Naval Story- Truth or UL?

Factual Questions
1

While visiting the USS Lexington CV-16 in Corpus Christi, TX, this weekend, the curator (or manager? somebody…) told me an apocryphal sounding tragic/morose story that roughly follows:

In 1955, when the aircraft carrier was decomissioned, a sailor was working on clearing out the sick bay. After a day of hard labor, he decided to take a nap. While napping, the naval engineers came through the sick bay, and, finding no one, turned off the electricity, water, and then sealed the hatches shut. When they re-opened that area of the ship again in 1957, they found the sailor’s corpse, along with walls filled with fingernail marks and furniture strewn about.

Is there any fact to this story? It just seems so…careless of the military, should it be real.

2

Why would interior hatches be sealed shut?

3

Well, according to this web page , the Lexington was actually recommisioned in 1955, not decomissioned. If you’re sure the guide said 1955, that fact alone would tend to point towards the story being fiction. A search for ‘USS Lexington’ 1955 + ‘corpse’ turned up nothing. Also, I don’t see why a decomissioned ship would still have furniture light enough to be moved left aboard.

4

Guy goes missing and no one thinks to look where he was supposed to be working that day? I think not.

5

Just sounds like a re-hash of the old ‘steel-working accidentally entombed in the double hull and banging sounds heard onboard for years’ story.

“When demolished, there was his skeleton still grasping the hammer…”

6

Why seal the ship, even if they didn’t bother poking into every nook and cranny?

You’re eventually going to either dismantle or scuttle it, I take it, so why seal it?

It might be a stupid question, but I’m curious.

7

Supposedly there was a skeleton found between the double hulls of the Great Eastern, back in 1888.

8

Snopes mentions this story without commenting on its veracity

9

HPL, decommisioned ships are not always scuttled, dismantled or sold to another navy; some are mothballed, and placed into storage in case they will be needed again. A lengthy process to ensure that there will be limited deterioration during the storage period includes sealing the hatches. URL=http://www.geocities.com/wilkesdd441/441luck11.html]Here is an account of a WWII era mothballing.