The USS Lexington (CV-2), a converted battle cruiser, was one of three aircraft carriers assigned to the Pacific Fleet. It survived the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor because two days earlier it had departed there as a part of Task Force 12 to ferry dive bomber aircraft to Midway Island. On May 8, 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea the ship sustained fatal damage and was deliberately scuttled by torpedoes from a U.S. destroyer.
The two other aircraft carriers assigned to the Pacific Fleet were the USS Enterprise (CV-6) which was at sea at the time of the attack, having just completed delivery of a Marine Fighter Squadron to Wake Island; at that same time the USS Saratoga (CV-3) was just entering the harbor at San Diego, California to pick up her air group which had been training while the ship was being refitted at the Bremerton Navy Yard.