After escorting the diverted convoy to Australia, Pensacola returned to Pearl Harbor and in February 1942 rendezvoused off Samar with Task Force 11, organized around USS Lexington. The meeting echoes the interwar debate over whether the new cruisers should work alongside Lexington and Saratoga. By then the former battlecruisers were aircraft carriers, giving Pensacola a real wartime assignment near one of the fast ships its speed may have been intended to support. The carriers did not fit cleanly into the scouting fleet, so the episode shows an evolving relationship with no settled prewar doctrine.
Notable Point · 23:37-24:08
Pensacola rendezvouses with Lexington's Task Force 11
Pensacola's February 1942 rendezvous with a Lexington-centred task force echoed the interwar idea that the new cruisers might operate with the converted battlecruisers.