Hey Steve,

I've was thinking about what you said about the Lex and the location of the "LX" on her flight deck. Wouldn't it be located in about the same position as it was on the Ranger? I seem to recall that it was ,marked in the same manner. And the best part, I know I've a photo of that around here someplace. It would be matter of my finding it back.... But, I think I have a good idea of where it might be.

Let me know
The Other Steve

Ya got me there chief. I thought that only the LEX and SARA had the deck markings. The ships were absoluely identical and pilots frequently landed on the wrong ship. Didn't know the Ranger was marked as well. On the LEX and SARA it was located at the aft end so if a pilot was lining up to land he would see it and know which carrier he was landing on. The Essex class had the huge numbers on the front and back as pilot aids

Ah HA!

STEVE, I FOUND IT!

It's in the Time-Life " Epic of Flight " series "The Carrier Wars" Pg 19 and man is it a great photo of her 1941 Atlantic cruise. Plus there's a man standing next to the "R" in "RNGR" and that can give you and idea on the size of the letters.

BUT BEST OF ALL!

And you're really gonna like this....On page 34, there's an aerial shot of the Lexington in Puget Sound in 1927...with LEX on the aft deck! However, get a magnifying glass.

And if you can access a better copy from the National Archives web site, that photo's call number is : (80-G-451356) I haven't tried it yet so I don't know if it's available.

Man I sure hope this will help.

Steve

Actually, in addition to LEX, SARA, and RNGR, the other three "pre-war" carriers, Yorktown, Enterprise, and Wasp, were similarly marked. Hornet was commissioned in October 1941, and is "technically" a "pre-war carrier" but I am not certain whether a deck marking was ever used. YKTN was used on CV-5, and I believe that WASP (duh!) was on CV-7. I'm away from my references at the moment, and I'm not sure the exact letters used on Enterprise.

One other note, just as Saratoga had a big stripe down the stack to visually distinguish her from Lexington, Yorktown had a large "Y" painted on her island/stack for the same reason before the war.

TC

I have a 1936 picture of the Lex with LEX clearly shown in back. Problem is there is no aircraft or anything else to acurately judge height. Rough guess though is about as long as one of the 8"gun turrets (not guns))