This Is What It’s Like to Watch a Navy Aircraft Carrier Dieby Warfare History Network
September 3, 2018 A young sailor aboard the doomed carrier Yorktown recounts the battle that sank the ship and almost cost him his life.
BACKSTORY: After working in a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in Idaho, Ray Daves enlisted in the Navy in the spring of 1938 and reported for basic training the following year. He was at Pearl Harbor, serving at Pacific Fleet Headquarters as a radioman, when the Japanese attacked; he was wounded in the hand. Afterward, he requested sea duty on a warship and was assigned to the submarine Dolphin (SS-169), on which he served one war patrol before being reassigned as a radioman second class aboard the aircraft carrier Yorktown (CV-5).After the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 7-8, 1942), in which the Yorktown was heavily engaged and damaged, the carrier returned to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for a promised three months in port to make necessary repairs; due to the urgency of the war, the three months was cut to three days.
This is Ray Daves’s story, as told by Carol Edgemon Hipperson in Radioman. (Copyright © 2008 by the author and reprinted by permission of Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, LLC.)
On the Way to Midway The Battle of Midway ––May 27-June 4, 1942: Everybody on the Yorktown was looking forward to liberty in Honolulu. After nearly four months at sea, even three days ashore sounded pretty good. I was still out on the flight deck with the rest of the crew when Captain [Elliott] Buckmaster came over the loudspeaker and told us he was sorry. No liberty cards for anybody. All hands were needed to get our ship repaired and resupplied and ready to sail in time. In time for what, he couldn’t tell us yet, but he said it was important.
Of course the captain was sorry. Everybody was sorry. And, yes, there was plenty of grousing. I did my share of that, too. But I never once heard anyone blame the captain. We just cursed the war.
There was a regular mob of workers waiting for us. Hundreds of guys with toolboxes came swarming aboard the minute we pulled into dry dock. They hammered and sawed around the clock for the next three days and nights, and so did the crew. My job was hauling supplies. I bet I carried a hundred crates full of pineapples and oranges down to the galley. The cardboard boxes were heavier yet. Canned goods, I suppose. The Navy bought a lot of pork and beans.
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https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/what-it%E2%80%99s-watch-navy-aircraft-carrier-die-30417
