Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 3, 2013

USS Lexington (CV-2) was an early aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy during the 1920s. Originally designed as a battlecruiser, she was converted into an aircraft carrier during construction to comply with the terms of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. Lexington was at sea when the Pacific War began in 1941, ferrying fighter aircraft to Midway Island. She was sent to the Coral Sea in February 1942 to block any Japanese advances into the area. Together with the carrier Yorktown, she successfully attacked Japanese shipping off the east coast of New Guinea in early March. Lexington rendezvoused with Yorktown in the Coral Sea in early May. A few days later the Japanese began Operation Mo, the invasion of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and the two American carriers attempted to stop the invasion. Aircraft from Lexington and Yorktown succeeded in badly damaging the carrier Shōkaku, but Japanese aircraft crippled Lexington. Vapors from leaking aviation gasoline tanks sparked a series of explosions and fires that could not be controlled, and the carrier had to be scuttled by an American destroyer during the evening of 8 May to prevent her capture. (Full article...)

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