The Key West Citizen

"Iron Lady" Arrives Tomorrow
Known throughout the U. S. Navy's wartime Pacific Fleet as the "Iron Lady," the veteran 13,000-ton aircraft carrier Cabot—coming to the Key West Naval Station tomorrow for extensive repairs to her flight deck—has twice earned for herself an enviable record.
While a unit of several famed task groups of the Pacific offensive against Japan, she and her air groups destroyed over 350 planes and hit over 260 ships in 16 months of nearly continuous action.
The Cabot was the first major ship to be returned to active service in the Navy after she had spent 1 1/2 years as a unit of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet in "mothballs" at Philadelphia, Pa.
Since her recommissioning in October, 1948 she has been attached to the Naval Air Training Command at Pensacola, the Navy's "Annapolis of the Air".
There she has helped hundreds of fledgling Navy pilots learn the exacting requirements of carrier operations and to win their wings.
Twelve times in the past year she has operated with Naval Reserve fighter and torpedo squadrons on training cruises that included visits to such ports as New Orleans, Galveston, Tex., Havana, Cuba, Mobile, Ala., and other Florida ports.
Such annual cruises help keep these squadrons, whose civilian pilots are ex-Navy veterans, at peak efficiency, ready for any eventuality.
The Cabot is commanded by Captain Charles L. Lee, USN. Her executive officer is Commander Gorman C. Merrick, USN.