USS Yorktown (CV-5)
USS Yorktown (CV-5)
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USS Yorktown (CV-5)

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USS Yorktown (CV-5)

USS Yorktown (CV-5) was an aircraft carrier that served in the United States Navy during World War II. Named after the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, she was commissioned in 1937. Yorktown was the lead ship of the Yorktown class, which was designed on the basis of lessons learned from operations with the converted battlecruisers of the Lexington class and the smaller purpose-built USS Ranger.

Yorktown was at port in Norfolk during the attack on Pearl Harbor, having just completed a patrol of the Atlantic Ocean. She then sailed to San Diego in late December 1941 and was incorporated as the flagship of Task Force 17. Together with the carrier Lexington, she successfully attacked Japanese shipping off the east coast of New Guinea in early March 1942. Her aircraft sank or damaged several warships supporting the invasion of Tulagi in early May. Yorktown rendezvoused with Lexington in the Coral Sea and attempted to stop the invasion of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. They sank the light aircraft carrier Shōhō on 7 May 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea, but did not encounter the main Japanese force of the carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku until the next day. Aircraft from Lexington and Yorktown badly damaged Shōkaku, but the Japanese aircraft critically damaged Lexington, which was later scuttled, and severely damaged Yorktown.

Despite the damage suffered, Yorktown was able to return to Hawaii. Although estimates were that the damage would take two weeks to repair, Yorktown put to sea only 72 hours after entering drydock at Pearl Harbor, which meant that she was available for the next confrontation with the Japanese. Yorktown played an important part in the Battle of Midway in early June of that year. Yorktown's aircraft played crucial roles in crippling two Japanese fleet carriers. Yorktown also absorbed both Japanese aerial counterattacks at Midway which otherwise would have been directed at the carriers USS Enterprise and Hornet. On 4 June, during the battle, aircraft from the Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū crippled Yorktown after two attacks. She lost all power and developed a 23-degree list to port. Salvage efforts on Yorktown were encouraging, and she was taken in tow by USS Vireo. On 6 June, the Japanese submarine I-168 fired a salvo of torpedoes, two of which struck Yorktown, and a third sinking the destroyer USS Hammann, which had been providing auxiliary power to Yorktown. With further salvage efforts deemed hopeless, the remaining repair crews were evacuated from Yorktown, which sank on 7 June. The wreck of Yorktown was located by oceanographer Robert Ballard in 1998.

Yorktown was laid down on 21 May 1934 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.; launched on 4 April 1936; sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt; and commissioned at the Naval Station Norfolk (NS Norfolk), Norfolk, Virginia, on 30 September 1937, Captain Ernest D. McWhorter in command.

After fitting out, the aircraft carrier trained in Hampton Roads, Virginia and in the southern drill grounds off the Virginia capes into January 1938, conducting carrier qualifications for her newly embarked air group.

Yorktown sailed for the Caribbean on 8 January 1938 and arrived at Culebra, Puerto Rico, on 13 January. Over the ensuing month, the carrier conducted her shakedown, touching at Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; Gonaïves, Haiti; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Cristóbal, Panama Canal Zone. Departing Colón Bay, Cristóbal, on 1 March, Yorktown sailed for Hampton Roads, arrived on 6 March, and put into the Norfolk Navy Yard the next day for post-shakedown availability.

After undergoing repairs through the early autumn of 1938, Yorktown moved station from the navy yard to NS Norfolk on 17 October 1938 and soon headed for the Southern Drill Grounds for training.

Yorktown operated off the eastern seaboard, ranging from Chesapeake Bay to Guantanamo Bay, into 1939. As flagship for Carrier Division 2, she participated in her first war game—Fleet Problem XX—along with her sister-ship Enterprise in February 1939. The scenario for the exercise called for one fleet to control the sea lanes in the Caribbean against the incursion of a foreign European power while maintaining sufficient naval strength to protect vital American interests in the Pacific. The maneuvers were witnessed, in part, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, embarked in the heavy cruiser Houston.

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