An older article, but a good look at some of the logistics of getting Yorktown back into the fight for Midway, over at the Defense Media Network.
Click HERE for the article.
“We must have this ship back in three days.”
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Category Archives: History
USS Yorktown Dive Footage
View of the mural, “A Chart of the Cruises of the USS Yorktown,” hand-painted inside the ship’s #2 elevator shaft, seen during the Papahānaumokuākea ROV and Mapping expedition dive on April 19, 2025.
Earlier this year, NOAA dove on Yorktown’s wreck once again, this time documenting many hours (the linked video is over 10 hours) worth of high-definition footage of the wreck. Included in the usual sights of chipping paint and gun barrels pointed skyward, they also went into the center elevator shaft and got great footage of the mural! Who knew that after a half-century of some of us looking for photos of the full mural, the ultimate way it’d be discovered was simply by going to see the actual mural it in person. Well, okay, it wasn’t that simple.
You can view the full video footage on YouTube HERE.
Dive Footage from Yorktown’s Wreck
**NOTE** This video link is no longer valid. View our post HERE for an updated video link. NOAA has been diving on Yorktown for the past few days. Link to the YouTube feed below. The feed is “Live”, so if it doesn’t show anything at the moment, scroll back through the footage:
E 1/c Donald Wilson Naval Citation and Commendation Medal
Over at Joy Neal Kidney’s website, the story of Yorktown crew member E 1/c Donald Wilson, and a copy of his naval citation and commendation medal for assisting with the attempted salvage of CV-5, has been posted. Definitely worth a read.
Direct link to article HERE.
Flying into a Beehive: Fighting Three at Midway
The U.S. Naval Institute website posted “Flying into a Beehive: Fighting Three at Midway” back in 2007, but it’s still a relevant article about USS Yorktown‘s airgroup during the Battle of Midway.
Link added to the Internet Resources page. You can also get to the article directly by clicking HERE.
New Review: World’s Vintage Warships Vol. 8: Yorktown Class
A review of the Japanese publication “Ships of the World” issue “World’s Vintage Warships Vol. 8: Yorktown Class” has been added to the website HERE.
Roger Spooner Speaks about USS Yorktown
On YouTube’s “Memoirs of WWII” channel, they’ve published a video of Yorktown crewman Roger Spooner’s account of abandoning the ship during the Battle of Midway. There are inconsistencies in his story against what is known to have happened during the battle (he mentions a Japanese plane crashing into the ship, but there’s no record of that); regardless, it’s worth a watch and very compelling.
Naval History article on USS Yorktown and Damage Control
The US Naval Institute’s magazine, Naval History, has a feature article on the Yorktown at Midway, and how her experiences there and at Coral Sea helped shape the wartime Navy’s approach to damage control.
The article can be viewed in the print December issue, and is also featured online HERE.