Ted Wiebe was born in Dallas, Oregon and raised around southeast Portland. When his father was killed in an automobile accident in 1936, Wiebe went to work with the CCC [Annotator's Note: the Civilian Conservation Corp] to help support his family. In 1938 he joined the Navy, and went for training in San Diego, California. He was assigned to the USS Lexington (CV-2) as an apprentice seaman, working on the deck force of the massive ship. Wiebe had never been on anything larger than a rowboat, and he thought the Lex was fabulous, and likened it to an island or a city. After about a year and a half, his request to go into a torpedo squadron was granted, and he joined the ship's ordinance gang. Wiebe worked on Douglas TBDs [Annotator's Note: Douglas TBD Devestator torpedo-bomber].

After Ted Wiebe was in the squadron [Annotator's Note: Torpedo Squadron 2 (VT-2) flying from the USS Lexington (CV-2)] for about three months, he was sent to bomb sight school in Honolulu for training to be a bomb sight mechanic and bombardier. The squadron used the USS Utah (BB-31) as a target for night bombing. In the first part of December 1941, there was very little talk about war, and Wiebe said he didn't think anybody believed there was going to be a war. When he went ashore in the first days of December, he noted signs around town for upcoming holiday parties. He remembers a call for an all-hands evolution on 6 December to bring supplies and load airplanes. His ship, the USS Lexington (CV-2), got underway around midnight. On the morning of 7 December 1941 Wiebe was on the flight deck when word passed that Japan had struck Pearl Harbor and we were at war. Things got busy: all the practice bomb racks were removed from the aircraft; the SBDs [Annotator's Note: Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber] went out to try to intercept the enemy; and the ship headed back to Honolulu. They could find no Japanese aircraft lingering in the area, and on Monday morning Wiebe's plane flew into Honolulu where he could see the island and harbor smoldering still. Wiebe said it was a horrible sight that caused a lot of bad emotions, and he felt like he could cry for the damage that had been done to the Pacific fleet. His aircraft landed at Ewa, a Marine base and landing field, refueled and returned to the Lex. As soon as the Lexington was resupplied, it went out to sea to pursue the Japanese.

In February [Annotator's Note: February 1942], Ted Wiebe was making raids on Salamaua and Lae [Annotator's Note: on the east coast of New Guinea] with instructions to avoid going down because the natives in that area were still "eating white men." Wiebe was participating in a raid when he noted a Float Zero [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M or Navy Type 0 fighter aircraft] making an attempt on three of the raid party. Just then, a small American bomber came out of nowhere and made short work of it. Wiebe turned around in time to see a big Japanese cruiser hit by what he thought must have been a 1,000 pound bomb, and disappear. On the way back, they made a failed attempt on a Japanese freighter, which disappointed the crew. At this time the Navy men wanted to "get even." They were very angry about the dirty deed the Japanese had done on Pearl Harbor, and were anxious to find viable targets on which to exact their fury. Wiebe said enlisted men got what little information that filtered down from the officers from their pilots. On the next run, they encountered a flying boat, a sign that the Japanese probably knew the position of the USS Lexington (CV-2). Wiebe said that time was indiscernible when he was out on a raid; he was just a kid, and he thought it was all great sport, but he remembers that on the night of 6 May, they learned an enemy convoy was in the vicinity. He was aboard the aircraft as a utility man, approaching a Japanese task force that included a couple of cruisers, about four destroyers and a carrier. His pilot called, "hold on, were going downhill." Wiebe could see the ships on the starboard bow of the aircraft, and they were shooting quite profusely. Wiebe had never heard anything like it before. To him it was like chains being wrapped around the aircraft. Wiebe was working with the pilot to evade the antiaircraft fire, and together they were very successful. Although the plane was badly scarred, it didn't get shot down. The pilot approached the stern of the ship and dropped his fish [Annotator's Note: naval jargon for torpedo], but nothing exploded. On the way out, they passed a battleship that was furiously firing at the squadron, without hitting any of them, and went home. No one had scored a hit. The second day was a repetition: up early, out to attack, and enduring more antiaircraft fire. This time the pilot approached the starboard side, made a slow run at the bow, but his torpedo wouldn't drop at first; his second attempt to fire it worked, and he took evasive action to dash away. Wiebe could see that about 20 foot of the bow had blown off, and the ship was going down like a scoop into the water. Wiebe remembers that they had a good skipper who stayed on the radio, warning them about Zeros, and spurring the pilots on in the fight.

Ted Wiebe said that the pilots taught all the "middle men" how to fly the TBDs [Annotator's Note: Douglas TBD Devestator torpedo-bomber], just in case they got shot, and Wiebe often flew the plane from the middle seat when they went out on anti-submarine patrol. He said the TBD was a "lumbersome" plane, with a top speed of 140 miles per hour. One fateful day, after they had shot down a Zero [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M or Navy Type 0 fighter aircraft] and were returning to their ship, the squadron took friendly fire and lost a plane. They landed, but the USS Lexington (CV-2) had been hit, and was smoking. There was a lot of scuttlebutt about the condition of the ship and Wiebe attempted to reach to his quarters, but had to give up the idea, and return to the deck. All of Wiebe's documents, money and personal belongings had to be sacrificed as the call came to abandon ship. Some of the crew had already jumped, and were squashed when a tin can came alongside to pick up the captain. Wiebe left the boat on a balloon from the wing of his TBD, and used it to sail over the side, but the wind took him an unexpected distance away before he dropped into the water and swam back to a life raft. A whale boat picked him up and took him to the USS Astoria (CA-34). Within 15 minutes of his getting aboard, there came the order for all hands get away from the weather decks. At Wiebe's last sighting, the Lexington's flight deck was about 20 feet from the water. He wished he could have seen her go down. The Astoria pulled away at flank speed, shaking and trembling, trying to escape another Japanese attack. She arrived at Tongatabu the next morning. Wiebe's torpedo squadron [Annotator's Note: Torpedo Squadron 2 (VT-2)] was divided into two groups of approximately 42 men each, and held on Fiji and another island, doing nothing, in hopes that the Japanese would not discover that the Lexington, with its TBD Devastators, had been lost.

The Army was in charge of the Fiji station where Ted Wiebe's group was being held, and although they clothed and fed the Navy TBD [Annotator's Note: Douglas TBD Devestator torpedo-bomber] crew, the Army had little else to do with them. Some of the Navy radio people set up their own communications systems, and Wiebe said he heard about Midway - initially, that they were "really shooting down Jap planes and sinking Jap ships" - about fourth-hand. He eventually learned that the TBD squadrons at Midway were all shot down, and only one ensign survived. While on Fiji, Wiebe got his flight time in on a J2F [Annotator's Note: Grumman J2F Duck amphibious aircraft] to earn his flight pay and stay qualified. In November 1942 he returned to San Diego, California where Air Group 12 was made ready to go out on the USS Saratoga (CV-3). Wiebe then went to India for two years under Lord "Louie" Mountbatten and made quite a few raids on Japanese battleships that were in and out of Rabaul for repair at that time. By then, Wiebe's group [Annotator's Note: Torpedo Squadron 12 (VT-12)] was flying TBFs and TBMs [Annotator's Note: Grumman TBF and TBM Avenger torpedo-bomber]. Wiebe clocked a total of 4,842 hours flight time in single engine planes. If Wiebe's vision had not been impaired by a piece of shrapnel, he would have had the option to become a pilot at the end of the war. After a 23 year career in the Navy, he retired from the Navy in February 1959.

When Ted Wiebe remembers the Battle of the Coral Sea he thinks of it as just another duty station. He did what he was trained to do, and never had any compulsion to get out of it. When the war was over, he was looking forward to some leave. He had gone without leave for five years. Wiebe said he had a great deal of animosity against the Japanese, and still has some bad feelings. He said that when Truman [Annotator's Note: President Harry S. Truman] dropped the bomb, that evened things up. Wiebe commented that overall the USS Lexington (CV-2) was a happy, well run ship, and the crew was like a family. He said that was due in great part to the officers, and the Lex usually had good captains. He remembers only one year when there was an unhappy ship because of the way a particular captain carried out inspections and held liberty. This guy would make the crew drop their pants to check for regulation skivvies and socks; any deviation carried 30 days' restriction. When the Lexington held its 50th reunion, over 800 people attended. Wiebe stays in contact with many of his old Lex acquaintances, and they talk about the days aboard ship. He still regrets losing the contents of his locker, especially the 264 dollars, when the ship sank.