In the epic Battle of Midway, USS Yorktown, with 2,500 men aboard, received three bomb hits and two torpedoes. Eighty-six men died instantly'many were wounded. At the command, ?Abandon ship!? the crew slid down the lines into the murky, oily waters of the Pacific.Barefoot survivors knelt on the steel deck of a rescuing war ship and offered thanks to the Almighty. The author is a survivor.