USS Yorktown (CV-5) - World War II

World War II

The early news from the Pacific was bleak: the Pacific Fleet had taken a beating. With the battle line crippled, the undamaged American carriers assumed great importance. There were, on 7 December, only three in the Pacific: USS Enterprise (CV-6), USS Lexington (CV-2), and USS Saratoga (CV-3). USS Ranger (CV-4), USS Wasp (CV-7), and the recently commissioned USS Hornet (CV-8) remained in the Atlantic, Yorktown departed Norfolk on 16 December 1941 for the Pacific, her secondary gun galleries studded with new Oerlikon 20 mm guns. She reached San Diego 30 December 1941 and soon became flagship for Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher's newly formed Task Force 17.

The carrier's first mission in her new theater was to escort a convoy carrying Marine reinforcements to American Samoa. Departing San Diego on 6 January 1942, Yorktown and her consorts covered the movement of marines to Pago Pago in Tutuila to augment the garrison already there.

Having safely covered that troop movement, Yorktown, in company with sister ship Enterprise, departed Samoan waters on 25 January. Six days later, Task Force 8 (built around Enterprise), and TF 17 (around Yorktown) parted company. The former headed for the Marshall Islands, the latter for the Gilberts, each to take part in some of the first American offensives of the war, the Marshalls-Gilberts raids.

Yorktown was being screened by USS Louisville (CA-28) and USS St. Louis (CL-49) and four destroyers, seemingly provided by Destroyer Squadron 2. At 05:17, Yorktown launched 11 Douglas TBD-1 Devastators and 17 Douglas SBD-3 Dauntlesses, under the command of Comdr. Curtis W. Smiley. Those planes hit what Japanese shore installations and shipping they could find at Jaluit, but severe thunderstorms hampered the mission, and seven planes were lost. Other Yorktown planes attacked Japanese installations and ships at Makin and Mili Atolls.

The attack on the Gilberts by Task Force 17 had apparently been a complete surprise since the American force encountered no enemy surface ships. A single four-engined Kawanishi H6K "Mavis" patrol flying boat attempted to attack American destroyers sent astern in hope of recovering the crews of planes overdue from the Jaluit mission. Antiaircraft fire from the destroyers drove off the intruder before he could cause any damage.

Later, another "Mavis"-or possibly the same one-came out of low clouds 15,000 yards (14,000 m) distant from Yorktown. The carrier withheld her antiaircraft fire in order not to interfere with the combat air patrol (CAP) fighters. Presently, the "Mavis", pursued by two F4F Wildcats, disappeared behind a cloud. Within five minutes, the enemy patrol plane fell out of the clouds and crashed in the water.

Although TF17 was slated to make a second attack on Jaluit, it was canceled because of heavy rainstorms and the approach of darkness. Therefore, the Yorktown force retired from the area.

Admiral Chester Nimitz later called the Marshalls-Gilberts raids "well conceived, well planned, and brilliantly executed." The results obtained by TFs 8 and 17 were noteworthy, Nimitz continued in his subsequent report, because the task forces had been obliged to make their attacks somewhat blindly, due to lack of hard intelligence data on the Japanese-mandated islands.

Yorktown subsequently put in at Pearl Harbor for replenishment before she put to sea on 14 February, bound for the Coral Sea. On 6 March, she rendezvoused with TF11 - formed around Lexington and under the command of Vice Admiral Wilson Brown - and headed towards Rabaul and Gasmata to attack Japanese shipping there in an effort to check the Japanese advance and to cover the landing of Allied troops at Nouméa, New Caledonia. However, as the two carriers - screened by a powerful force of eight heavy cruisers (including the Australian warships HMAS Australia and HMAS Canberra) and 14 destroyers - steamed toward New Guinea, the Japanese continued their advance toward Australia with a landing on 7 March at the Huon Gulf, in the Salamaua-Lae area on the eastern end of New Guinea.

Word of the Japanese operation prompted Admiral Brown to change the objective of TF11's strike from Rabaul to the Salamaua-Lae sector. On the morning of 10 March 1942, American carriers launched aircraft from the Gulf of Papua. Lexington flew off her air group commencing at 07:49 and, 21 minutes later, Yorktown followed suit. While the choice of the gulf as the launch point for the strike meant the planes would have to fly some 125 miles (200 km) across the Owen Stanley mountains - a range not known for the best flying conditions - that approach provided security for the task force and ensured surprise.

In the attacks that followed, Lexington's SBDs from Scouting Squadron 2 (VS-2) commenced dive-bombing Japanese ships at Lae at 0922. The carrier's torpedo and bomber squadrons (VT-2 and VB-2) attacked shipping at Salamaua at 09:38. Her fighters (VF-2) split up into four-plane attack groups: one strafed Lae and the other, Salamaua. Yorktown's planes followed on the heels of those from "Lady Lex." VB-5 and VT-5 attacked Japanese ships in the Salamaua area at 0950, while VS-5 went after auxiliaries moored close in shore at Lae. The fighters of VF-42 flew CAP over Salamaua until they determined there was no air opposition, then strafed surface objectives and small boats in the harbor.

After carrying out their missions, the American planes returned to their carriers, and 103 planes of the 104 launched were back safely on board by noon. One SBD-2 had been downed by Japanese antiaircraft fire. The raid on Salamaua and Lae was the first attack by many pilots of both carriers; and, while the resultant torpedo and bombing accuracy was inferior to that achieved in later actions, the operation gave the fliers invaluable experience which enabled them to do so well in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway.

Task Force 11 retired at 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h) on a southeasterly course until dark, when the ships steered eastward at 15 knots (17 mph; 28 km/h) and made rendezvous with Task Group 11.7 (TG11.7), three heavy cruisers (USS Chicago, HMAS Australia, and HMAS Canberra) and four destroyers under the Australian Rear Admiral John Crace, which provided cover for the carriers on their approach to New Guinea.

Yorktown resumed her patrols in the Coral Sea area, remaining at sea into April, out of reach of Japanese land-based aircraft and ready to carry out offensive operations whenever the opportunity presented itself. After the Lae-Salamaua raid, the situation in the South Pacific seemed temporarily stabilized, and Yorktown and her consorts in TF17 put in to the undeveloped harbor at Tongatabu, in the Tonga Islands, for needed upkeep, having been at sea continuously since departing from Pearl Harbor on 14 February.

However, the enemy was soon on the move. To Admiral Nimitz, there seemed to be "excellent indications that the Japanese intended to make a seaborne attack on Port Moresby the first week in May." Yorktown accordingly departed Tongatapu on 27 April 1942, bound once more for the Coral Sea. TF11 - now commanded by Rear Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch, who had relieved Brown in Lexington - departed Pearl Harbor to join Fletcher's TF 17 and arrived in the vicinity of Yorktown's group, southwest of the New Hebrides Islands, on 1 May.