Revisiting USS Yorktown (CV-5): New Discoveries from the Latest Dive on the Wreck
- EA Baker
- Aug 14
- 6 min read
The time read 1420. Limping back into Pearl Harbor, the USS Yorktown had just returned from the Battle of Coral Sea, where it had been through a gauntlet. Its skipper, Captain Elliot Buckmaster, skillfully maneuvered the aircraft carrier, dodging eight torpedoes and evading bombs dropped from Aichi D3A “Val” dive-bombers.
Yet, one bomb found its mark. A 250 kg (550 lb) semi-armor-piercing bomb hit the center of her flight deck, penetrating four decks before exploding. The bomb caused structural damage to an aviation storage room and damaged the superheater boilers. Twelve near-misses damaged her hull below the waterline, with 66 of her crew killed or wounded.
When Navy Yard inspectors got aboard, they said the damage would take two weeks to repair. Nimitz, with intel on the next Japanese operation aimed at Midway, told them they had 48 hours. Upon closer examination, the ship’s flight elevators were intact, and her deck and hull could be patched quickly. The Navy Yard at Pearl Harbor roared with round-the-clock labor, fixing what they could in the short window they had before the next operation.
Yorktown’s damaged superheater boilers went untouched, limiting her top speed, but she was reinforced with planes and crews from Saratoga. On 30 May, she put to sea as the centerpiece of Task Force 17, joining Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance’s Enterprise and Hornet (Task Force 16) northeast of Midway. Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher flew his flag aboard Yorktown, keeping his ship 10 miles north of Spruance’s force.
The Battle of Midway
In the first days of June, patrols scoured the sea. At dawn on 4 June, Yorktown launched ten SBD Dauntlesses in a northern search arc, but they found nothing. Then, PBY patrol planes from Midway spotted the Japanese fleet. Fletcher ordered Spruance to strike. By midmorning, Yorktown’s Dauntlesses were back aboard, and the deck was hastily reconfigured for attack, which included 17 SBD Dauntless dive-bombers, 12 TBD Devastator torpedo planes, and six Wildcat fighters.
The torpedo squadrons from all three carriers found the Japanese fleet and were slaughtered. Of 41 Devastators, only six limped home to Enterprise and Yorktown. Yet their sacrifice drew the Japanese fighter cover down to sea level, leaving the skies over the Japanese fleet open for attack. Diving from high altitude, Yorktown’s bombers struck Sōryū with three 1,000-pound hits, engulfing her in flames. Enterprise’s squadrons crippled Akagi and Kaga. By noon, three Japanese carriers were burning.
Only Hiryū remained, and she would strike back. At 13:29, Yorktown’s radar picked up incoming aircraft. Wildcats intercepted the attackers, scattering them, but three Vals got through. Their bombs blasted holes in Yorktown’s deck, ruptured her boiler uptakes, and started fires dangerously close to fuel and munitions. Damage control, who time and time again flexed their worth throughout the war, kept one boiler alive, buying time.
By 15:50, steam power was restored. The ship could make 19 knots and resume flight operations.
But the respite was short-lived. Radar soon detected another strike inbound. At 16:20, Japanese Nakajima B5N “Kates” launched torpedoes. Yorktown dodged two, but two more slammed into her port side. She lost all power, her rudder jammed, and her list was increasing steadily.
Damage control reported that the flooding could not be contained. Captain Elliott Buckmaster ordered the ship abandoned to save the crew. In a disciplined fashion, the crew evacuated Yorktown, lowering the wounded into rafts and swimming for nearby destroyers. The executive officer, Commander Dixie Kiefer, went down a line to the water. Buckmaster made one last circuit of the ship before lowering himself over the stern.
A Desperate Salvage Effort
After his rescue by the destroyer USS Hammann, Captain Buckmaster transferred to the cruiser USS Astoria, where Vice Admiral Fletcher had shifted his flag after the first bombing attack on Yorktown. There, they reached the same conclusion that despite her heavy list and the danger of capsizing, the carrier was still afloat and might yet be saved.
While the salvage decision was being made, Yorktown’s airmen were still in the fight. Late that afternoon, her planes joined Enterprise’s in attacking Hiryū, the last operational Japanese carrier. Four direct bomb hits left Hiryū dead in the water, her crew abandoning ship as she drifted helplessly.
Night fell, and Yorktown remained stubbornly afloat.
By the morning of 6 June, Buckmaster chose his executive officer, Commander Dixie Kiefer, to lead a salvage crew of 29 officers and 141 men back aboard the wounded ship. Five destroyers formed a protective anti-submarine screen as the tug Vireo, summoned from Pearl and Hermes Reef, began towing Yorktown. Progress was agonizingly slow.
The salvage party worked methodically: damage control, gunnery, engineering, navigation, communications, supply, and medical crews each attacked their assigned tasks. To bolster the effort, Lieutenant Commander Arnold E. True brought Hammann alongside to starboard to provide pumps and electric power.
By mid-afternoon, progress showed. A 5-inch gun had been dropped overboard, another was ready to follow, aircraft were pushed into the sea, and thousands of gallons of water were pumped out of flooded spaces. The ship’s list eased by about two degrees.
But the danger had been stalking them all along. Unseen in the surrounding debris field, Japanese submarine I-168 crept into firing position. At 15:36, four torpedoes were spotted streaking toward the ship from starboard.
Hammann’s crew rushed to general quarters, a 20mm gun opening fire in a desperate bid to detonate the incoming weapons. One torpedo struck Hammann amidships, breaking her in two. She sank quickly, depth charges detonating as she went down, killing many men in the water and hammering Yorktown with the shockwave. Two torpedoes smashed into Yorktown herself, tearing open her hull near the island structure. A fourth passed harmlessly astern.
The surviving destroyers fanned out in search of the submarine, but I-168 escaped. Rescue operations began immediately for the men of Hammann and the salvage party. USS Vireo cast off the tow to join the effort.
Through the night of 6 June, Yorktown lingered, wounded but still upright. At dawn on 7 June, the port list began to grow rapidly. By 05:30, she rolled to her side, exposing the great torpedo hole in her starboard bilge. At 07:01, she rolled completely over and slipped stern-first into the deep.
Discovery in 1998 and the Recent Dive
Since her sinking in 1942, the USS Yorktown and its historical secrets have remained at the bottom of the ocean, out of human sight. That all changed in 1998 when the National Geographic Midway expedition discovered her on 19 May, three miles down at the bottom of the Pacific. Using video and sonar technology to take sound “pictures” of the ocean floor, they finally located her after 56 years. I have fond memories of being a boy and looking at the 1999 National Geographic issue that focused on Midway, which featured some of the photos of the sunken USS Yorktown.
For another 26 years, the Yorktown remained on the bottom of the ocean floor. That was until last April, when the Papahanaumokuakea ROC and Mapping expedition explored her wreck once again. On the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer, NOAA Ocean Exploration and partners revealed some breath-taking footage of Yorktown including the hand-painted mural of “A Chart of the Cruises of the USS Yorktown,” inside the ship’s #2 elevator shaft, an automobile that’s likely a 1940-41 Ford Super Deluxe ‘Woody’ in the hangar deck, and a Douglas SBD Dauntless with the marking B5. The plane is believed to be one of two planes from Bombing Squadron Six that landed aboard Yorktown following their successful attack on the Japanese carrier Kaga.
Check out the footage here:
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