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_underway_c1939.jpg) USSEnterprise | |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Builders | Newport News Shipbuilding |
| Operators |  United States Navy |
| Preceded by | USS Ranger |
| Succeeded by | USS Wasp |
| Built | 21 May 1934 - 20 October 1941 |
| In commission | 30 September 1937 – 17 February 1947 |
| Completed | 3 |
| Lost | 2 |
| Retired | 1 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Aircraft carrier |
| Displacement |
|
| Length |
|
| Beam |
|
| Draft |
|
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | 32.5 kn (60.2 km/h; 37.4 mph) |
| Range | 12,500 nmi (23,200 km) |
| Complement | 2,217 |
| Sensors & processing systems | SC radar |
| Armament |
|
| Armor |
|
| Aircraft carried | 90 |
| Aviation facilities |
|
TheYorktown class was aclass of threeaircraft carriers built for theUnited States Navy and completed shortly beforeWorld War II, theYorktown (CV-5),Enterprise (CV-6), andHornet (CV-8). They immediately followedRanger, the first U.S. aircraft carrier built as such, and benefited in design from experience withRanger and the earlierLexington class, which were conversions into carriers of twobattlecruisers that were to be scrapped to comply with theWashington Naval Treaty, an arms limitation accord.
These ships bore the brunt of the fightingin the Pacific during 1942, and two of the three were lost:Yorktown, heavily damaged and scuttled at theBattle of Midway, andHornet, later heavily damaged by the Japanese at theBattle of the Santa Cruz Islands, was unsuccessfully scuttled by the US Navy and left to be sunk by the Japanese.
Enterprise, the sole survivor of the class, was the most decorated ship of the U.S. Navy in the Second World War. After efforts to save her as a museum ship failed, she was scrapped in 1958.[1][2]
After the commissioning of the two 33,000 [long] ton (33,530-tonne) Lexington class ships in 1927-28 there was a strong sentiment within the Navy that the remaining 69,000 tons (70,107 tonnes) of carriers allowed under the Washington Naval Treaties should be built as quickly as possible. The idea that the additional tonnage should come in the form of multiple ships built to a single design was also widely accepted, but different factions advocated for three different packages--either five ships, displacing 13,800 tons (14,021 tonnes) each; or four ships, displacing 17,250 tons (17,527 tonnes) each; or three ships, displacing 23,000 tons (23,369 tonnes) each.[3] The consensus as of the late 1920s was that the largest number of decks would offer the greatest total aircraft capacity, and a decision was therefore made to order the five small carriers. For once government parsimony proved beneficial: Congress, on 13 February 1929, authorized construction of only one of the 13,800-ton carriers, which becameRanger.[4] Years would pass before funding for additional carriers was approved, and by the time it was, experience withLexington andSaratoga had demonstrated the pronounced advantages of larger carriers, to such a degree that, even beforeRanger was commissioned, the selection of such a small, slow, and poorly protected design was widely considered to have been unwise.[5]
The desirability of larger size having been settled on, in the early 1930s the question of exactly how to use up the tonnage remaining under Washington Treaty limits arose once again, leading to the development of a new series of schemes. Factoring inRanger, designers now had approximately 55,200 tons (56,086) tonnes left to work with. Again, one faction argued for the creation of a uniform class, now to consist of three 18,400-ton (18,695-tonne) carriers, to fill the quota, but a strong opposing faction wanted to incorporate more of the features found on the much larger Lexingtons (high speed, torpedo protection, and an armored belt, any one of which would have been difficult to accommodate on an 18,400-ton displacement) into at least some ships.[3] The General Board eventually settled on the idea of building two fairly large (c. 20,000-ton/20,321 tonne) carriers incorporating 32.5-knot speed, armor, and substantial underwater protection, and one smaller, c.15,000-ton (15,241-tonne) vessel, broadly similar to the large ones but lacking the protective features. The smaller carrier would eventually becomeWasp, while the larger two becameYorktown andEnterprise. General designs for these two classes of ship were chosen from among a common slate of 15 draft designs presented to the General Board in 1931 by the Bureau of Construction and Repair.[3] All 15 of these schemes included islands, long opposed by the Bureau of Aeronautics, but, thanks to operational experience accumulated with the Lexingtons by 1931, now considered desirable.[3] Funding for construction of the two larger ships came with the National Recovery Act, passed on June 16, 1933, andYorktown was laid down on May 21, 1934, two weeks beforeRanger was commissioned.Enterprise was laid down on July 16, 1934.[4] Work on the smallerWasp was delayed for some time, but was ultimately authorized under the Vinson-Trammel Act of 1934, and construction, to essentially the specification laid out in 1931, began in 1936.
Two days afterEnterprise was commissioned, in May 1938, partly in response to the withdrawal of Italy and Japan from the global naval arms limitation treaty structure, Congress passed the Naval Act of 1938, which authorized a major expansion of the Navy, including construction of 40,200 additional tons (40,845 tonnes) of aircraft carriers. After considerable debate and dithering the Navy decided that, in order to get a ship in service as quickly as possible, roughly half of this extra tonnage would be given over to building a third ship to a minimally modifiedYorktown design, while time was spent figuring out how best to use the remainder. The third Yorktown-class ship,Hornet, was ordered in March 1939 and commissioned only a month before Pearl Harbor.
The Yorktowns were built with a transverse catapult on their hangar decks; these could launch aircraft in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the ship's motion, or while the ship was at anchor.[6] These catapults were intended as substitutes for the lower-level flying-off decks that had been adopted by the British and Japanese in the 1920s, which allowed aircraft to be launched straight forward off both the upper flight deck and the deck below it at the same time, allowing the launch of more aircraft quickly in a scramble situation.[3] Statements that the transverse catapults were intended to be used primarily for the launching of scout planes appear to be unfounded; all readily available photos of these catapults in use depict the launching of fighter aircraft, rather than scouts. In practice the U. S. commanders rarely used the hangar-deck catapults because of the difficulties inherent in controlling a plane launched across a heavy cross-wind, which would inevitably be faced when the ship was moving forward at high speed to allow aircraft to be flown off the axial flight deck at the same time. The hangar-deck catapults were removed fromEnterprise andHornet in late June 1942.[3]
All three ships of theYorktown class were built at theNewport News Shipbuilding Company,Newport News, Virginia.[citation needed]
| Name | Hull number | Builder | Laid down | Launched | Commissioned | Decommissioned | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yorktown | CV-5 | Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.,Newport News | 21 May 1934 | 4 April 1936 | 30 September 1937 | N/a | Sunkby submarine following theBattle of Midway, 6 June 1942 |
| Enterprise | CV-6 | 16 July 1934 | 3 October 1936 | 12 May 1938 | 17 February 1947 | Struck 2 October 1956, Broken up atKearny, New Jersey, 1958 | |
| Hornet | CV-8 | 25 September 1939 | 14 December 1940 | 20 October 1941 | N/a | Sunk following theBattle of the Santa Cruz Islands, 26 October 1942 |
The three ships of this class are noted for bearing the brunt of the fighting in the early months of thePacific War, most notably during theBattle of the Coral Sea, theBattle of Midway, and theGuadalcanal campaign. During the latter campaign,Hornet and laterEnterprise had the distinction of being the only operational carrier in theUnited States Pacific Fleet.
Enterprise was at sea on the morning of 7 December 1941 (the day of theAttack on Pearl Harbor). That evening,Enterprise, screened by six of herGrumman F4F Wildcat fighters, put intoPearl Harbor for fuel and supplies. The aircraft were fired on by anti-aircraft defenses, and one pilot radioed in, reporting that his aircraft was an American aircraft.[7]Enterprise later participated in the first offensive actions against Japan, launching attacks against theMarshall Islands,Wake, andMarcus Island.
Yorktown transferred to the Pacific on 16 December 1941 and later raided theGilbert Islands in the same operation asEnterprise. Along withLexington, she raided bases inNew Guinea, then participated in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Her planes helped sink theJapanese aircraft carrier Shōhō and damaged the carrierShōkaku. Damaged by Japanese carrier aircraft,Yorktown returned to Pearl Harbor and was hastily repaired in time to participate in the Battle of Midway.[8]
Hornet spent the first months of the war training inNorfolk, Virginia, before being assigned to theDoolittle Raid. Loaded with a squadron ofB-25 bombers and escorted byEnterprise, the ship launched the first air raids against the Japanese mainland.[8]
All three ships of the class saw action during the Battle of Midway (4–7 June 1942),Enterprise andYorktown aircraft were responsible for sinking all four Japanese carriers engaged in the battle, whileHornet assisted in the sinking of one heavy cruiser and severely damaging another. All three carriers suffered severe losses among their air groups, most notablyHornet'sTorpedo 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 theBattle of the Eastern Solomons but was repaired in time to joinHornet in theBattle 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 theNaval Battle of Guadalcanal.Enterprise aircraft assisted in finishing off the heavily damagedbattleshipHiei and were instrumental in destroying the Japanese transport fleet, thereby ending Japan's last serious attempt at reclaiming the island.[citation needed]
After a lengthy overhaul and repair period atBremerton, Washington,Enterprise joined the Central Pacific Fleet as part of theFast Carrier Task Force. She participated in every major invasion of the Central Pacific campaign, including theBattle of the Philippine Sea and theBattle of Leyte Gulf. Her air groups contributed to the development of carrier night operations, executing a night air raid onTruk Lagoon and operating as a specialized night air group towards the end of the war.[citation needed]
Enterprise was finally put out of action on 14 May 1945 when she was struck in the forward elevator by akamikaze aircraft flown by Japanese pilot Lt. Shunsuke Tomiyasu,[9] which destroyed the elevator and severely damaged her hangar deck. She was still out of action onV-J Day but was subsequently fitted out forOperation Magic Carpet, ferrying over 10,000 veterans home from Europe.[10]
_awaiting_disposal_at_the_New_York_Naval_Shipyard_on_22_June_1958.jpg)
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 single5-inch/38 caliber DP guns, 4040 mm Bofors AA guns, 6 quad and 8 twin (replacing the ineffective1.1"/75 caliber gun quad mounts which theYorktown class had initially been fitted with) and 50 single20 mm Oerlikon AA cannons. TheYorktowns 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 ananti-torpedo blister that significantly improved her underwater protection.[citation needed]
With the commissioning of the more advancedEssex andMidway-class carriers,Enterprise was surplus for post war needs. She enteredNew York Naval Shipyard on 18 January 1946 for deactivation, and was decommissioned on 17 February 1947. 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 atKearny, New Jersey, in 1960, although several artifacts were retained.[citation needed]
Media related toYorktown class aircraft carriers at Wikimedia Commons
