Yorktown Class Aircraft Carrier - Operational History

Operational History

The three ships of this class are noted for bearing the brunt of the fighting in the early months of the Pacific war, most notably during the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, and the Guadalcanal campaign. During the latter campaign, Hornet and later Enterprise had the distinction of being the only operational carrier in the U.S. Pacific fleet.

Enterprise aircraft saw action at Pearl Harbor when a flight of her scout aircraft were engaged by both Japanese fighters and American gunners when they arrived in the middle of the attack. Enterprise later participated in the first offensive actions against Japan, launching attacks against the Marshall Islands, Wake, and Marcus Island.

Yorktown transferred to the Pacific on 16 December 1941 and later raided the Gilbert Islands in the same operation as Enterprise. Along with Lexington, she raided bases in New Guinea, then participated in the Battle of Coral Sea . Her planes helped sink the Shoho and damaged the Shokaku. Damaged by Japanese carrier aircraft, Yorktown returned to Pearl Harbor and was hastily repaired in time to participate in the Battle of Midway.

Hornet spent the first months of the war training in Norfolk, Va, before being assigned to the Doolittle Raid. Loaded with a squadron of B-25 bombers and escorted by Enterprise, the ship launched the first air raids against the Japanese mainland.

All three ships of the class saw action during the Battle of Midway (4–7 June 1942), Enterprise and Yorktown aircraft were responsible for sinking all four Japanese carriers engaged in the battle, while Hornet assisted in the sinking of one heavy cruiser and severely damaging another. All three carriers suffered severe losses among their air groups, most notably Hornet's Torpedo Squadron 8, which lost 15 aircraft with only a single surviving airman. Yorktown was damaged by aerial bombs and torpedoes and abandoned on 4 June. Later re-manned by repair crews, the ship was spotted and torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and eventually sank on 7 June 1942.

Enterprise was assigned to the invasion of Guadalcanal and participated in preliminary strikes on the island. She suffered moderate damage during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons but was repaired in time to join Hornet in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. Hornet was severely damaged during the latter engagement and had to be abandoned. Attempts to scuttle the ship by her escorts failed, and she was left adrift before finally being sunk by Japanese destroyers on 27 October 1942. Enterprise was again damaged during the battle, but was repaired enough to deliver her air group to Guadalcanal, where it participated in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Enterprise aircraft assisted in finishing off the heavily damaged battleship Hiei and were instrumental in destroying the Japanese transport fleet, thereby ending Japan's last serious attempt at reclaiming the island.

After a lengthy overhaul and repair period at Bremerton, Washington, Enterprise joined the Central Pacific Fleet as part of the Fast Carrier Task Force. She participated in every major invasion of the Central Pacific campaign, including the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Her air groups contributed to the development of carrier night operations, executing a night air raid on Truk Lagoon and operating as a specialized night air group towards the end of the war.

Enterprise was finally put out of action on 14 May 1945 when she was struck in the forward elevator by a kamikaze aircraft flown by Japanese pilot Lt. Shunsuke Tomiyasu, which destroyed the elevator and severely damaged her hangar deck. She was still out of action on V-J Day but was subsequently fitted out for Operation Magic Carpet, ferrying over 10,000 veterans home from Europe.

By the end of World War II, Enterprise had been considerably modified. Her final displacement was 32,060 tons and her final armament was 8 single 5 inch/38 caliber DP guns, 40 40 mm Bofors AA guns, 6 quad and 8 twin (replacing the ineffective 1.1"/75 caliber gun quad mounts which the Yorktown class had initially been fitted with) and 50 single 20 mm Oerlikon AA cannons. The Yorktowns had proved to be vulnerable to torpedoes, and while undergoing repairs at Bremerton, Washington, from July to October, 1943, Enterprise received an extensive refit, which included an anti-torpedo blister that significantly improved her underwater protection.

Stricken from the list in 1959 after multiple attempts to preserve her as a museum and memorial, ex-Enterprise met her fate in the breaker's yards at Kearny, New Jersey in 1960.