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The Yorktown class was a class of three aircraft carriers built for the United States Navy and completed shortly before World War II, the Yorktown (CV-5), Enterprise (CV-6), and Hornet (CV-8). They immediately followed Ranger, the first U.S. aircraft carrier built as such, and benefited in design from experience with Ranger and the earlier Lexington class, which were conversions into carriers of two battlecruisers that were to be scrapped to comply with the Washington Naval Treaty, an arms limitation accord.

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USS Enterprise
Class overview
Builders	Newport News Shipbuilding
Operators	United States Navy
Preceded by	USS Ranger
Succeeded by	USS Wasp
In commission	30 September 1937 – 17 February 1947
Completed	3
Lost	2
Retired	1
General characteristics
Type	Aircraft carrier
Displacement	19,800 long tons (20,100 t) standard 25,500 long tons (25,900 t)) full load
Length	770 ft (230 m) waterline at design draft 809 ft 9 in (246.81 m) length of main hull 824 ft 9 in (251.38 m) overall length 802 ft (244 m) flight deck
Beam	83 ft (25 m) at waterline 109 ft 6 in (33.38 m) width at flight deck
Draft	26 ft (7.9 m) (24 ft 4 in (7.42 m) design draft)
Propulsion	9 Babcock & Wilcox boilers 4-shaft Parsons geared turbines 120,000 shp (89 MW)
Speed	32.5 kn (60.2 km/h; 37.4 mph)
Range	12,500 nmi (23,200 km)
Complement	2,217
Sensors and processing systems	SC radar
Armament	8 × 5 in/38 caliber guns 4 × quad 1.1 in/75 caliber guns (Enterprise upgraded to 40 mm Bofors guns) 24 × .50 Cal machine guns (all of the ships upgraded to 20 mm Oerlikon cannons)
Armor	Belt: 2.5–4 in (6.4–10.2 cm) Tower: 4 inches (10 cm)
Aircraft carried	90
Aviation facilities	2 flight deck catapults 1 hangar catapult 3 aircraft elevators

These ships bore the brunt of the fighting in the Pacific during 1942, and two of the three were lost: Yorktown, sunk at the Battle of Midway, and Hornet, sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

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]

Development

In an early example of modern weapons development, the Yorktown class was a result of standardized war gaming exercises using Langley and the Newport Naval War College.[3] Analysis of the results, combined with lessons learned from operations with the large converted battlecruiser Lexington-class in comparison with the smaller purpose-built Ranger, highlighted the greater flexibility presented by large air groups and fast ships. These became, along with torpedo protection, the guiding principles in the Yorktown class designs.[4]

With the commissioning of USS Ranger, the USN had 54,400 tons of carrier construction left under the Washington Treaty. Initially, the development plan for the class envisioned a 17,000-ton design that would allow the Navy to build three ships and stay within the 135,000-ton Washington Naval Treaty limit on aircraft carrier tonnage. However, this design could not achieve the desired high operating speed without sacrificing protection features and air wing capacity. In addition, the London Treaty of 1930 required that the USS Langley be added into the tonnage limits, no longer being classified as an "experimental" carrier. In the end, the Navy chose instead to build two 19,000-ton carriers that could fulfill the design vision; though smaller in displacement than the USS Lexington class and a nominal 27,000-ton limit design, the ships retained high-powered machinery, hull volume and flight deck area that allowed for a fast and capacious design, but also improved durability and provided close to an all-weather ability to launch aircraft.[5] These were versatile carriers that could carry and operate over 80 aircraft, almost as many as the much larger Lexington class.

Plans initially called for a flush deck with no island. However, the Royal Navy had constructed several flush-deck carriers, and the problems encountered in those designs were known to the US Navy; the US naval attaché in Britain, J.C. Hunsacker, reported that HMS Furious had problems exhausting boiler smoke without proper smoke stacks. In addition to the engineering constraints, it was becoming evident that larger air groups and antiaircraft batteries would be easier to command from an island design.[6] In the end BuAer retracted all demands for flush decked carriers.

Conversion of USS Langley into a seaplane tender allowed the Navy to fill in the remaining available treaty tonnage with a scaled-down version of the class, which became the 14,700-ton USS Wasp. Service experience validated the advantages of the larger hull design. USS Ranger proved to be unable to withstand rougher weather in the Pacific, while lack of virtually any protective features soon relegated her to a training ship. USS Wasp's lack of torpedo protection contributed to her loss in the Pacific theater.

The abandonment of the arms limitation treaties system in 1937 allowed the US to begin building more carriers, and the first of this new carrier program was Hornet, another of the class, commissioned in 1941. Improvements to the Yorktown design and freedom from the Washington Treaty limitations brought about the Essex-class aircraft carriers.

The Yorktowns carried a seldom-used catapult on the hangar deck. This catapult was subsequently eliminated from U.S. carriers as it was relatively useless in operation. The hangar-deck catapult was removed from Enterprise and Hornet in late June 1942.

All three ships of the Yorktown class were built at the Newport News Shipbuilding Company, Newport News, Virginia.

Ships in class

Construction data

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	—	Sunk by submarine following the Battle 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 at Kearny, New Jersey, 1958
Hornet	CV-8		25 September 1939	14 December 1940	20 October 1941	—	Sunk following the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, 26 October 1942

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 United States Pacific Fleet.

Enterprise was at sea on the morning of 7 December 1941 (the day of the Attack on Pearl Harbor). That evening, Enterprise, screened by six of her Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters, put into Pearl 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 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 the Coral Sea. Her planes helped sink the Japanese aircraft carrier Shōhō and damaged the carrier Shōkaku. 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, Virginia, 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,[8] 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.[9]

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.

With the commissioning of the more advanced Essex and Midway-class carriers, Enterprise was surplus for post war needs. She entered New 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 at Kearny, New Jersey, in 1960, although several artifacts were retained.

See also

• List of ship classes of the Second World War

Notes

References

External links

• Naval Aviation news July August 1994
• Builder's Plan USS Yorktown c.1940

Media related to Yorktown class aircraft carriers at Wikimedia Commons

На других языках

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[de] Yorktown-Klasse (1936)

Die Yorktown-Klasse war eine Klasse von Flugzeugträgern der United States Navy. Die drei Träger der Klasse, die zwischen 1937 und 1941 in Dienst gestellt wurden, bildeten zusammen mit den beiden Flugzeugträgern der Lexington-Klasse zu Beginn des Zweiten Weltkriegs das Rückgrat der amerikanischen Trägerflotte. Nur die USS Enterprise erlebte das Kriegsende, wurde dann aber 1947 außer Dienst gestellt und 13 Jahre später verschrottet. Die beiden anderen Schiffe wurden 1942 versenkt, die Yorktown in der Schlacht um Midway, die Hornet in der Schlacht bei den Santa-Cruz-Inseln.

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- [en] Yorktown-class aircraft carrier

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[fr] Classe Yorktown

La classe Yorktown, est une classe de porte-avions de l'US Navy construits à partir de l'année 1934, jusqu'en 1941.

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[it] Classe Yorktown (portaerei)

La classe Yorktown di portaerei venne costruita dagli Stati Uniti d'America non molto prima della seconda guerra mondiale in una serie di tre. Le prime due navi, la Yorktown (CV-5) e la Enterprise (CV-6), entrarono in servizio nel 1937 e 1938. La lezione appresa dall'opera di conversione dei grandi incrociatori da battaglia classe Lexington, rispetto all'espressamente costruito Ranger (CV-4), insegnò alla marina che le grandi portaerei, piuttosto che le piccole, erano operativamente più flessibili e durevoli. Grazie a queste lezioni la marina costruì le nuove portaerei nel più grande tonnellaggio (25.000 tons) permesso dai trattati dell'epoca. Le navi risultarono grandi, flessibili e potenti, dando all'US Navy una forza complessiva di cinque portaerei per un totale di 134.000 tons, che in aggiunta alle 20.000 tons della Wasp (CV-7) portarono la US Navy fino al valore limite del trattato. La fine dei trattati nel 1937 permise alla US Navy di costruire ulteriori portaerei, la prima portaerei di questo nuovo programma fu un'altra portaerei classe Yorktown, la Hornet (CV-8), entrata in servizio nel 1941. Miglioramenti al progetto delle Yorktown portarono al progetto della classe Essex.

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[ru] Авианосцы типа «Йорктаун»

Тип «Йорктаун» (англ. Yorktown class) — серия авианосцев США 1930-х годов. Были созданы на основе опыта эксплуатации ранних типов «Лексингтон» и «Рейнджер» в качестве нового стандартного типа авианосца. В 1934—1937 годах на верфях Newport News Shipbuilding, в рамках Вашингтонского договора, были построены два авианосца этого типа. В 1939—1941 годах, когда начавшаяся война отменила все соглашения, был построен ещё один корабль этого типа - Хорнет, с целью получить новый авианосец, не теряя времени на разработку нового типа. Все три авианосца активно использовались во Второй мировой войне и два из них были потеряны уже в 1942 году. Третий же, «Энтерпрайз», несмотря на полученные неоднократно серьёзные повреждения, прошёл через всю войну, приняв участие во многих сражениях на Тихом океане. Корабль был снят с вооружения в 1947 году.

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