The Battle of the Coral Sea had barely concluded when Task Force 17 under the command of Rear Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher was ordered to return to Pearl Harbor as fast as the crippled Yorktown’s condition would allow. Despite hull damage that caused her to trail an oil slick ten miles long, the carrier was able to reach a sustained speed of twenty knots. The voyage to the naval base would take eighteen days. During that time, the Yorktown’s damage control teams succeeded in patching so cleanly the bomb hole in her flight deck that it would appear never to have been damaged. Meanwhile, her skipper, Capt. Elliott Buckmaster, prepared an action report for Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz that included a detailed list of the carrier’s damage. It would be a preliminary estimate of what would repairing the Yorktown would require.
Dated May 25 and delivered by plane while the Yorktown was about a hundred miles from Oahu, the report that Nimitz read was sobering. A 551-pound armor-piercing bomb had plunged through the flight deck 15 feet inboard of her island and penetrated fifty feet into the ship before exploding above the forward engine room. Six compartments were destroyed, as were the lighting systems on three decks and across 24 frames. The gears controlling the No. 2 elevator were damaged. She had lost her radar and refrigeration system. Near misses by eight bombs had opened seams in her hull from frames 100 to 130 and ruptured the fuel-oil compartments. Rear Adm. Aubrey Fitch, aboard the damaged carrier, estimated that repairing the Yorktown would take ninety days.
“We must have this ship back in three days.”
– Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet
Nimitz didn’t have the luxury of waiting ninety days. Thanks to excellent codebreaking work by Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort and his intelligence team, Nimitz knew that the Imperial Japanese Navy planned an amphibious assault on the strategic island of Midway on June 4. Leading the attack would be its Kidō Butai, the carrier strike force that had attacked Pearl Harbor. Despite being outnumbered in carriers, planes, and other ships, Nimitz was determined not to let Midway go the way of Wake Island – at least not without a fight. But, when he sent his task force into harm’s way, he wanted it to be as powerful as possible.
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Nimitz and Fletcher would have the Francis Scott Key bridge cleared and fixed in 1 week.
The DEI Democrat morons in charge of Baltimore will take 1 decade while stealing billions.
Thanks for your excellent history lesson re the damaged
Yorktown and how the superb code cracking by Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort and his intelligence team, enabled Admiral Nimitz to plan and execute the ambush of the Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway.