Yorktown-class aircraft carrier

Basic information

Type:

Aircraft carrier

Operators:

United States Navy

Country of build:

United States

Builder:

Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS)

Planned:

Completed:

Lost:

Retired:

In service:

1937 – 1947 (10 years)

Ship measurements

Displacement:

25,900 t

Length:

230 m

Beam:

25 m

Machine

Propulsion:

9 * Babcock & Wilcox boilers
4 * shaft Parsons geared turbines 120,000 shp

Speed:

32.5 knots

Range:

12,500 nmi

Personnel

Complement:

2,217

Combat assets

Armor:

Belt: 2.5–4 in (6.4–10.2 cm)
Tower: 4 inches (10 cm)

Armament:

8 * 5 in/38 caliber guns
4 * quad 1.1 in/75 caliber guns (Enterprise upgraded to 40 mm Bofors guns)

24 * 50 Cal machine guns (all of the ships upgraded to 20 mm Oerlikon cannons)

Aircraft:

The Yorktown class was a class of three aircraft carriers built for the United States Navy and completed shortly before World War II, the Yorktown (CV-5), Hornet (CV-8), and Enterprise (CV-6). They immediately followed Ranger, the first U.S. aircraft carrier built as such, and benefited in design from experience with Ranger and the earlier Lexington class, which were conversions into carriers of two battlecruisers that were to be scrapped to comply with the Washington Naval Treaty, an arms limitation accord.

These ships bore the brunt of early action in the Pacific War, and two of the three were lost: Yorktown, sunk at the Battle of Midway, and Hornet, sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

Enterprise, the sole survivor of the class, was the most decorated ship of the U.S. Navy in the Second World War. After efforts to save her as a museum ship failed, she was scrapped in 1958.