I read this to honor the memory of the 75th anniversary of the battle of Midway in June 1942.

The Yorktown was numbered CV-5; she was the 5th aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy. In truth really the 4th because the first, the USS Langley had been a conversion from a coal carrier in 1920. Yorktown was 5 years old when the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and docked in Norfolk Virginia where she was due for a refit of her boilers and some other upgrades. Pearl Harbor caused her to be immediately sent to the Pacific. This is the story of the men, ship and planes. Many former crew members were interviewed as well as some Japanese. And war records that were available in the mid 60's when the book was put together. The book tells the story very well, with all sorts of small details and on to the battles of the Coral Sea and the miraculous performance at Midway where she went down. Yorktown stopped the Japanese in the pacific and dealt a crippling blow to the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Coral Sea engagement was the first naval battle since Jutland in 1916 and the first carrier vs carrier battle with two large carriers on each side and an additional small carrier on the Japanese side. The Americans had a huge handicap at the start of the Pacific war with airplane problems, extremely defective torpedoes and bad ammo.

An interesting forward to this story is written by the Japanese Commander whose submarine sank the Yorktown.

I think I'll read another book on Midway soon. ( )

918 Rendezvous at Midway: U.S.S. Yorktown and the Japanese Carrier Fleet, by Pat Frank and Joseph D. Harrington (read 16 Sep 1967) I did no post-reading note on this book, but know I found it absorbing and worthwhile reading. ( )