US Yorktown (CV-5)

History

Third American warship to bear this name, the US '' Yorktown '' is a Porte-avions of 19800 tons. It carries the number of hull CV-5. Built to the building sites of Newport News, in Virginia, it is launched on April 4th, 1936 and has as a godmother Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the 32e president of the United States. He is declared operational on September 30th, 1937, and it is the captain Ernest D. McWhorter which takes the command of it.

Once armed, the aircraft carrier leaves for the zone drive Virginia Capes, with broad of the Baie of Chesapeake, in January 1938, where it leads the operations of qualification of its new airborne group.

As from April 1939, it operates in the Caribbean and the Atlantic, then the two following years in the Pacific. In May 1941, the Yorktown turns over in the Atlantic, where it patrols during the months preceding the entry in war by the the United States against the forces of the Axe.

The war

Two weeks after the Japanese attack with Pearl Harbor, the Yorktown forwards by the Panama Canal to reinforce the fleet of the Pacific which is in bad posture. The first combat of the Yorktown will take place at the beginning of February 1942, during the operation Marshalls-Gilberts. Immediately after, the aircraft carrier travels towards the Southern Pacific, where it takes part in a series of raids and operations whose culminating point is the Bataille of the Coral sea at the beginning of May. During this battle, in which it was bombarded by the enemy, the planes of the Yorktown attacked two Japanese aircraft carriers, the Shoho - who was cast - and the Shokaku - which was seriously damaged.

Rapids repairs in Pearl Harbor enable him to take part in the Bataille of Midway, June 4th, 5th and 6th 1942. During this moment-key of the Campaigns of the Pacific, its planes made unusable the aircraft carrier Soryu and took part in the destruction of the cruiser Mikuma like with that of the aircraft carrier Hiryu .

They are however successive attacks of the bombers and planes torpedo tubes of the Hiryu which will be right of the Yorktown , which will be abandoned in the afternoon of June 4th. Two days later, whereas the rescue operations are in hand, the Japanese submarine I-168 runs the US '' Hammann '' and the damaged aircraft carrier, the first immediately and the second shortly after to raise it day on June 7th.

The wreck of the Yorktown was discovered and explored in May 1998. In spite of the few 56 years that it passed under several hundred meters of water, it extrèmement is well preserved.

Characteristics

  • Bridge: wood

Aircraft

  • 81/85 apparatuses
  • Douglas TBD Devastator
  • Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless
  • Grumman F4F WILDCAT

Armament

  • 8 parts of 127 mm AA
  • Guns multiple of 20 mm AA

Source

  • This article is a translation of the article in: “ ”.

External bond

  • Little story of the '' Yorktown ''

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