USS Yorktown 1942

About the wreck

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.

Diving & visiting

After being picked up by the destroyer USS Hammann, Buckmaster transferred to the cruiser Astoria and reported to Vice Admiral Fletcher, who had shifted his flag to the heavy cruiser after the first dive-bombing attack. The two men agreed that a salvage party should attempt to save the ship since she had stubbornly remained afloat despite the heavy list and imminent danger of capsizing.

While efforts to save Yorktown had been proceeding apace, her planes were still in action, joining those from Enterprise in striking the last Japanese carrier—Hiryū—late that afternoon. Taking four direct hits, the Japanese carrier was soon helpless.

On 19 May 1998, the wreck of Yorktown was found and photographed by oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard, discoverer of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. The wreck of Yorktown, 3 miles (5 km) deep, was sitting upright in excellent condition. Despite spending 56 years on the deep-sea floor, much of her paint and equipment were still visible. A more extensive survey of the wreck was conducted by EV Nautilus in September 2023.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article USS Yorktown (CV-5) (revision 1381333901), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Salvage and sinking”, “Wreck”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.

Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).

Nearby wrecks

• USS Hammann 0 km

Other wrecks of the World War II

• U-434 1941
• USS Arizona (BB-39) 1941
• USS Hopewell 1941
• Vasilefs Georgios 1941
• Zara 1941
• Akagi 1942
• Aviere 1942
• Diana 1942
• Giovanni delle Bande Nere 1942
• HMAS Nestor 1942

All 599 wrecks of the World War II →

Browse more: Open ocean wrecks · North Pacific Ocean · Second World War

Further reading

• Wikipedia: USS Yorktown (CV-5)
• Wikidata Q311245