TBD-1 291 VT-2
TBD-1 300 VT-2
TBD-1 313 VT-2
TBD-1 320 VT-2
TBD-1 339 VT-2
TBD-1 346 VT-2
TBD-1 1514 VT-2
TBD-1 1516 VT-2
SBD-2 2104 VB-2
SBD-2 2113 VB-2
SBD-2 2115 VB-2
SBD-2 2116 VB-2
SBD-2 2121 VB-2
SBD-2 2127 VB-2
SBD-2 2143 VB-2
SBD-2 2157 VB-2
SBD-2 2163 VB-2
SBD-2 2176 VB-2
SBD-2 2186 VB-2
SBD-2 2188 VB-2
F4F-3A 3964 VF-3
F4F-3 3976 VF-3
F4F-3 3978 VF-3
F4F-3 3979 VF-3
F4F-3 3981 VF-3
F4F-3 3982 VF-3
F4F-3 3986 VF-3
F4F-3 3987 VF-3
F4F-3 3993 VF-3
F4F-3 4003 VF-3
F4F-3 4005 VF-3
F4F-3 4016 VF-3
F4F-3 4021 VF-3
F4F-3 4035 VF-3
SBD-3 4534 VS-2
SBD-3 4537 VS-2
SBD-3 4557 VS-2
SBD-3 4623 VS-2
SBD-3 4631 VS-2
SBD-3 4632 VS-2
SBD-3 4633 VS-2
SBD-3 4638 VS-2
SBD-3 4641 VS-2
SBD-3 4655 VB-2

Update, four years later, by Mickeen Hogan (thanks, Mickeen!)

Dear LastStandZombieIsland,

I really like all you do for the military. However, I believe there are some errors in your post about the Lexington Aircraft. Here is the information I have:

  1. F-5 that was found near Lexington was not the plane Dale Peterson flew on Feb 20 1942. The Wildcat Peterson flew on Feb 20 1942 is BuNo. 4009 F-5 on Feb 20 1942, that was Onia “Burt” Stanley’s assigned aircraft (info via Stanley’s Logbook). On March 14, 1942 BuNo 4009 was “sold” to VF-42 on USS Yorktown. However, it had an engine failure and ditched on the way to Yorktown, pilot Walt Haas was ok. Burt Stanley thought the accident was caused by the plane being “offended” by the VF-42 pilot (source Capt. Stanley’s Diary).

The Wildcat labeled F-5 is Albert “Scoop” Vorse’s assigned plane, but has Noel Gayler’s name on it, it means this was formerly Gayler’s assigned plane, BuNo. 3986 side number “F-13” when VF-3 was aboard Lexington in Feb 1942 (it was flown by John Thach on Feb 20 1942). When VF-2 came back aboard Lexington in Mid-April VF-3 transferred 3986 to VF-2 and VF-2 renumbered it from F-13 to F-5, note the overpainted 13 is faintly visible. They didn’t have time to personalize it for Vorse or overpaint Felix. This info is in John Lundstrom’s First Team. A lot of people also incorrectly said its former number was F-1 because Gayler flew F-1, however F-1 was Thach’s assigned plane not Gayler’s, meaning F-1 would have Thach’s name on it. Since this plane has Gayler’s name on it, it would be the former F-13.

  1. Of the 8 VF-2 Wildcats that sank the deck of Lexington, the only known one is 3986 “F-5”. Of the 21 Wildcats, 1 was lost May 7 in aerial combat, another 5 were lost in aerial combat on May 8, and another one disappeared on May 8, all of these crews (Baker, Rinehart, Mason, Peterson, Clark, Rowell, and Bull) were KIA or MIA. Six of the Wildcats (one BuNo 4031 the aircraft Butch O’Hare flew on his Bomber a Minute Mission) landed on Yorktown and survived. It is unknown (aside from 3986) which BuNos sank with Lexington. All of the BuNos lost in the air are unknown. A better idea to arrange it would be to put F4F 3986 “F-5” as confirmed and put the rest as having possibly sank with Lexington.

A Yorktown Wildcat (BuNo 2531) also sank with Lexington.

TBD 0345, not 0346 is in VT-2 for Coral Sea. See history card for 0345 received by VT-2 October 3 1941.TBD 0273 “T10” ditched (see below in document). Its crew Thornhill, Heldoorn and Glover got into their raft but are still MIA. The TBD T4 is on is T9 not T3. It fooled me until I looked closely.

SBD-2 2188 “B-13” crashed overboard at 1133 hours, log from the Air Operation officer included below. Go to “Report Of Air Operations Officer Dated May 13 1942”.  https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/logs/CV/cv2-Coral.html#pageC1

For Scouting 2 I included a document I made below, the people who gave me this information used the actual Scouting 2 report. One error though does appear to be in the report, it says Ault and Butler disappeared in SBD-3 4531 “S-11”, the discovery of the Lexington showed SBD 4531 as sunk with Lexington.

Reason why a lot of the internet says things like SBD 2188 sank with Lexington is a book that used the Master’s USN Overseas Loss document, this document is full of errors and cannot be trusted. I have a Fold3 account and can pull some records if you want some.

All the best,

Mickeen

Warship Wednesday, October 24

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1866-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  October 24

Here we see a mock up of the 1912 type US Navy battle cruiser CC-1 as mocked up by Robert Pawling.  In 1911, battlecruisers were the rage in the modern navies of the world. Great Britain had the Invincible class and was designing the HMS Hood. Japan was looking at the Kongo class. The Kaiser of Imperial Germany had the Moltke-class and looking to build the Derrflinger class.

With all of the peer pressure, the United States decided they needed a half-dozen of  their own. Original designs included ships with as many as 24 boilers to keep them fast enough (35-knots) to outrun battleships, and a heavy armament up to 10 14-inch guns to destroy anything too fast to outrun. By 1916 it had been decided to fit these monsters with powerful diesel-electric power-plants that created an amazing 130,000 kW of power. This is impressive when you consider today that the 1000+ foot USS Nimitz class super carriers of today only generate 64,000 kW of power and have to use two nuclear reactors to accomplish that feat. Eight 16-inch/50cal guns, just one fewer than those carried by the Iowa class battleships, was the final armament chosen. They would have been the most impressive six warships of their era.

World War One ended before the battle-cruisers were laid down and only two hulls, Lexington and Saratoga, were finally started in 1921. While under construction the two were a victim of the 1922 Naval Treaty. Battle cruisers were limited but aircraft carriers were allowed. This led the two huge batttlecruisers to be redesigned as large carriers. At over 800-feet long, they were only surpassed in size by the 1945-era Midway supercarriers more than two decades later. They also carried some of the largest guns of any aircraft carrier: eight 203mm (8-inch) naval rifles…making the pair every bit as powerful as a heavy cruiser. In many ways they were ahead of their time.

Saratoga after her 1944 refit, wearing camouflage measure 32 design 11A. Her 8 8-inch guns had been replaced by 16 5-inch guns and 60 40mm Bofors and– giving her the same equivalent AAA firepower of almost five destroyers.

The Lexington and Saratoga were commissioned in 1927 and for most of the pre-WWII era were the primary training and development carriers of the US fleet (the Yorktown class didn’t appear until 1937). During WWII the Lexington was lost in the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Sara won seven battle-stars, had a lifetime total of 98,549 aircraft landings in 17 years and was finally sunk in 1946 as a target for the Atom bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, where she is a popular dive destination.

Specs (as 1922 aircraft carrier)
Displacement:     36,000 long tons (37,000 t) (standard)
47,700 long tons (48,500 t) (deep load)
Length:     888 ft (270.7 m)
Beam:     107 ft 6 in (32.8 m)
Draft:     32 ft 6 in (9.9 m) (deep load)
Installed power:     180,000 shp (130,000 kW)
Propulsion:     4 shafts, 4 sets turbo-electric drive
16 water-tube boilers
Speed:     33.25 knots (61.58 km/h; 38.26 mph) (made 34 on trials, not broken by another US carrier till 1955)
Range:     10,000 nmi (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:     2,791 (including aviation personnel) in 1942
Armament:     4 × 2 – 8-inch guns
12 × 1 – 5-inch anti-aircraft guns
Armor:     Belt: 5–7 in (127–178 mm)
Deck: .75–2 in (19–51 mm)
Gun turrets: .75 in (19 mm)
Bulkheads: 5–7 in (127–178 mm)
Aircraft carried:     78+
Aviation facilities:     1 Aircraft catapult