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The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought in early May of 1942, ended with one U.S. carrier (the USS Lexington) permanently water-logged and the USS Yorktown wounded. She had managed to steer clear of nearly all her attackers, but one was able to hit her with a bomb that caused heavy damage below decks.
Experts estimated that the Yorktown would require several months of repair time. Unfortunately, the U.S. Navy didn’t have several months…it didn’t even have one month. Every available ship was needed for the inevitable encounter coming at (or around) Midway. The Japanese were heading there with a staggering array of firepower, and the U.S. had to respond, or risk losing not only Midway, but Pearl Harbor and the Hawaiian Islands as well.
There were only three carriers available to the Navy in the Pacific, one of which, the Yorktown, now wasn’t able to launch or land planes. The other two, Hornet and Enterprise, had already departed for Midway when the Yorktown arrived at Pearl on May 27th. Three months of work had to be completed in a lot less time than three months.
Repair crews set to it. Working night and day for three days, hundreds and hundreds of men made the ship “plane-worthy” again. There was no way to get the ship back to good-as-new condition, but they completed enough of the repairs required to conduct air operations.
At the last possible moment, with the torches still glowing and sparks still flying, the Yorktown set sail on May 30, 1942. Thought by the Japanese to have been sunk in the Coral Sea, the Yorktown would help provide quite a surprise for the Japanese just a few days later.
Recommended Reading: Miracle at Midway
