USS Yorktown

USS Yorktown (CV-5) was an aircraft carrier that served in the United States Navy during World War II. Named after the 1781 Battle of Yorktown, she was commissioned in 1937. Yorktown was the lead ship of the three-ship Yorktown class. These large vessels were the first American carriers whose design was informed by actual experience with carrier operations, involving both larger vessels (the converted battlecruisers of the Lexington class) and, to a lesser extent, a smaller one (the primitive, experimental Langley; a newer small carrier, USS Ranger, had recently been completed, but not yet commissioned by the time Yorktown was laid down, and contributed nothing to the latter vessel's design). After her commissioning Yorktown spent two years operating in the Atlantic before, in April 1939, transferring to the Pacific. Two years after that, in April 1941, she was one of a large number of major combatants that were transferred back to the Atlantic to take part in Neutrality Patrols, aimed primarily at monitoring German activity off America's east coast. The attack on Pearl Harbor took place while she was in port at Norfolk. Shortly after the attack she was sent back to the Pacific, arriving at San Diego in late December 1941. In January 1942 she escorted a troop convoy to Samoa; having completed this task she met up with her sister-ship, Enterprise, and in early February the two vessels collaborated on a series of raids on Japanese facilities in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. They then separated, with Yorktown proceeding on to Pearl Harbor, where she dropped off a consignment of much-needed spare aircraft for the base. In late February 1942 she was back at sea, meeting up with the carrier Lexington, with the intention of participating in raids on the towns of Rabaul and Gasmata, on the island of New Britain. Plans were changed, however, and the two carriers instead launched, on 10 March 1942, a successful attack on Japanese shipping off the north coast of New Guinea, from a launch point just off the south coast. Following this strike Lexington returned to Pearl Harbor, while Yorktown stayed on in the South Pacific for another two months, ultimately spending 100 days away from a major port. In early May, while awaiting Lexington's return, Yorktown aircraft sank or damaged several small warships supporting the invasion of Tulagi, an administrative center in the Solomon Islands. Yorktown's intervention tipped off the Japanese as to the American presence in the area and helped precipitate, a few days later, the Battle of the Coral Sea, when Japanese carrier forces escorting a landing force intent on taking Port Moresby, on the south coast of New Guinea, confronted a task force built around Yorktown and Lexington in history's first carrier-versus-carrier battle. American carrier planes sank the light aircraft carrier Shōhō on 7 May, and badly damaged the fleet carrier Shōkaku the following day, but Lexington was sunk and Yorktown severely damaged in the exchange. Despite the damage, Yorktown was able to make it back to Hawaii, entering drydock at Pearl Harbor during the last week of May and being patched up well enough in only three days to be more-or-less combat-ready. This rapid repair job was important because American intelligence had determined that a major Japanese force was already heading toward Midway Atoll, a thousand miles west of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese hoped to draw the Americans into a decisive battle at Midway, but tipped off, the U. S. Navy made plans to ambush the Japanese fleet. Repaired, Yorktown was available to join her two sister-ships, Enterprise and Hornet, in executing this plan. On the morning of 4 June 1942 aircraft from Yorktown and Enterprise inflicted ultimately fatal damage on three Japanese fleet carriers. Later in the day Yorktown absorbed the full force of two counterattacks launched by the sole surviving Japanese fleet carrier, which left Yorktown crippled. Salvage efforts on Yorktown were encouraging, but on 6 June she was struck by two torpedoes fired by a Japanese submarine, and sank the next day. The wreck of Yorktown was located by oceanographer Robert Ballard in 1998.