The Anchors Aweigh series was placed in honor of the men of the
US Navy who have served in the defense of our country. Each cache
is dedicated to one of the warships involved in battle. If you find
all the caches in the series, you’ll reveal some nice GeoArt
on your cache map. These are not difficult caches to find. If you
cannot find a cache easily, it’s probably missing. Send me a
picture (by email, not in your log) of where you think the cache
should be, and I’ll accept the find and replace the
cache.
Because of the difficulty in finding suitable locations for some
of the caches, some puzzle caches were used (not this one) so that
the find icon could be in a location separate from the cache. You
should be able to solve the puzzles with information on this cache
page. I suggest you solve the puzzles before you make your cache
run, to help optimize the route.
USS Yorktown
USS Yorktown was an aircraft carrier commissioned in the
United States Navy from 1937 until she was sunk at the Battle of
Midway in June 1942. She was named after the Battle of Yorktown in
1781 and the lead ship of the Yorktown class. She represented the
epitome of U.S. pre-war carrier design.
Yorktown's first significant action during World War II
occurred at the Battle of Coral Sea in May of 1941, six months
after Pearl Harbor. The Japanese won a tactical victory, inflicting
comparatively heavier losses on the Allied force, but the Allies,
in stemming the tide of Japan's conquests in the South and
Southwest Pacific, had achieved a strategic victory.
Yorktown had not achieved her part in the victory without
cost, and had suffered enough damage to cause experts to estimate
that at least three months in a yard would be required to put her
back in fighting trim.
However, there was little time for repairs, because Allied
intelligence had gained enough information from decoded Japanese
naval messages to estimate that the Japanese were on the threshold
of a major operation aimed at the northwestern tip of the Hawaiian
chain - two islets in a low coral atoll known as Midway.
Battle of Midway
Armed with this intelligence Admiral Nimitz began methodically
planning Midway's defense, rushing all possible reinforcement in
the way of men, planes and guns to Midway. Yorktown received
orders to return to Hawaii; and she arrived at Pearl Harbor on 27
May. Performing a seeming miracle, yard workers there - laboring
around the clock - made enough repairs to enable the ship to put to
sea three days later.
Patrols, both from Midway itself and from the carriers,
proceeded apace during those days in early June. Devastator torpedo
planes from the three American carriers, Enterprise,
Hornet, and Yorktown, located the Japanese striking
force, but met disaster. Of the 41 American planes, only six
returned to Enterprise and Yorktown, collectively.
None made it back to Hornet.
The destruction of the torpedo planes, however, had served a
purpose. The Japanese planes had broken off their high-altitude
cover for their carriers and had concentrated on the Devastators,
flying "on the deck." The skies above were thus left open for
Dauntless dive bombers arriving from Yorktown and
Enterprise.
Virtually unopposed, Yorktown's dive-bombers pummeled
Japanese aircraft carrier Soryu, making three lethal hits
with 1,000 pound bombs, turning her into an inferno.
Enterprise's planes, meanwhile, hit Japanese aircraft
carriers Akagi and Kaga - turning them, too, into
wrecks in short order. The bombs from the Dauntlesses caught all of
the Japanese carriers in the midst of refueling and rearming
operations, and the combination of bombs and gasoline proved
explosive and disastrous to the Japanese.
Three Japanese carriers had been lost. A fourth however, still
roamed at large, the aircraft carrier Hiryu. Separated from
her sisters, she launched a striking force of 18 "Vals" and soon
located Yorktown.
All of Yorktown's fighters were sent out to intercept the
oncoming Japanese aircraft, and did so some 15 to 20 miles out. The
Wildcats attacked vigorously, breaking up what appeared to be an
organized attack by some 18 Vals and 6 Zeroes. Despite an intensive
barrage and evasive maneuvering, 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.
Shortly thereafter, with the fires controlled sufficiently to
warrant the resumption of fueling, Yorktown began refueling
the fighters then on deck; just then the ship's radar picked up an
incoming air group at a distance of 33 miles. While the ship
prepared for battle she sent her remaining Wildcat fighters out to
intercept the Japanese planes. The Wildcats shot down at least
three, but the rest began their approach while the carrier and her
escorts mounted a heavy antiaircraft barrage.
Yorktown maneuvered radically, avoiding at least two
torpedoes before another two struck the port side within minutes of
each other. 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.
When the list reached 26 degrees, Buckmaster and Aldrich agreed
that capsizing was imminent. "In order to save as many of the
ship's company as possible", the captain wrote later, he "ordered
the ship to be abandoned." Yorktown, however, stubbornly
remained afloat despite the heavy list, and a salvage party was
sent to save the ship.
While efforts to save Yorktown had been proceeding apace,
her planes were still in action, joining those from
Enterprise in striking the last Japanese carrier
Hiryu late that afternoon. Taking four direct hits, the
Japanese carrier was soon helpless. She was abandoned by her crew
and left to drift out of control. She was eventually scuttled by
the Japanese, taking with her the Japanese Rear Admiral Yamaguchi.
Yamaguchi's insistence on going down with his carrier robbed the
Japanese of one of their most experienced and aggressive carrier
admirals.
Meanwhile, the USS Vireo, summoned from Pearl Harbor,
soon commenced towing the Yorktown. By mid-afternoon of June
5, it looked as if the gamble to save the ship was paying off. The
efforts of the salvage crew had reduced the list about two
degrees.
Unknown to Yorktown and the six nearby destroyers,
Japanese submarine I-168 had achieved a favorable firing position
and fired four torpedoes. Two of the torpedoes struck
Yorktown. Vireo cut the tow, and another attempt at
salvage was never made. Throughout the night of the 6th and into
the morning of the 7th, Yorktown remained stubbornly afloat.
Early on 7 June, however, the list was rapidly increasing to port.
At 07:01, the ship turned over onto her port side and sank in 3,000
fathoms of water, her battle flags flying.
Yorktown earned three battle stars for her World War II
service, two of them for the significant part she had played in
stopping Japanese expansion and turning the tide of the war at
Coral Sea and at Midway. The Battle of Midway has often been called
"the turning point of the Pacific". The loss of four large Japanese
fleet carriers, and over 40% of the carriers' highly trained
aircraft mechanics and technicians, plus the essential flight-deck
crews and armorers, and the loss of organizational knowledge
embodied by such highly trained crew, were heavy blows to the
Japanese carrier fleet.
On 19 May 1998, the wreck of Yorktown was found and
photographed by renowned oceanographer Dr. Robert D. Ballard,
discoverer of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic and the German
battleship Bismarck. The remains of the Yorktown, 3 miles
beneath the surface, were surprisingly intact after having been on
the sea bottom since 1942; much paint and equipment were still
visible.