USS YORKTOWN CV-5 and 'Return to Midway"

[The Sailor]

What an old warrior.

She was damaged during Battle of Midway on 4 Jun 42 by torpedoes and bombs, abandoned and taken in tow on the 5th.
Torpedoed by I-168 on the 6th and sunk by slow flooding at 0500 on the 7th.

CV-5 USS Yorktown
Displacement: 19,800 tons
Length: 827'4"
Beam: 114'
Draft: 28'6"
Speed: 34 knots

Armament: 8 5"/38, 85 planes
Complement: 2,919
Built at Newport News, and commissioned 30 September 1937
Badly damaged 8 May 42 in the Battle of the Coral Sea, heroic efforts by dry dock personnel repaired Yorktown in time for the Battle of Midway.

The photo below includes the destroyer USS Hammann which was also lost.


Yorktown (CV-5) earned three battle stars for her World War II service; two of them being for the significant part she had played in stopping Japanese expansion and turning the tide of the war at Coral Sea and at Midway.

Intruducing my book "Return to Midway by Robert.D Ballard

On 19 May 1998, the wreck of Yorktown was found by Dr. Robert D. Ballard, famous oceanographer and discoverer of the wreck of the Titanic. The wreck was found 3 miles (5 km) beneath the surface

[astraltrader]

Great thread Sailor! Some of these pictures provide an interesting record of her demise...

[BB60]

These two pic are poignant to me.

The Yorktown about to go under and the USS Hammann (DD-412) going down quickly with a large portion of her crew after taking a Japanese torpedo intended for the Yorktown.

[herakles]

Great pictures Terry and Jeff. In fact remarkably good pictures describing so vividly the final moments of a great ship.

[BB60]

Bear in mind that the first two pics in Terry's post are actually photos of a diorama. It was a good one and does a good job of depicting the castastrophe that befell those two warships.

My ten year old daughter was near me as I was posting the pics and saw the date (June 6), which is her birthday. She asked me about the pics and I took the opportunity to tell her of the high points of the Battle of Midway and she actually seemed interested as I spoke of the broken code, late Japanese search plane, Nagumo's agonizing over what ordinance to load for the next strike, the unstored ordinance, the fortuitous splitting of the US strike groups, the loss of Torpedo 8 and the other VT groups, George Gay's grandstand view and the late arriving dive bombers of Leslie and McCluskey, which were at the exact time needed and sealed the fate of the Japanese carriers.

Thanks guys, for helping to make a chance to teach her.

[herakles]

Nice jeff! You who are speaking from yesterday!

I didn't realise the pics were from a diorama.

Your story underscores just how interesting and exciting history can be. If only the schools realised this and did it. Instead of turning kids off the subject so that they end up believing absurdities like Churchill was a myth. Franklin D who?

[BB60]

I am sure to the men at the time enduring the daily drudgery of ship's life didn't think so, but that week or so surrounding the battle is an exciting time to study. How would the battle and history been different if one little aspect of the battle been changed?

Think about it.
What if the Japanese had not taken the bait on AF's "water problems"?
What if Tone's floatplane had gotten off on time?
What if the torpedo and dive bomber arrived over the Japanese carriers at the same time?
What if the torpodo sqaudrons had been better coordinated so that their attacks were at the same time, instead of staggered as they were, insuring the Japanese were fully pulled down to water just as the dive bombers arrived?
What if McCluskey and Leslie had headed for home, as their squadrons were getting low on fuel?
Change any one of these and you change the battle and you change history dramatically, but not for the benefit of the guys in the white hats.

[herakles]

The matter of "what ifs" is intriguing. Some historians dismiss it as useless. Others use it to be able to reflect on the various alternatives it offers.

I'm for it. So many times in history, one small change would have produced massive changes to the way things happened. Sometimes something as insignificant as: "what if it hadn't rained .. ..." etc..

[astraltrader]

Absolutely Herk. I have always felt that as long as one has formulated a balanced view to History, then to explore what ifs and then develop the sort of alternative reality that might well have evolved can only be of benefit...