Wreckage of U.S.S. Lexington Found (1 Viewer)

[ivanmoe]

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-06/uss-lexington-found-at-the-bottom-of-the-coral-sea/9517986

Pretty impressive achievement.

The pic of the VF-3 Wildcat is certainly cool.



-Moe

 

[lancer]

Simply amazing that the Wildcat still exhibits such vibrant colors, from the insignia to the two-color camo. Just remarkable. -- Al

 

[Terp152]

Beautiful pic. Perfect shot with the sqdn insignia. Chris

 

[mestell]

Great picture . . . Neat to see Felix the Cat insignia . . . .
:smile2: Mike

 

[theBaron]

Yeah, the aircraft, and the Lex herself, look pretty well preserved. It must have something to do with the depth-about two miles down. Maybe not a lot of oxygen in the water in that area, too.

We can see that the life raft was removed from the Wildcat. Someone probably salvaged it when the order came to abandon ship.

Prost!
Brad

 

[ivanmoe]

Did a little digging, because VF-2 was the squadron assigned to Lexington at the time of the battle. I learned that Squadron commander Ramsey had a problem in the weeks leading up to the engagement. The squadron’s pilot roster had been looted of both planes and pilots, some of them to flesh out the ranks of Hornet and Enterprise for the Tokyo Raid. More still were taken to seed a new squadron, VF-10 ( for Essex). As the Lexington prepared to join Yorktown off Australia in mid-April, the only source of planes and pilots on Oahu proved to be Jimmy Thach’s VF-3. Twelve the squadron’s pilots and nineteen F4F-3 were transferred to Ramsey’s command, among them Lt. Al Vorse, the pilot assigned then 2-F-5 for the battle. Vorse finished the war with 6 kills, and retired from the navy in 1967 as a Vice-Admiral.

-Moe

 

[Terp152]

Just noticed the four kills marked under the cockpit rail. Too bad she can't be brought up for a museum piece. Anyone see the Wildcat in O'Hara airport? Chris

 

[ivanmoe]

Just noticed the four kills marked under the cockpit rail. Too bad she can't be brought up for a museum piece. Anyone see the Wildcat in O'Hara airport? Chris

Beautifully preserved piece of history.

BTW, I don’t think that there’s a model kit out there that does the real thing justice.

-Moe

 

[theBaron]

...BTW, I don’t think that there’s a model kit out there that does the real thing justice.

Yeah, I'm going to have to go ahead and, disagree with you, on this one. There are several very good kits of the Wildcat, in various scales. Tamiya and Hobby Boss both make excellent kits of the F4F-4 and F4F-3, in 1/48th scale, for example. Hasegawa has a good F4F in 1/72, and Airfix' new-tool Wildcat is another excellent kit. In 1/32, the old Revell kit still holds up well. In terms of shape and accuracy, these kits achieve a pretty good level.

Prost!
Brad

 

[ivanmoe]

Yeah, I'm going to have to go ahead and, disagree with you, on this one. There are several very good kits of the Wildcat, in various scales. Tamiya and Hobby Boss both make excellent kits of the F4F-4 and F4F-3, in 1/48th scale, for example. Hasegawa has a good F4F in 1/72, and Airfix' new-tool Wildcat is another excellent kit. In 1/32, the old Revell kit still holds up well. In terms of shape and accuracy, these kits achieve a pretty good level.

Prost!
Brad

There are some good ones, particularly in terms of detail. However, I always go back to pictures of the real thing, glance at the models, and think to myself, “something's out of round here, it just doesn’t look right,” the basic shape, I mean. They seem overly “plump” from some angles. I ought to note that the main landing gear, extended, doesn’t do a thing for the type’s aesthetic, and that’s how most of them get built. I really can’t blame that on the kit-maker and/or the builder.:redface2:

-Moe

 

[CanesBart]

I had to once build the old 1/48 Monogram hellcat for a guy. Awful, had to add all the panel lines, sand off the raised panel lines, and fill in the awful folding wing gaps. I like the Tamiya, but mine didn't come with any decals for Midway, and I had to modify it, as it had post Midway features on it.



I live 5 minutes from the old Grumman plant and WWII Naval Air Station in Vero (Now Piper where they make Cherokee's and Archers and stuff)

There are a lot of Wildcats, Hellcats and Avengers (and even Brewster Buffaloes) on the sandy bottom offshore. (many divers thought they discovered the 7 Lost Avengers only to find dozens, LOL). I even snagged lobsters underneath a trashed, stripped Wildcat one night (first and last time I dove at night...the bull sharks....).

Many crashes, ditches, and I think they also just dumped them offshore after the war?

Interestingly, as the home of the UDT (early SEALs), they used a beach here for demolition practice. Set it up with anti landing craft obstacles, mines, etc. They have signs all over warning you to NOT mess with any mines, munitions or aerial bombs you might come across. (LOL, the first thing we did when we found our first "mine" was start poking and kicking it to see if it was genuine. Wasn't a mine was a steel buoy that held up a chain that once had a mine on it or something )

Somewhere offshore is a torpedo from a U-Boat (fired two at a ship right offshore, one hit and sunk it, the other was a miss or dud) Would love to find that!

 

[bromhead]

Be great if the ac could be recovered along with anything else,,