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Saturday, May 6, 2000

Blue Ghost's WWII predecessor memorialized

CV-2 was destroyed in the 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea

By Deborah Martínez
Caller-Times

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Carl Edward Terhune (right) donates a montage of USS Lexington CV-2 memorabilia to the Lexington Museum on the Bay.

Almost 58 years to the day that the USS Lexington sank into the Coral Sea in a mission against Japanese forces in World War II, one of her crewmen brought her back to life Friday during a visit to the ship turned museum that was named after her.
   As 81-year-old Carl Terhune of Norman, Okla., toured the Lexington Museum on the Bay's exhibit of its predecessor, the USS Lexington CV-2, he couldn't help but remember May 8, 1942.
   Shortly after noon, the Lexington CV-2 was torpedoed and bombed by the Japanese and left slowly sinking.
   Its final demise came two hours after the Japanese planes cleared when a generator that accidentally had been left running sparked an explosion, creating a fiery inferno. Of the 2,951 men aboard, 216 died.
   "A piece of shrapnel came through that ship's office right where I was sitting at the typewriter," said Terhune in a memoir of that day. "So I went up on the flight deck and everyone was milling around. . . .I had a good buddy from Macon, Ga. . . . I didn't have the heart to tell him that his little brother got killed."
   Terhune easily remembered the little brother's name: Thomas Hart. And he remembered the ship captain who refused to leave his sinking ship, forcing top Navy brass to take him off instead.
   These stories were enough to make passing tourists aboard the Lexington museum become teary. One reached to him for a hug.
   "At the time, on that day, I didn't think much about what was going on," said Terhune, who was a 23-year-old yeoman third class working in a rear office below the CV-2's decks when it was struck. "But now, I have a lot of unpleasant thoughts. It was a frightening time."
   Terhune's story will become part of the Lexington museum's permanent collection within the next few weeks, after memorabilia he donated during his visit is incorporated into the museum's CV-2 exhibit.
   The mementos include a farewell letter that the CV-2's commanding officer, then-Capt. Frederick Sherman, wrote to his crew after the ship sank, as well as Terhune's memoir. A WWII photo of Terhune also is included.
   "We never had Capt. Sherman's letter," said Sandi McNorton, the museum's marketing director. "We now have his farewell letter and that's priceless, absolutely priceless."
   The CV-16 ship, known as today's Lexington museum, is the fifth in a line of storied Lexingtons. The first was commissioned in 1776 as the Wild Duck before becoming the Lexington. She was captured and destroyed by the British Navy in September 1777.
   The second Lex was commissioned in 1826 and decommissioned in 1855, making way for the third Lexington, which was decommissioned in 1865. Her successor, USS Lexington CV-2, originally was a battle cruiser before becoming an aircraft carrier in 1922.
   During her life, the CV-2 handled relief operations in Nicaragua and assisted in the 27-day search for Amelia Earhart. On Dec. 6, 1941, the CV-2 departed the USS Arizona's side at Pearl Harbor, missing the infamous Japanese attack by one day.
   Immediately after the CV-2 met her final fate in May 1942, workers at a Massachusetts shipyard pushed to name the aircraft carrier they were building the USS Lexington CV-16, giving birth to the legendary Blue Ghost - today Corpus Christi's Lexington Museum on the Bay.
  

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Staff writer Deborah Martínez can be reached at 886-3618 or by e-mail at martinezd@caller.com

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