We got interrupted on last thread. Threw me off when you mentioned Lexington because there were two. But the CV-16 was the second, Essex class. The Essex boats earned their keep. I never worked on any WW II vintage hulls. As I recall Forrestal was maybe the closest. We bundled up a bunch of plate when McCain and his bunch tried to sink it. Patched it up just in time for the same bunch trying to sink the Enterprise. I still have a piece of paperweight steel from that cleanup. The Oriskany got off lucky.
Yup, there were two "Lexington"s. CV-2 was sunk by Japanese while CV-16 was under construction (Original name "Cabot"), so renamed the ship and kinda flipped the bird to the Japs while we continued the Unsinkable legend.
Always had a kind of soft spot for "Lex": Undersized and quirky (especially those damn catapults) but never missed a day in the fight as far as I could find out.