![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Lex-500x281.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nBillionaire Paul Allen reports that his crew has discovered the final resting place of USS Lexington, the lead ship in her class of aircraft carriers. <\/p>\n
The Gray Lady was scuttled by US destroyers during the Battle of Coral Sea when Japanese planes attacked and ignited aircraft fuel aboard the carrier. USS Lexington had been on patrol during the attack on Pearl Harbor. From Wiki<\/a>;<\/p>\n Lexington was at sea when the Pacific War began on 7 December 1941, ferrying fighter aircraft to Midway Island. Her mission was cancelled and she returned to Pearl Harbor a week later. After a few days, she was sent to create a diversion from the force en route to relieve the besieged Wake Island garrison by attacking Japanese installations in the Marshall Islands. The island was forced to surrender before the relief force got close enough, and the mission was cancelled. A planned attack on Wake Island in January 1942 had to be cancelled when a submarine sank the oiler required to supply the fuel for the return trip. Lexington was sent to the Coral Sea the following month to block any Japanese advances into the area. The ship was spotted by Japanese search aircraft while approaching Rabaul, New Britain, but her aircraft shot down most of the Japanese bombers that attacked her. Together with the carrier Yorktown, she successfully attacked Japanese shipping off the east coast of New Guinea in early March.<\/p>\n Lexington was briefly refitted in Pearl Harbor at the end of the month and 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 forces. They sank the light aircraft carrier Sh?h? on 7 May during the Battle of the Coral Sea, but did not encounter the main Japanese force of the carriers Sh?kaku and Zuikaku until the next day. Aircraft from Lexington and Yorktown succeeded in badly damaging Sh?kaku, but the Japanese aircraft crippled Lexington. Vapors from leaking aviation gasoline tanks sparked a series of explosions and fires that could not be controlled, and Lexington had to be scuttled by an American destroyer during the evening of 8 May to prevent her capture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n