Carrier "Lexington," one of the most famous and formidable of the U.S. Navy warships, lies permanently berthed at Corpus Christi, Texas, her decks and cabins having been converted into a museum that pays tribute to her illustrious war and peacetime record and to the history of naval aviation. The last of the World War II-era aircraft carriers to retire from active duty, "Lexington" was decommissioned on November 8, 1991, after forty-eight years of service.
Entering World War II as the second of the great "Essex-"class carriers to be commissioned, "Lexington" destroyed more than one...

Battleship "Texas," visited by thousands of tourists each year at its berth at San Jacinto, is the lone survivor of the first generation of dreadnoughts, the world's most complex and dominating weapon of the early twentieth century. The ship, the only intact vessel of any nation to have survived both world wars, houses the largest surviving reciprocating engines. When the ship was commissioned in 1914, its class of ship was the most powerful in the world--the most complex product of an industrial nation just beginning to become a force in global events. Over the years the ship underwent a...