My Dad was on Yorktown at Midway and West Virginia at Leyte Gulf.
Yorktown: from “Shattered Sword” — truly a gallant lady.
This always makes me tear up, and it’s happening again while I transcribe this:
“At 0501 Yorktown finally sank. It had been apparent during the dawn hours that her end was near. Finally, at 0443 she had turned completely onto her port beams, revealing her deep wounds.”
“For some time she just lay there, like an exhausted, harpooned whale.”
“Then the stern began to lower, until at last, gallant Yorktown lifted her bow ever so slightly, and slid beath the waves, descending gracefully three miles to the seabed, carrying 57 dead with her.”
“There she would lie in sepulchral darkness for nearly 56 years until rediscovered in 1998 by an undersea expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard.”
“The Battle of Midway was over.”