Lexington (CV 16) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 14 text:

We are shoving off early tomorrow morning, says Felix Stump. Better get your gear aboard tonight. This calls for a hurried trip across Ford Island to the Yorktown to pay my respects to her skipper, Captain loc Clark, and to look up Lt. Dwight Long. I also meet and have an indoc- trination talk with a handful of more or less experienced but ardent and enthusiastic camera men that have been assigned to this coming operation. Spurred on by the driving energy of Dwight Long, these boys are to shoot footage for our Naval Aviation motion picture project. When a Naval vessel goes to sea, the Captain leaves his comfortable spacious quarters Coffice, bedroom, galleyj for a tiny cubicle, his sea cabin, up on the bridge in sight of the flight deck and the open sea toward all horizons. Felix Stump turns over his quarters to me, which means not only personal comfort, but space for laying out our camera equipment. Vic and I spend a good part of the night discussing our plans. A carrier is a conglomeration of many amazing things. To begin with it is a sea-going home to nearly 3,000 men. It is a combination of vast spaces and a series of tight passages, steep ladders, and dizzy catwalks. All this, when you become familiar with it, is simple, for everything is as logically and minutely planned as a watch, but to a newcomer, and a landlubber at that, it is certainly bewildering. In the morning this great armada of carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, supply ships, and tankers gets under way. Anaircraft carrier is a flat-top to the battleship boys and a ufioating airdromev to some of the feature writers. The Hight deck covers the entire ship from bow to stern. On the starboard side Qlooking something like an afterthoughtj rises the superstructure, dubbed the island This houses the command centers: pilot house, navigating bridge, Captain's sea cabin, Admiral,s offices and bridge, radar plot, fighter director and air control stations, engineering and damage control offices, radar and radio gear cabins. Up through the center of the island rises the smokestack. The whole superstructure is topped by space-searching fingers-radar antennae. Looking down at the Hight deck from the bridge for the first time you are reminded of the straight-away on a race track, but 2 i .. i i -1 , ,i -f QI .J Zi I I-'Q ei .Z 11 1. Q if B , ,I ., 2 ff U V' tit: .,, aw- .,f:.w:,.4.. .uk I il a il in T

Page 13 text:

CAPTAIN FELIX B. STUMP, USN 9 fv This is on the U.S.S. Lexington at Fearl Harbor. Hawaii. Captain Felix Stump, USN Cclass of IQI7, in command. On her previous strike she was the Flagship for Rear Admiral A. W. Radford. The Admiral and his staff are now transferring from the Lei, to the U .S.S. Enlevfprise. I find out that the great armada of Warships We saw in the harhor as we flew in this morning from San Francisco will put to sea tomorrow. Admiral Radford tells me he has spoken to Captain Stump about us and that Comairpac fthe Commander Air Force, Pacific F leetj will assign Iins. Victor lorgensen and myself to duty on the Lexington. Through the open hatch of the Admiralls ofhce comes a deep-voiced good-hurnored growl: 'cWhen you call on an Admiral, I guess you put on a tief, A tall rangy inan steps into the rooni giving his black tie a sharp tug into place, and I am introduced to Captain Stump. The war' he came into the room, his remark about the tie, the simple directness of his manner and his friendly grin, assure me that Admiral Radford has found the right spot for ine. Put a colonial wig on the head of Felix Stump and you have a ringer for Gilhert Stuart's portrait of George XYashington. I M M - - f- ,wg AM,-1 W

Page 15 text:

when in a plane at 12,000 feet and about to make your first carrier landing, that flight deck looks more like a matchstick. Below the flight deck the hangar deck is large enough to garage a hundred planes as well as great machine shops for repair and maintenance. The Lexington is 890 feet long: stood on end alongside the 70-story RCA building, Rockefeller Center, New York, the Lex would be higher by forty feet. Each of the three elevators that move planes up and down between the flight deck and the hangar deck is about the size of a tennis court. The flight deck crews handle the planes for the take4offs and landings, and the 4'mecs fairplane mechanicsj maintain and repair them. The air oflicer directs all flight operations from the air control station on the island three decks above and overhanging the flight deck. The landing signal officers are stationed on a small platform extending out over the water on the port edge and after end of the flight deck. A safety net of wire cable mesh is stretched under this platform 'cjust in case. When planes are about to land, air control orders Prepare to land planesf' when all is ready it's Land planes, the appropriate signal flag goes up, and the landing signal officer brings 'fhomen the planes by waving bright-colored, tennis-racket-shaped paddles in a pre- scribed series of patterns. When a plane approaches the carrier in the correct position, the pilot is given a signal that he is riding the groove, and just as he gets over the deck the signal officer gives the cut,, signal, the pilot cuts ofl his engine, the plane hits the deck, a tail hook catches one of a series of steel cables. stretchedacross the deck, and brings the plane to a quick stop. If the arresting hook doesn't func- tion, the plane is stopped by one of a series of cable barriers which usually means a crackup. VVhen a plane has been damaged in battle and its normal controls disrupted the landings are violent. dramatic, and sometimes tragic. If for any reason a landing looks like a possible crackup. the air officer presses a button which releases a loud strident wail that warns everybody on the flight deck to expect trouble and to take appropriate precautions. Fire fighters and the arresting gear gangs get all set for any emergency. A 7