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Yorktown Class



Specifications: (USS Enterprise CV-6)
Displacement: 25,908 tonnes (25,500 tons)
Length: 246.7 m (809 feet)
Beam: 26.2 m (83.1 feet) ; extreme width at flight deck: 114 feet
Height: 7.9 m (28 feet)
Propulsion: Quadruple screw turbines Oil turbines
Speed: 37.5 knots
Armament: Eight 12.7 cm (5 in) guns, .38 cal machine guns
Crew: 2175
Aircraft: 96
Vessels of class: 3
The Yorktown Class, when built where the best carriers of the fleet until the Essex class. Before WW2 it was one of the largest carrier classes comprising three vessels.
The first was the Yorktown, second was the prized and beloved Enterprise, and the last was the Hornet.
While people have often associated the Hornet as a Wasp class or the first of the Essex class or a totally different class all together it is actually a late model Yorktown class, incorporating the best of the Enterprise and Yorktown.
The Yorktown, proved how tough the class can be by surviving a crippling attack at the Battle of Coral Sea, which saw the sinking of the ex-Battle Cruiser Lexington. She was taken to Pearl Harbor for repairs that would normally take several months, took only three days thanks to Admiral Nimitz rallying the local port workers to the cause of repairing the gallant vessel.
The Yorktown's speedy repairs only delayed her inevitable demise, she was mortally hit and later torpedoed at the Battle of Midway.
The Hornet and the Enterprise where luckier than the Yorktown as both survived Midway with no damage, but lost a considerable portion of their airgroups. The two remaining Yorktown class ships performed well together, firstly in the Doolittle raid, where the Hornet took the USAAF Bombers close to Japan, the Enterprise escorted her sister.
But this string of luck would end at the Battle for the Solomon Islands, where the Wasp, Saratoga, Hornet and Enterprise engaged a fair balanced Japanese task force of roughly the same number of vessels. The Wasp was sunk, the Saratoga and Enterprise damaged. the Hornet went the same way as the Wasp, firstly being abandoned then torpedoed.
With just the Enterprise and the Saratoga in the Pacific, things got a little desperate for America as the Saratoga spent more time in the slipways having battle damage repaired than actually in the field, but the Enterprise would prove defiant in the face of adversity, she tempted fate more than once and became a national heroine very quickly, she also gained the respect of the Japanese Navy as she took out four of their carriers, to reward this Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz gave the Enterprise the prestigious Presidential Unit Citation. The first ever 'flat top' to receive this award along side her Navy Unit Citation and 20 Battle stars.

The Yorktown Class consisted of:
USS Yorktown (First ship of the name) CV-5
USS Enterprise CV-6
USS Hornet (First ship of the name) CV-8

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