Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Sailors From 2 Eras Honor Carrier Dead

There was an air of irony as former sailors who served aboard the Lexington in World War II joined with the aircraft carrier’s crew over the weekend in Pensacola, Fla., to remember shipmates who died 45 years ago. An association of former crew members had originally planned its reunion to coincide with the 45th anniversary of the day a Japanese suicide plane hit the carrier and killed 47 shipmates. But, last week, a T-2 Buckeye training jet crashed into the Lexington, killing the Navy pilot and four people on the flight deck. The accident bore an eerie similarity to the remembered wartime attack. As a crowd of 1,500 watched, sailors from two eras dropped wreaths during a weekend cruise in the Gulf of Mexico about 10 miles from where the trainer crash occurred.