![]() ![]() Although he had emerged from the ordeal with his life, he lost all of his money, clothing, records, and personal belongings when the ship went down. A sub tender took them back to Pearl Harbor, where it finally occurred to Hubert the true devastation he had suffered. The survivors remained on the destroyer overnight, before transferring to a cruiser, where they got a chance to take a real bath and clean up. Even though he knew he could drown in six feet of water, he took no comfort in the fact that a recent depth sounding revealed that the water where the Yorktown was attacked was twenty thousand feet or nearly four miles deep. ![]() ![]() The survivors, Hubert asked one of the men aboard just how deep the water the water was. After climbing up onto a destroyer sent to rescue To say the least Hubert said “we were uncomfortable.” “I was thankful that God was on my side,” Hubert remembered as he was being rescued. The other eye was trained downward for any signs of the fins of sharks, who might be lurking for a mid afternoon snack. Hubert kept one eye out for Japanese fighters who might strafe the survivors. Wounded men were floating, trying to stay alive. They remained for nearly two hours in water permeated with the Yorktown’s oil and stained with the blood of their fellow sailors. Once the men managed to get off the ship and into the water, the danger was not over. He had given up his jacket to a man to had lied to the authorities about his rating. After reaching the safety of the port, Hubert learned what type of man he had rescued, a liar. Hubert pushed the man off the ladder and then followed him into the water. Other sailor he had assisted went down the side of the ladder. The sailor to go down the ladder even if he had to step on someone to get down. Knowing he could manage to swim without a jacket, Hubert gave the sailor his life jacket, stripped off all his clothing down to his undershorts, and started down toward the treacherous waters. The chaplain refused to give up his second life jacket. The sailor told the chaplain that he couldn’t swim and needed the extra life jacket the chaplain was wearing. Hubert heard a sailor that he knew, but not very well, talking to the chaplain, who had on Since the ship was listing badly, it was about fifteen to twenty feet from the end of the ladder to the water on that side of the ship,” Herbert The sailor on the bottom rung was afraid to turn loose. He managed to scramble up to the hangar deck and onto a ladder on the high side of the ship. The Captain issued orders to abandon ship. “The ship was by now listing badly,” Wilkes recalled. The third, and most effective bomb rammed through the flight deck,ĭestroying the boiler room uptakes and smokestack. A second bomb hit the Yorktown's forward elevator, causing only moderate damage. Fire crews rushed to put out the ensuing fires. The first exploded on the flight deck opening a gash and killing and wounding gun crews around its perimeter. The enemy flight commander spotted the Yorktown, which was struck by three bombs. Eighteen dive bombers from the Japanese aircraft carrier, Hiryu, were detected by radar on several minutes before noon on June 4th, and combat air patrol was vectored to intercept. Hubert Wilkes recalled, “ Things were going smoothly for awhile, then the action picked up.” There was no time for lunch that day. American dive bombers began to strike the surprised Japanese carriers, eventually sinking four of them and one heavy cruiser. Within a few minutes, the tide began to turn. By fifteen minutes after ten o’clock on the morning of the 4th, the Japanese Navy was Initial assaults by Japanese fighters inflicted a near mortal blow on the first Americanĭefenders. The battle started the day before and the results were not what Nimitz hadĮxpected. His men had set the trap and Admiral Nagumo’s fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz knew exactly where the Japanese fleet On the 30th of May 1942, the Yorktown, still not a full ready battle shape, left Pearl Harbor headed west-southwest toward Johnson Island. Hubert Wilkes remembered counting seven refrigerated freight cars lined up to resupply the refrigerators and freezers on board the Yorktown. The Yorktown restocked its depleted inventory of provisions. The Navy Yard did the best they could in a short time to get the ship repaired and ready to sail again.īasically, a piece of metal was welded over the hull area hit hardest by the bomb. Navy intelligence was able to crack the codes of the Japanese Navy and determined that a major portion of the enemy fleet was headed toward Midway Island. On the 27th of May, the Yorktown arrived at Pearl Harbor. The navy ordered the ship to return to port for a three-month overhaul. The Yorktown had suffered a serious damage during the Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942.
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