In honor of my father

...who was on the flight deck
of the USS Yorktown when she was hit by the first
bomb, I post this. On April 18th, 2006, 2 nights
before he died, he told me about losing his best
friend that day and about the many other friends
he would lose during WWII, the Korean War, and
Vietnam. Dad devoted thirty years of his life
to the US Navy.

He had never spoken about the war to me, but he
needed to unburden his heart, so filled for 64 years,
of the pain of losing so many friends, of the horrors
of war, of the question I think he asked himself over
and over, "Why did I live?"

Mom told me that in the last month of his life, during his illness,
he not only named all those men, he knew their home towns
and their family names and how old they were and how they
died. Mom says she thinks they were there in the room with him
as he many times seemed to be talking to them. She said it was
heartbreaking and frightening to hear.

I didn't want to believe Dad told me these things
because he thought he was going to die, but I know
that's at least part of the reason.

I miss you, Dad. I raise my hand to my forehead
now and salute you, as I always did when your ship
would dock in Norfolk, VA when I was a young girl.

As I was then, I remain today--proud to be your daughter--
proud to call you father.


*****************************************************

Despite an intensive barrage and evasive manuvering, three "Vals" scored hits. Two of them were shot down soon after releasing their bomb loads; the third went out of control just as his bomb left the rack. It tumbled in flight and hit just abaft number two elevator on the starboard side, exploding on contact and blasting a hole about 10 feet square in the flight deck. Splinters from the exploding bomb decimated the crews of the two 1.1 inch gun mounts aft of the island and on the flight deck below. Fragments piercing the flight deck hit three planes on the hangar deck, starting fires. One of the aircraft, a Yorktown Dauntless, was fully fueled and carrying a 1,000 pound bomb. Prompt action by Lt. A. C. Emerson, the hangar deck officer, prevented a serious conflagration by releasing the sprinkler system and quickly extinguishing the fire.
The second bomb to hit the ship came from the port side, pierced the flight deck, and exploded in the lower part of the funnel. It ruptured the uptakes for three boilers, disabled two boilers themselves, and extinguished the fires in five boilers. Smoke and gases began filling the firerooms of six boilers. The men at number one boiler, however, remained at their post despite their danger and discomfort and kept its fire going, maintaining enough steam pressure to allow the auxiliary steam systems to function.
A third bomb hit the carrier from the starboard side, pierced the side of number one elevator and exploded on the fourth deck, starting a persistent fire in the rag storage space, adjacent to the forward gasoline stowage and the magazines. The prior precaution of smothering the gasoline system with CO undoubtedly prevented the gasoline from igniting.
While the ship recovered from the damage inflicted by the dive-bombing attack, her speed dropped to six knots; and then at 1440, about 20 minutes after the bomb hit that had shut down most of the boilers, Yorktown slowed to a stop, dead in the water.
At about 1540, Yorktown prepared to get underway again; and, at 1550, the engine room force reported that they were ready to make 20 knots or better. The ship was not yet out of the fight.
Simultaneously, with the fires controlled sufficiently to warrant the resumption of fueling operations, Yorktown began fueling the gasoline tanks of the fighters then on deck. Fueling had just commenced when the ship's radar picked up an incoming air group at a distance of 33 miles away. While the ship prepared for battle - again smothering gasoline systems and stopping the fueling of the planes on her flight deck - she vectored four of the six fighters of the CAP in the air to intercept the incoming raiders. Of the 10 fighters on board, eight had as much as 23 gallons of fuel in their tanks. They accordingly were launched as the remaining pair of fighters of the CAP headed out to intercept the Japanese planes.

Yorktown is hit on the port side, amidships, by a Japanese Type 91 aerial torpedo during the mid-afternoon attack by planes from the carrier Hiryu.
At 1600, Yorktown churned forward, making 20 knots. The fighters she had launched and vectored out to intercept had meanwhile made contact, Yorktown received reports that the planes were "Kates." The Wildcats downed at least three of the attacking torpedo planes, but the rest began their approach in the teeth of a heavy antiaircraft barrage from the carrier and her escorts.
Yorktown maneuvered radically, avoiding at least two torpedoes before two "fish" tore into her port side within minutes of each other. The first hit at 1620. The carrier had been mortally wounded; she lost power and went dead in the water with a jammed rudder and an increasing list to port.
As the list progressed, Comdr. C. E. Aldrich, the damage control officer, reported from central station that, without power, controlling the flooding looked impossible. The engineering officer, Lt. Comdr. J. F. Delaney, soon reported that all fires were out; all power was lost; and. worse yet, it was impossible to correct the list. Faced with that situation, Capt. Buckmaster ordered Aldrich, Delaney, and their men to secure and lay up on deck to put on life jackets.
The list, meanwhile, continued to increase. When it reached 26 degrees, Buckmaster and Aldrich agreed that the ship's capsizing was only a matter of minutes. "In order to save as many of the ship's company as possible," the captain wrote later, he "ordered the ship to be abandoned."
Over the minutes that ensued, the crew left ship, lowering the wounded to life rafts and striking out for the nearby destroyers and cruisers to be picked up by boats from those ships. After the evacuation of all wounded, the executive officer, Comdr. I. D. Wiltsie, left the ship down a line on the starboard side. Capt. Buckmaster, meanwhile, toured the ship for one last time, inspecting her to see if any men remained. After finding no "live personnel," Buckmaster lowered himself into the water by means of a line over the stern. By that point, water was lapping the port side of the hangar deck.