Lexington (CV 16) - Naval Cruise Book

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Carrier-based athletes are envied by the whole fleet. The hangar deck is a natural when WGTC looking for a place to throw the football, spread the boxing canvas or just get out to run a little We have an athletic staff of an officer and three men to direct the organized sports and to keep us supplied with incidental equipment when we lust want a workout. Basketball seems to take the spotliaht for the greatest popularity Some red-hot games have come along in the divisional playoffs, and every division has plenty of interested men to make a good show ing. The Lexington Varsity has had streaks of both good and bad luck in their inter-ship competition but whatever their luck they enjoyed the game and gave the spectators some thrills. Their Pacific career was climaxed with a win over the US S. Prairie, who held the tournament title at Tokyo. ln spite of the lack of competition in the forward areas the Lexington boxing team developed into a first-class fighting machine. Daily workouts along with natural ability gave the ship a boxing team that every fan enjoyed watching. Although we-could find only a few opponents in the fleet, we scored decisively over those that did venture a match and among those we met we can claim the champion- ship. Organized sports give way at this point and we find the majority of the extra energy going into games of volleyball, badminton, touch football on the flight deck and tossing the baseball. The casual- ties are high on balls of all kinds. Once they get over the side they are hard to retrieve. Once in a while when the ship is at anchor we can hail a passenger boat to stop by and bring in our football but at best a good soaking in salt water doesn't do them much good. ln spite of the heavy work routine, limited space and equipment and the necessary operations of the ship, all the men who want to take part in athletics have a chance. And those men who took advantage of this opportunity found a splendid relaxation for War-strained nerves.

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SU RI RE Our first Sunrise Press was a two-page mimeo- graphed affair and made its appearance on our trial trip to Trinidad. Only about 200 copies were printed daily, and quite naturally there was quite a scramble to obtain a copy. Seeing that the news was not reaching the majority of the crew, it was decided that perhaps a reading of bulletins over the public address system would fill the need. This was tried for awhile, -and found lacking. So the printed edition of the Sunrise Press made its bow. It was a great success. Argument followed argument as to the make-up of the paper. Many sizes of type were tried until the present form was reached. We asked for sugges- tions from the crew, and we got them by the score. Some were incorporated into the paper. Mistakes were made and remedied. And gallons of midnight oil were burned to get the paper out daily. We had the material to work with, though. It was a time of headlines. Raids on Tokyo, B-29 sorties, Churchill's defeat and scores of other big stories were covered in our paper. Then came the big week. Russia entered the war, the first atomic bomb was dropped and Iapan sent out peace feelers. That was the sort of stuff the boys wanted to read about. And it was the sort of stuff we wanted to print.- The actual end of the war caught the SUHHSS Press a little off base. We got out a banner edition 'Ti but we were a little late with it. Nobody seemed to mind, though. With the ending of the war the news no longer seemed to be as exciting as it had been and we found it hard to play headlines that would create interest. Another thing, our mail did not catch up with us for some time and we were hard put to find material to fill up the empty gaps. The paper began to settle with a sameness that was boring to the reader and to the Editors. With these obstacles confronting us it seemed our only fate was to adopt new style in publication. Wild speculation and various ideas mixed with stimulating enthusiasm soon found a peacetime reconversion that was a great success. Shipboard activities proved to be just as newsworthy as nation-wide activities. From our mobile metropolis came stories of personalities and current happenings. The men preferred reading about their shipmates and their ship. The personal angle presented much encouragement and every- one was anxious to take an active part. The Sunrise Press was born again, maintaining the high stand- ard of publication that won her acclaim as being the best daily in the Fleet. We are very proud of the fact that our last three Executive Officers realized that the paper WGS reaching every member of the crew, and so made it a point to get special items of interest across to men through the medium of the Sunrise Press. SS

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