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Show The Fight of the Lexington At 9:30 a. m. the real striking force of our fleet got under way, headed for the Japanese fleet. At 10:15 a. m. pilot in scout plan radios. "Big force coming in from right ahead." The Lexington turned into the wind and launched all fighter and reserve planes that had been waiting wait-ing for this moment. Scout plane reported I'm 1-1.000 about 12 miles northeast of you Jap planes are coming fast. 11:15 a. m. cruisers belching smoke and fire from their guns and short time later heard the sound of their guns. At 11:16 "Here they come yelled the lookout" At 11:17 The Japs were so low that the two leading planes had to push up to clear the ship in an instant on was obliterated in a flash of flames, the other kept right on coming. At 11:18 a. m. Eight of them dropped their torpedoes then they continued straight in towards us. One of our forward guns had the range of the first J. As it went past I saw a flash and the plane dived into the water about 50 feet from the side of the ship, the second sec-ond plane passed almost directly over the Marine's guns they hit it squarely with a shot. The plane flew to pieces. At 11:19 a. m. The Lexington shuddered under our feet, and a heavy blast flashed in a spout of water on the port side, foreward. we had been hit by a torpedo. At 11:20 a. m. Wham, another torpedo hit. As the ship flincned a lookout shouted "dive bombers" coming in. At 11:21 a. m. "Boom," another anoth-er torpedo hit us. At 11:25 a. m. "Seven more torpedo planes coming the lookout look-out reported. The anti-aicraft fire was so hot those planes were anxious to get away. They failed to press home the attack like the first group. All of them dropped drop-ped their torpedoes while still more than 200 feet above the water, and then turned away, never coming closer than 1,500 yards of the ship. At 11:27 a. m. Five more Japanese Jap-anese torpedo planes appeared. They singled us out and launched their torpedoes but the ship was turned to miss all hits from that bunch of torpedoes. At 11:32 the last of the dive I bombers went bv. raking us with his machine gun fire. And suddenly sudden-ly there was silence. |