Built using original plans, the USS Cabot (CVL 28) island provides visitors with a perspective on the size of the light carrier. Built on the foundation of cruiser hulls, the light carriers operated fighter aircraft and torpedo-bombers and served alongside the large deck Essex-class carriers during in the Pacific Theater, entering combat in August 1943. Cabot was one of nine light carriers to see combat during World War II, receiving nine battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation for her service. This view of the island shows signal flags that on board ships of the era were raised to transmit messages to other ships steaming nearby.

Part of the museum's efforts to create a sense of realism in its reconstruction of the island of the light carrier Cabot (CVL 28) was the painting of the scoreboard that appeared on the island of the original carrier. To this end, Robert A. and Robert J. Albrecht, the elder part of the father-son team the sailor who painted the original during World War II, were called into action. With paint brushes in hand, they adorned the replica island with the Japanese battle flags, indicative of aircraft shot down by the various squadrons that served on board the ship, and silhouettes of enemy ships sunk.  Note the firefighting equipment, positioned at the ready to fight a fire on the flight deck in the event ignited from an enemy fire or an aircraft crash.

View of the original island on the light carrier Cabot (CVL 28) showing the scoreboard painted on it. Cabot was not alone among U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and other ships in the practice of creating scoreboards charting success against the enemy, with some carriers also having scoreboards pinted in the hangar bay below the flight deck for the benefit of members of the crew who rarely ventured onto the flight deck. Among the silhouettes on the island is one for the Japanese super battleship Yamato, which was sunk by carrier planes off Okinawa in April 1945.

This floor level view of the replica island of the light carrier Cabot (CVL 28) shows a section of the wooden flight deck that laid out next to it on the museum floor.  The flight deck, on which many of the World War II-era carrier type aircraft are spotted, is the same width as that on the original Cabot, adding perspective to the replica of the island. Positioned forward of the island replica is a host of ordnance, including an aerial torpedo located behind a hatch. With Cabot operating TBF/TBM Avengers, ordnance like this was routinely manhandled back and forth on the flight deck by ordnancemen for loading onto aircraft prior to the launching them on air strikes against Japanese land targets and shipping.