USS Yorktown CV10 & The battle of Midway Island

On May 30 1942, Yorktown departed from Pearl Harbor to take part in the Battle of Midway. After 1400 men worked around the clock for 48 hours to repair the severe damage that the carrier had suffered at the Battle of the Coral Sea. 

The Japanese were convinced that the Yorktown had been sunk or too badly damaged to return to action. The hastily repaired carrier then played a crucial role in the victory at Midway.

“Resilience”

9”x10” graphite on medium surface paper. Adapted from an official US Navy photo.

 

Afternoon, June 4, 1942. The wounded USS Yorktown drifts dead in the water, thick, black smoke pouring from her stack. Her boilers have been knocked out by the Japanese dive bombing attack, and there are multiple fires deep in the ship from the bomb blasts.

 

But the damage control teams have learned lessons from her last battle at Coral Sea, and have sprung into action now that the Japanese planes are gone. They begin patching holes in the flight deck, putting out the fires, and working to relight the boilers.

 

The damage to the ship was severe enough that the Japanese pilots reported her destroyed. But as at Coral Sea, the Yorktown is resilient. She is not destroyed, far from it. In fact, her damage control crew will have her ready for flight operations again in just two hours.

 

The Yorktown is not done fighting- not yet.

 

“Knockout” - 9”x12” graphite on medium surface paper. Adapted from official US Navy photo.
 

It’s a little after 5:00 PM on June 4, 1942, and Captain Elliott Buckmaster has just given the order that every ship’s master wishes he must never give- abandon ship.

 

Despite the heroic efforts throughout the day by Yorktown’s damage control crews, the hits made by the Japanese air torpedo attack are devastating to the ship- both struck in close proximity to each other and impacted the machinery spaces.

 

The effect was immediate- propulsion was again knocked out, but with the massive flooding caused by the torpedoes, the ship quickly started to lean over, or list. Failures in electrical generation and pumping meant the list quickly grew to over 20 degrees, and Captain Buckmaster and his officers feared the ship could turn over.

 

So Captain Buckmaster ordered the ship abandoned. The crew now carefully climb down netting and ropes dropped to the water, as Yorktown’s escort destroyers and cruisers close in to rescue them from the water. In this gallant fight against the Japanese, the Yorktown has been knocked out.

 

Against all odds, the Yorktown does not sink that night, and Buckmaster organizes a salvage crew to begin preparing the ship for tow back to Pearl Harbor. But fate intervenes, and on the afternoon of June 6 a Japanese submarine sneaks through the destroyer screen and launches a spread of 4 torpedoes at nearly point blank range.

 

One misses astern, one hits the destroyer Hammond tied alongside (she splits in two and sinks within minutes), and two slam into the Yorktown, on the opposite side from the ship from the air torpedoes. Again the effect is immediate, and the salvage crew evacuates.

 

Just after sunrise on June 7, all watch with heavy hearts as Yorktown slowly rolls over and slips beneath the calm surface of the Pacific. 

 

She will not be seen again for 56 years, when Robert Ballard finds her at the bottom of the Pacific in 1998.

 

 

Luzerne County sailor recounts survival of the Japanese attack on the USS Yorktown | June 4, 1942. 

 

As the Battle of Midway raged on June 4, 1942, Japanese aircraft took aim at the US Navy's aircraft carrier Yorktown. Emil Kimmel was at his battle station, waiting to assist any wounded from the ship's anti-aircraft crew as the Japanese planes attacked. He described the events in a letter to a reporter for the newspaper in Freeland, Pennsylvania:

"A few minutes later the loud-speaking system screeched and someone said that our fighter patrol intercepted a number of Jap bombers and broke up their formation.

The dogfight was clearly visible from the ship, and I saw about ten or 12 blobs of smoke on the horizon where they fell.

 

But the few remaining planes got through for an attack and we were hit in a few different spots on the ship. 

 

That’s when I had to go into action evacuating the dead and caring for the wounded. A little while later, while I was attending one case, the Japs were reported coming again, this time with torpedo planes.

 

We were slowed down by the bombs and I became worried as to how we would fare this time. Again, we were hit and the ship listed severely, and then we abandoned ship. My stomach did a couple of flip-flops when I realized that I had to leave my home, but I was ready for anything. I took oft all my clothes except my underwear and my life-jacket and then jumped into the water." 

 

Kimmel was rescued from the water - the USS Yorktown sank three days later from damage caused by the Japanese attack. However, the Yorktown's aircrews were among those who devastated the Japanese fleet and secured US victory in the Battle of Midway. 

 

Read the full story: https://wynninghistory.com/.../30/kimmel-battle-of-midway/

 

 

USS Yorktown was the 3rd ship of the United States Navy to bear the name of the decisive battle of the Revolutionary War. She vaulted to legend status in the early days of the Pacific War after holding the line against the Imperial Japanese Navy during the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. She would prove to be a durable and stubborn warship to sink. Yorktown would earn 3 battle stars for her service before being lost at Midway, where her aviators played a pivotal role in the victory achieved by US forces. Yorktown served her nation well in the short time she was afloat, helping 1st to stem the tide, then to turn the tide of the Pacific War. She was an innovative, durable design that shaped and guided U S carrier operations and naval aviation in the direction to supremacy of the seas.