I FILMED THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY FROM USS YORKTOWN (CV-5) ©

By Photographer's Mate William (Bill) G. Roy, USN

At the Battle of Midway, Photographer's Mate Second Class Bill Roy covered the conflict from the signal bridge and flight deck of the carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) taking both still and motion pictures.

During the battle, Yorktown came under determined attack by dive-bombers and torpedo bombers from the Japanese carrier Hiryu. Yorktown was struck by two Japanese air-launched torpedoes, and developed an alarming list. When the order was given to abandon ship, Bill Roy preserved his images of this historic battle by taping up three cans of film and stuffing them under his shirt and life jacket before leaping into the Pacific Ocean. He spent several hours in the sea and assisted with the care of wounded sailors before being taken aboard the destroyer USS Hammann. Fortunately, his motion picture coverage of the battle survived its lengthy immersion in the ocean.

This famous image taken during the Battle of Midway by William (Bill) G. Roy shows the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) shortly after she was hit by three Japanese bombs on 4 June 1942. The dense smoke is from fires in her uptakes produced by a bomb that punctured them and knocked out her boilers. The photograph was taken from the starboard side of the flight deck, just in front of the forward 5"/38 gun gallery. With more Japanese attacks expected at any moment, repair crews are working frantically to bring their ship back into operational condition.

Bill Roy returned to the crippled Yorktown aboard the destroyer USS Hammann (DD-412) as a volunteer member of a salvage party to attempt to save the ship. While Hammann was tied up alongside Yorktown, both ships were struck by torpedoes fired by the Japanese submarine I-168. Hammann was torn apart and Bill Roy took the last photographs of the destroyer as it disappeared beneath the sea. A number of Bill Roy's Midway photographs can be viewed at the web-site of aviation and marine artist John Greaves. Some of Bill Roy's Midway photographs can also be seen in the book, "A Glorious Page in our History", co-authored by Robert J. Cressman, Steve Ewing, Barrett Tillman, Mark Horan, Clark Reynolds, and Stan Cohen.  (The US Pacific Fleet times in Bill Roy's story can be converted to Midway Time by deducting two hours.)

 

YORKTOWN LAUNCHES ITS STRIKE AT THE JAPANESE INVASION FORCE

Just before dawn on June 4, 1942, the commander of the American carrier forces at Midway, Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher, was informed that Japanese forces, including two carriers, had been sighted north-west of the Midway islands. As a precaution against surprise attack, Admiral Fletcher launched ten Dauntless SBD dive bombers from USS Yorktown (CV-5) to search the northern semi-circle over a distance of 100 miles for any Japanese carriers that might have escaped detection by PBY Catalina search planes from Midway.

The sun came up on June 4, 1942 over a dark blue Pacific Ocean, with a beautiful blue sky and a few scattered white clouds. Yorktown's search planes failed to locate any Japanese carriers, and when they returned to Yorktown at about 8.30 am (6.30 am Midway Time), a defense inner combat air patrol of six Wildcat fighters was established and Yorktown's attack air group was prepared for take-off. Yorktown's flight deck was alive with the roar and smoke of aircraft engines and careful, busy sailors working on the flight deck to launch aircraft.

USS Yorktown's SBD-3 dive-bombers are being prepared to strike at the powerful Japanese carrier force attacking America's Midway Islands. I took station on the open signal bridge for better visibility to make 35mm motion pictures and still photos.

The Yorktown attack group was launched about an hour and fifteen minutes after Enterprise and Hornet launched their attack groups. The attack groups from the three American carriers had been ordered to find and attack the Japanese carriers approaching Midway.

 

A 1942 photograph of Bill Roy with aerial camera aboard USS Yorktown

At about 1.15 pm, our planes began to return. They had been out a long time and were low on gas. Some were badly shot up. Dive bombers made crash landings. Fighters then started coming aboard. Many were shot up. We landed about five fighters, and then one fighter came in too fast and high. It floated over the barrier and dived for the deck, flipped over, skidding on the canopy. The pilot, Tom Cheek, crawled out from under the wreckage unhurt.

JAPANESE AIR ATTACKS ON USS YORKTOWN (CV-5)

 

The dive-bomber attack

General Quarters sounded at 1.59 pm (11.59 am Midway Time) and the Jap bombers were upon us.

The five inch guns opened up first with loud cracks. Then came the rumble of multiple guns. The 20 mms cut in with a "pow pow". They were joined by the rattle of .50 caliber guns, and finally the hastily set up .30 caliber aircraft machine guns mounted along the rail cut in - firing a smooth staccato. We had marines and sailors who wanted to fight, using rifles and Browning automatic guns.

The enemy bombers and fighters were under intense anti-aircraft fire from all the automatic weapons. The sky was black from shell bursts. Red tracers laced the sky. Some Japanese planes were falling, trailing fire, and exploding as they hit the water in a big plume of smoke. I was making pictures as fast as I could.

Two Japanese Nakajima Type 97 "Kate" torpedo bombers from the carrier Hiryu have just dropped their torpedoes and are flying past USS Yorktown through heavy anti-aircraft fire. Yorktown appears to be heeling slightly to port, and may have already been hit by one of the two torpedoes that crippled this gallant ship. This photograph was taken from Yorktown's escort heavy cruiser USS Pensacola.

Dive bombers approached their bomb release point. Three bombs hit Yorktown. Two of the bombers were shot down. The other aircraft went out of control just as his bomb was released. The 500-pound bomb from this plane tumbled in flight and hit near No. 2 elevator exploding on contact with the deck. Shrapnel killed nearly all the men from gun mounts 3 and 4, and machine guns in the vicinity. A medical corpsman was killed and one wounded.

Men were killed on the after end of the island structure, and killed below in the hangar. Fragments pierced the hangar overhead and set fires to three planes on the hangar deck - all full of gas and armed with 1,000-pound bombs. Lieutenant Emerson, hangar deck officer, released the sprinkler system and water curtains to put out the fires.

The bomb made a ten foot by ten foot hole in the flight deck. This hole was repaired within twenty-five minutes.

The wounded were given first aid, morphine, tourniquets, blankets. Many of the badly wounded went rapidly into shock.

The next bomb came from port side. It hit the flight deck and exploded in the stack. I was on the island structure when the Yorktown shuddered violently from the explosion. Smoke and fire started pouring out of the stack around me. Fires had started in the uptakes and stack. Below on the hangar deck, fire burned the photographic laboratory, the Executive Officer's office, and First Lieutenant's office.

The boilers were completely disabled. Their fires were out. Smoke and gas caused boiler room personnel to put on gas masks to continue work. Speed dropped immediately to about 6 knots, and at 2.40 pm, 20 minutes after the bomb hit, all engines stopped.

The third bomb hit starboard side forward of No. 1 elevator, and exploded on the fourth deck. It started a persistent fire near the forward gasoline stowage, bomb and torpedo magazines. These were flooded. Fortunately, aviation gas tanks and fuel lines had been filled with CO2 gas (carbon dioxide). Many sailors came topside. We were dead in the water!

Because there was no food service, the Executive Officer, Dixie Kiefer, had the ship's store break out boxes of candy for all hands.

I went around making photos of the damage.

I was "shooting" the enemy with my camera but was a qualified gunner who could have been shooting the enemy with bullets.  Many times in making motion pictures, I looked through a telephoto lens to face incoming dive bombers dropping their bombs and strafing the ship and gun crews.  The torpedo planes on their runs would fire to suppress or clear the gun crews. Zero fighters would make strafing runs to eliminate the gun crews firing at their aircraft. I never thought that much about it as I went about doing my job of filming and making photos of the action. There would be an incoming Japanese Zero fighter, firing 700 bullets per minute from each of four guns, and a 20 mm cannon with 60 rounds. Remember the red tracers that are seen are only one bullet in every five that are being fired. My movie camera shot 24 pictures a second, and there I was a qualified, expert machine gunner, taking pictures. Sounds kind of strange. But the bullets are long gone. People today can see that moment in time of history, as it occurred, and recorded in pictures.

"What we do belongs to what we are, and what we are is what becomes of us."

The torpedo bomber attack on Yorktown

The bomb damage prevented Yorktown launching and recovering aircraft, and its Air Group was diverted to Enterprise and Hornet. At 3.50 pm, fires were under control and sufficient repairs had been effected to enable Yorktown to get up steam and get under way.

At this time, General Quarters sounded again. Our radar indicated that Japanese aircraft were approaching from the direction 340 degrees true (north-west by north) at 33 miles. They appeared to be climbing. Fueling of fighters had started, but was shut down. Some fighters had landed for ammunition. Hornet sent over four of their fighters to aid the defense of Yorktown. Four Yorktown fighters that had been fueled and re-armed on Hornet returned. The aviation gas system was shut down again, and protected with CO2 gas. There were ten fighters on board. Eight had as much as 23 gallons of fuel and these were launched and vectored out to intercept the Japanese planes.

At 4.00 pm, Yorktown's "all ahead" emergency speed was only 20 knots. A Japanese torpedo bomber attack group was approaching Yorktown, and fighter intercepts were made about 14 miles out. Three Japanese planes were shot down by Wildcats as they approached. All enemy planes were taken under heavy gun fire by Yorktown and her screening warships. The sky was black with shell bursts. Some planes were shot down by ship's fire before dropping their torpedoes. Some did drop their torpedoes. All but one torpedo plane were eventually shot down.

USS Yorktown receives the second of two aerial torpedo hits, amidships on her port side. This torpedo attack was launched from the Japanese carrier Hiryu. The photograph was taken from Yorktown's escort cruiser USS Pensacola.

By radical maneuvering Yorktown avoided two torpedoes. But Yorktown did not have enough speed. At 4.20 pm, a torpedo hit on the port side was followed shortly by a second torpedo hit. These were Long Lance Type 97 torpedoes. They had 2,200-pound warheads coming at a speed of 40 miles per hour. I was tracking the torpedo plane with my telephoto lens and saw the plane disappear, but the white wake was coming directly port side, towards me. I knew we would be hit. The torpedo went deep into the Yorktown. The explosion caused a rumble throughout the ship and the deck rose up under me, trembled, and fell away shaking. I was knocked down. Yorktown rolled to port.

The second torpedo quickly followed. I had just started filming again when it hit. There was a great sheet of red flame and smoke and water going skyward with a loud shattering explosion in front of me. The 20mm guns and crews on the flight deck catwalk above the explosion were gone. Once more the Yorktown shuddered violently, stem to stern, and rolled over hard to port with the hangar deck in the water.

We listed more and more to port until it was almost impossible to stand on the deck. All power was lost. Steam dropped. Electric power failed. The rudder jammed at 15 degrees left. Ammunition was replenished and gun batteries made ready. But there was no electricity to operate them. Word was passed to prepare for another attack.

 

THE END OF USS YORKTOWN (CV-5)

The crippled USS Yorktown is abandoned

Without power nothing could be done to correct the list. The switch-board had been destroyed. The ship was in total darkness. It was difficult to move around because of the heavy list to port. Captain Buckmaster and the Damage Control Officer both believed the ship would capsize in a few minutes. Captain Buckmaster gave orders to abandon ship.

I went to the photo lab, starboard side, hangar deck. It was burned black and gutted. Since the fire was out, I left a still camera on the counter. I had the movie camera and made films of sailors in the water.

Destroyers stand by to pick up survivors of USS Yorktown (CV-5) after the carrier was hit by two Japanese aerial torpedoes. From left, the destroyers are: USS Benham, Russell, Balch and Anderson. The photograph was taken from the cruiser USS Pensacola.

I took off my shoes and placed the camera near the rail and asked an officer passing by to hand it down to me. When I looked up he was gone.

I had taped up three cans of exposed film and stuffed them under my dungaree shirt and kapok life jacket . The hand lines were 15 feet short of the ocean because of the list to port. A mess attendant was tangled up in the lines and hollered that he could not swim. I got him free. We both got to the armor belt and I gave him a gentle push and jumped about 15 feet after him. I got him to a life raft. Life rafts were scarce and overloaded; about twenty-five sailors in them or holding on. Wounded were sliding under water, so we secured them.

As each wave broke over my head, the oil and gas vapors burned my eyes and nose making it difficult to breathe. I was covered with bunker oil. Some sailors swallowed oil, and water, and then vomited trying to hang on. Wind and waves kept all of us against the rough side of the steel hull that was tearing at our skin. It was difficult to get away. We were all afraid the Yorktown would roll over, sink, and take us down. I gradually worked my way towards the stern. Captain Buckmaster had gone off the stern, and I heard him hollering that he could not hold on much longer. He was holding a young sailor. Some of the better swimmers went to his rescue. Before long, a motor whale boat took Buckmaster in tow.

All destroyers were weaving back and forth about 300 yards out. They were on high alert and would quickly move out. It was dark when I was finally pulled by a boat towards the destroyer Hammann.

I was dragged aboard at night and lay on the steel deck totally exhausted. I looked for a place to go. All deck space was packed with survivors. I went below. The mess tables were being used to operate on the wounded. Some wounded were covered with blankets waiting and in shock. Finally, I went topside and found an open hatch. That night, totally exhausted, I slept on sacks of potatoes out of the cold and wind. Next morning I tried to get cleaned up.

Hammann crew had given most of their spare clothing to survivors of the carrier USS Lexington at Coral Sea, the month before. I got a shirt and pants. Then we came alongside the heavy cruiser Astoria to transfer the wounded. I saw a Yorktown photographer and passed up the cans of film to him.

The loss of USS Yorktown and USS Hammann

Captain Buckmaster was on the Hammann and sent word he was organizing a salvage party of 29 selected officers and 141 enlisted men. I volunteered.

Hammann returned us to Yorktown early morning June 6, 1942. First order was to put out the fires in the forward rag locker. It was still burning near the forward bomb and torpedo magazines, and the aviation gas storage tanks. We next cut away the port 5 inch guns. I made photos. Then I was asked to help the medic identify and bury the dead left on the flight deck. Next, I helped lower new aircraft from the hangar deck overhead and push them overboard to get the weight off the port side. I asked Captain Buckmaster, to give me one of the new torpedo planes. He said "you got it Roy" as it went over the side to 17,000 feet below. I then went back to the bow to help remove the second 5 inch gun and make photos.

At 1.36 pm the 20mm gun started firing and I ran across to starboard just in time to see the bosun on the bow of Hammann using a fire axe trying to cut the bow lines. The port turbines were screaming as they were backing down. Commander Arnold True was trying to break loose from Yorktown.

Gunfire was shooting at the four torpedoes that had been fired from the Japanese submarine I-168. Hammann, hit by one torpedo under the bridge, blew up alongside Yorktown and broke in two. Sailors were catapulted off the bow forward through the air. Sailors were blown overboard. Yorktown was hit by the next two torpedoes on her starboard side. She rocked up and rolled hard. Great explosive sheets of fire, oil, water and metal blew up between the two ships. The 4th torpedo passed astern. I was knocked over into a bulkhead. Some Yorktown sailors were blown overboard. Sailors were thrown in every direction. I got up and made three sequential photos of the Hammann stern going back with sailors clinging on. When the stern sank many men were in the water. Then the eighteen depth charges on Hammann's stern reached their set depth, and they exploded with a mighty explosion and eruption of water.

This photograph of the stern of the destroyer USS Hammann disappearing beneath the sea was taken by Bill Roy from the starboard fore-castle of the carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) on the afternoon of 6 June 1942 after both ships were hit by torpedoes fired from the Japanese submarine I-168.

The Yorktown rose up out of the water shaking and rolled again. There was only foaming water showing in the last photo I made, where the Hammann stern had sunk.

I went off the starboard side to board the minesweeper Viero, which had cut its tow on Yorktown. We picked up survivors and wounded and dead. Captain Buckmaster performed sea burial services for two officers and one enlisted man.

We then transferred to a destroyer. Next day, early dawn, at 5.30 am June 7, 1942, Yorktown seemed to be on an even keel. We had hopes to salvage the ship and save her. The list of Yorktown was then noticed to be increasing rapidly to port and, at 7.01 am, Yorktown turned over to her port side and sank stern first in about 3000 fathoms of water with all battle flag's flying.

The last picture of the USS Yorktown CV 5
THE END OF A GALLANT SHIP THAT PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE IN TURNING THE TIDE AGAINST JAPAN

At Lae, Salamaua, Coral Sea and Midway, USS Yorktown played a major role in turning the tide of Japanese military aggression in 1942. In this photograph, taken just after dawn on 7 June 1942, Bill Roy has captured the last moments of USS Yorktown.

I was on the bridge of the destroyer with Captain Buckmaster taking pictures with a K-20 aerial camera. It was the only camera that had film. Buckmaster told the destroyer captain, "take me through the debris where Yorktown sank". We cut through the flotsam. Buckmaster said "come about and go through again". We did. Then, Captain Buckmaster said "go through again". The destroyer skipper said,"I am taking her back to Pearl".

Photographer's Mate Roy stayed in the Navy and became a LCDR in the photography division.  He earned a law degree.  Upon retirement from Dow, Bill Roy entered into private law practice in Florida, and as of May 20-06 resides with his wife, Barbara, in Naples, Florida.  © Copyright Lieutenant Commander William (Bill) G. Roy, USNR (Ret.). All rights are reserved.

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