The USS Yorktown drydocked at Pearl Harbor after the Battle of Coral Sea. Shipyard workers had just three days to patch up Yorktown and return her to the fleet in order for her to participate in the Battle of Midway.U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo
We forget how how so many things had to go right including getting the Yorktown out there and including luck
For Midway to be successful
Thanks for posting
One of the greatest stories of World War II.
View of the underside of Yorktown’s flight deck structure, showing the impact hole made by the Japanese bomb that struck the ship amidships during the Battle of the Coral Sea. A patch over the flight deck’s broken wooden planking is visible within the hole. Note structural beam in lower part of the photo, distorted by the bomb’s passage. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo
GREAT History Lesson! Thanks for posting this. I cannot imagine Nimitz telling the crews “You have three days” when the first estimates were 90 days.
If only they’d had a crew of trannies, the Yorktown would have been combat ready in TWO days!
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Although a movie line from
Tora,Tora,Torah (1970),
and not confirmed as Yamamoto
having actually saying this,
the giant did wake up.
These men did an amazing job.
Glad to see this story posted and to read it.
A while back I found some illuminating statistics on the actual numbers of aircraft, ships and land forces by nation. You could spend many fruitful hours exploring this data on Wikipedia. Take a look at this section: Military production during_World_War -- Air_forces.
One big take away is the incredible amount of effort and money America put into manufacturing training aircraft and doing lots of pilot training.
The statistics show that out of about 296,000 aircraft American produced during WW2, 58,000 of them were TRAINING aircraft, accounting for 20% of all production.
By contrast, the Japanese produced 65,000 aircraft, but only had 3,500 training planes, a little over 5% of all aircraft made.
You begin to see the great wisdom the "Greatest Generation" of Americans applied to winning World War II. Lots of smarts, grit, and pucker-factor guts by America's highly trained fly-boys.
The Japs took it out three times — twice at Midway.
From the article, what was in the sobering letter (it was more than just a hole in the hull):
A 551-pound armor-piercing bomb had plunged through the flight deck 15 feet inboard of her island and penetrated fifty feet into the ship before exploding above the forward engine room. Six compartments were destroyed, as were the lighting systems on three decks and across 24 frames. The gears controlling the No. 2 elevator were damaged. She had lost her radar and refrigeration system. Near misses by eight bombs had opened seams in her hull from frames 100 to 130 and ruptured the fuel-oil compartments. Rear Adm. Aubrey Fitch, aboard the damaged carrier, estimated that repairing the Yorktown would take ninety days.
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It isn’t recorded in history, but I wonder if Nimitz said anything like “Jesus Christ was resurrected in three days. This ship can damn well be too!”
Was at first puzzled by this term, doubting that it could be a reference to actual caissons (which always include pressurized air in an air-tight space) - but then looked it up on Wikipedia, where it is explained that this is not the "core" meaning. Rather, it is listed under "Other meanings," and refers to a sort of lock.
Regards,
It would take many years to do that now.... Regulations and rules supercedes common sense.
Thanks!
This reality was in the background during the pre and post Battle of Midway!
Joseph John Rochefort was an American naval officer and cryptanalyst. He was a major figure in the United States Navy’s cryptographic and intelligence operations from 1925 to 1946, particularly in the Battle of Midway. His contributions and those of his team were pivotal to victory in the Pacific War. Wikipedia
USS Yorktown (CV/CVA/CVS-10) is one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. Initially to have been named Bonhomme Richard, she was renamed Yorktown while still under construction, after the Yorktown-class aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5), which was sunk at the Battle of Midway. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CV-10)
80 years later,
The U.S. Navy announced Monday it will decommission, rather than repair or repurpose, the USS Bonhomme Richard because of extensive damage from a fire while the vessel was in port. The Wasp-class amphibious assault ship was docked in San Diego when a fire broke out on July 12. It took five days to extinguish the inferno... Repairing or repurposing the ship, according to Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite, would be a billion-dollar battle.
The Navy determined that the cost of restoring the ship could exceed $3 billion and it would take five to seven years from start to finish. Rebuilding and repurposing the ship could exceed $1 billion. The Navy says it could construct a new hospital ship, submarine tender, or command-and-control ship for the same price, or less. - https://www.npr.org/2020/11/30/940302619/navy-will-dismantle-uss-bonhomme-richard
I read it all.
