USS YORKTOWN IN COMBAT  PART II

click onto small picture to make it bigger

Charlie Crommelin's windshield after taking anti aircraft bursts.  The pilot landed safely by looking out the side at another plane.

top: Jap destroyer twists to avoid TBF north of Truk, following wake and oil slick from another ship.

bottom: Hellcat strafes Jap destroyer at Truk 16 Feb 44

top: a Jap "Betty" is knocked down by the gunners of the Yorktown 22 Feb 44

A Jap plane crashes into the ocean in front of the Yorktown; having been shot down by Yorktown gunners.  Seen from the USS Essex

Ensign Bob Black's plane breaks into four pieces after suffering flak attack and landing on the Yorktown.  The plane rammed into a 5 inch gun turret and the Ensign walks away from this crash!

 

A big wave breaks over the bow of the USS Yorktown and washes onto the flight deck.  Yorktown sailors watch from barrier.  Dec 44

Yorktown also saw waves crash her bow off coast of North Korean during the seizure of the USS Pueblo and while going around the Horn of South America

Click here for the free previews of the Academy Award Winning Movie about
the USS Yorktown, "The Fighting Lady.

"When the Lights Go On Again"

Yorktown pilot Bob Rice's wrote a caption to his cartoon from the popular song of the day

Yorktown Gunners Mate Bob Davis looks at the over 12 inch, over 5 pound piece of bomb that Hospital Corpsman Carmine Pierro (left) took out of his abdomen, then replaced his stomach organs after the bomb hit the Yorktown 18 Mar 45

 

Yorktown planes bomb and strafe Jap cargo ship SE of Kure.

Plane at top of picture is recovering from his bombing after his direct hit; others are approaching in formation for the final kill

-

Jap "Judy" misses the full flightdeck of the Yorktown; missing by about 15 feet.  The Judy then struck the water.  Striking the Yorktown's flight deck with fueled aircraft with bombs attached would have been a major disaster.

Yorktown aviators pitch in to sink the biggest battleship ever build, the Yamato; 72,000 tons with 18.1 inch guns

Yorktown aviators pitch in to sink the light cruiser Oyodo as she rolls over and sinks near Kure.

"Stand by for Target Assignments"  Cartoon by Lt. Jack Stackpool, ACIO, Bombing Squadron 88

The USS Yorktown becomes a part of the US Navy.  Ship's Company stands at attention as the flag goes up at Norfolk navy Yard 15 Apr 43

Big bow wave as Yorktown heads from Panama Canal to Pearl Harbor.  Charles Kerlee, climbed out on a lowered radio antenna with his Speed Graphic camera to capture this.  Kerlee was 62 years old.

"Jap torpedo bomber explodes in air after direct hit by 5 inch shell from USS Yorktown as it attempted an unsuccessful attack on carrier, off Kwajalein." U.S.S. Yorktown. CPhoM.  Photographers Mate Chief Petty Office Alfred N. Cooperman, December 4, 1943. 80-G-415001

The Yorktown was finally hit, through not seriously, as she remained completely operational throughout.  One Yorktown sailor said she listed so severely for a time that there was only two feet of water between the deck and the sea.

 

 

 

The Yorktown stayed out of Tokyo harbor during the surrender ceremony but her planes were part of the 450 US Navy planes which led the flyover of the ceremony, showing the Japanese the overwhelming power that defeated it. 

2nd Division on watch on 6 inch gun port aft on Yankee Station off the coast of North Vietnam 1968, taller sailor is Airman Daniel A. Bernath

USS Yorktown fires one of her six inch gun 1968 far east cruise

aft starboard gun

 

 

 

27 Dec 68; Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders piloted their Apollo 8 spacecraft to within 3,000 yards of YORKTOWN, thus writing a close to their 10 orbit flight around the moon, the first time man has traveled to the moon. 

 

Yorktown F6F crashes on flight deck of USS Wasp.  It caught fire after landing.  18 1944 Jan. Pilot Lt. McLeroy

 

Carrier Qualifications this week aboard the USS Yorktown brought 11 A-4 jets from VA-125 and VX-5 as well as E-1B trackers from CAG-19 for landing and taking off exercises of the California coastline.  This VX-125 crewman happened to be walking to the island structure when an A-4 turned, readying for a launch, and the blast caught him backside with a hot blast of jet exhaust.  JO3 Deris Jeannette

The last carrier qualifications for the Yorktown on the West Coast came to an end when the last E-2 flew into the sunset Friday, November 16, 1968.  During that week, two A-1E's that were supposedly extinct from the Navy flew aboard from VA-125.  A-4 jets completed 300 landing incidents last week.

Lt. H. Rowland's plane hit while flying over Tokyo 17 Feb. 1945  Hole in his airplanes tail.




2025 © www.YorktownSailor.com