The Fightingest Ship

The mighty "Y" is gone. Last week, three months and nine days after the carrier Yorktown sank near Midway, the Navy chose to announce her passing. How many men went down with "the York" the Navy did not say, but photographs of the survivors at Honolulu (see cuts) eloquently told of suffering and heroism.

At 2 p.m. on June 4, at the height of the Battle of Midway, Jap bombers found the York. Her planes had already been in furious battle. They had helped to sink three Jap carriers and were preparing to attack a fourth.

At some 18,000 feet, the Jap planes looked like tiny match sticks. They dived for the Yorktown's heart. Every gun of the carrier and her escort began to blaze. Tiny planes hesitated in their dives, made brief flowers of flame, fell into the sea. But a few kept coming at the Yorktown. The bombs slashed through the decks, started fires over the fuel tanks and magazines. Life rafts, splintered boxes, wrecked planes showered about the ship.

Crews worked frantically to control the fire and patch the twisted deck. But more Jap planes caught up with the limping carrier.

They came in two waves: bombers and torpedo planes. The Yorktown's fighters tore at the Japs. Of more than a dozen torpedo planes, half were shot down before they neared the carrier. But eight came on, 50 feet over the water. The Yorktown tried to twist away, but could no longer dodge the flashing torpedo planes. Two planes roared through the barrage and dropped their fish. The first torpedo hit squarely amidships. The second seemed to strike in the hole made by the first. Thick yellow smoke and flame vomited up with the spray. The 19,900-ton hull appeared to leap out of the water.

"Abandon Ship." "I can't bear to look at her," said a young ensign, 'watching from an escort. He turned his face and walked away. Slowly the York town turned on her side. Two planes clung like beetles to her slanting deck. "My God, she's going to capsize," an officer said, almost in a whisper. Then up went the blue & white flag: "Abandon ship."

A few of the 2,072 men on the Yorktown went down the lines to hold life rafts against the ship's side. The wounded were lowered on wire stretchers. Gradually the groups of khaki and blue-clad men along the rails thinned. Knots of men lingered, talking, reluctant to leave.

Last to go was calm, straight-mouthed Captain Elliott Buckmaster. Next to last was the captain's little brown-skinned mess boy. He lowered the boy on a line, then followed him down. The boy was hysterical when he reached the water. The captain dragged him to a raft, pushed him up before he climbed on himself.

Sailors paddled life rafts around, picking up shipmates and shouting: "Taxi, taxi." Almost all the more than 2,000 crew were saved.

Doom Deferred. Huge and helpless in the slow swells, the hulk of the Yorktown did not sink. Buckmaster ordered tugs and salvage vessels. The next day 160 picked men reboarded the carrier. They worked all night pumping out holds and cutting guns from the lower side. The destroyer Hammann was standing by to furnish power for the pumps. The next noon a Jap sub launched two torpedoes into the carrier's weakened plates and sank the destroyer with two more. The concussion broke several men's feet. Lieut. Commander Ernest Davis was blown overboard. Many men had broken arms and legs. The explosion made a hole in the Yorktown's port side from hangar to keel. A sailor standing waist deep on the Hammann was setting the safety on depth bombs so they would not explode beneath the men struggling in the water. He was still working when the destroyer went down.

Aboard the carrier two carpenter's mates and a petty officer were trapped in a compartment five decks below. There was water all around them, a seaman said, and it was hopeless to try to get them out. The telephones were still working. Somebody called down: "Do you know what kinda fix you're in?" "Sure," they called back: "We know you can't get us out, but we got a helluva good acey-deucey game goin' down here right now."

"Her Flags Were Still Flying." Captain Buckmaster, sitting on his porch in Norfolk, Va., told the rest of the story. "At daybreak the ship had a terrible list to starboard. Her flight deck was in the water. Her battle flags were still flying. We hadn't taken them down. As she went over, they flew till they were in the water. She went down, no commotion, no explosions, no fire. She went stern first."

Not all the survivors watched her end. Some turned away. Almost all have asked for another carrier assignment. To the men of the Yorktown, the ship was the bravest hero of them all.

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