Courage, Skill, and Ingenuity

Reading about the Yorktown in Coral Sea and Midway one can only marvel at the men who saved their ship and crewmates over and over until the very end:

The Battle of the Coral Sea highlighted the seamanship of the Yorktown’s captain, Elliot Buckmaster, as the commanding officer (CO) avoided eight Japanese torpedoes using the carrier’s maneuverability and speed. According to Stanford Linzey, “Captain Buckmaster had been a destroyer skipper . . . and in the battle of the Coral Sea, he handled the large carrier as if it were a small destroyer.”⁴
Despite the torpedo misses, the ship suffered one bomb hit and a near miss off the port side. The former caused significant internal damage, while the latter split open the exterior plating of the carrier and damaged the internal shell strengthening structure.5 The dislocated shell reinforcement left the ship’s hull weakened and subject to failure.

This type of seamanship is something I pray is still around nowadays but recent events in the 7th fleet make one worry for such.

Prompt action by the hangar repair party in quickly using fire hoses down through the bomb hole in the hangar and No. 2 elevator pit quickly brought the fire below deck under control. The Engineer Repair Party, Repair 5 . . . was completely wiped out with the exception of several wounded men. The Midship Repair Party, Repair 4, sent a fire party with rescue breathers into the smoke filled damaged compartment . . . cleared the wreckage and personnel casualties, then sent a man through the bomb hole down into [another compartment] where he extinguished the smoldering stores.6

Courage of sailors especially to safeguard their shipmates is an area I worry least about.

The Yorktown’s acting executive officer, Commander Irving D. Wiltsie, later reported one reason the carrier had escaped more extensive damage: Shortly before the dive bombers had attacked, “all gasoline in the topside gasoline lines was pumped back down to the gasoline tanks. . . . [A] CO2 purging system for the topside gasoline lines and a CO2 blanket for the gasoline tank compartments” prevented a serious conflagration. Machinist Oscar W. Myers, the air fuel officer, had developed the carbon-dioxide purging system to expel vapors.14 This lesson had been learned from the loss of the USS Lexington (CV-2) at Coral Sea.

I also worry that such innovation and initiative as this would be crushed or punished even if it proved crucial to saving lives in the modern rule bound bureaucracy. 

This article on the damage control efforts and practices on CV-5 is well worth the read.