Queen of the Flat-Tops; The U.S.S. Lexington and the Coral Sea Battle by Johnston, Stanley - 1979

New York: Bantam, 1979. Special Illustrated Edition. Presumed first printing. Mass market paperback. Good. Greg Beecham (Drawings), and Alan McKnight (Maps). x, [6]m 234, [6] pages. Wraps. Illustrations. Color fold-out illustration after front cover (with small initial in ink). Maps. Slightly cocked. Small part of front cover corner gone. This is one of the Bantam War Books series. Stanley Johnston (1900 - September 13, 1962) was an Australian-American journalist who, as a correspondent during World War II, wrote a story for the Chicago Tribune that inadvertently revealed the extent of American code-breaking activities against the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). He was assigned to a press position aboard the USS Lexington in the Pacific. The story resulted in efforts by the United States government to prosecute Johnston and other Tribune journalists, an effort what remains the only time the Espionage Act was used against journalists in the United States. No indictment was returned, and grand jury proceedings were sealed until 2017. Derived from a Kirkus review: Dramatic, colorful, timely, and personal, this is a full length picture of the U.S.S. Lexington, her officers, and men, which is commemorative of the first engagement of aircraft carriers during WWII. From the history of her building, design, equipment, operations, tests, her power, sea-air tactics, to the working of her various departments and service branches, this chronicles her story in the Pacific, from the gaiety of crossing the line to the various engagements she experienced before her destruction. February to May, Bougainville, Lae and Salamava, Tulagi, and the Coral Sea with its climax of thirty miles separating the Japanese and United States' air striking forces, and the story of the attacking and the attack, and the Lexington's end from internal explosion and torpedoing by our own boats. It's a grand story, very real, clearcut, filled with courageous exploits, and amplified by technical detail.