The USS Yorktown in her present state three miles deep on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. This picture shows the ship's air traffic control center (the four windows on the right), topped by the remains of the gun director, an early version of computerized weaponry that included a telescope which directed the guns by remote control. Photo courtesy / David Doubilet/National Geographic
The Yorktown’s identifying numeral—5—appears on her bow. Also visible is a crack that probably opened when the carrier hit bottom at a speed estimated to be about 45 miles (72 kilometers) per hour.
At the bow, two 20-millimeter antiaircraft guns are dimly visible in a gun tub below the flight deck. Lines through the hawser hole may have been used to haul in a towing cable in an attempt to save the carrier.
Three miles (4.8 kilometers) beneath the Pacific, the Yorktown still points her guns skyward, toward the Japanese warplanes that bombed her. (This and the other photos were taken by cameras on a U.S. Navy robot submersible.)
Photograph by David Doubilet with Keith A. Moorehead.
© 1999 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.
Guns top part of the “island,” the superstructure housing the bridge and pilothouse. The circular object is a wiper used to clear a foggy porthole. Countless coats of paint keep the ship gray and free from corrosion.
The wooden flight deck, which would have jutted over the stern, was apparently ripped away when the ship plunged into the seafloor.
On the port side, a hole shows where two aerial torpedoes hit on June 4, 1942, ripping away armor plate and opening the hull. Oil stains above the hole indicate that the torpedoes ruptured fuel tanks.
Wreck of the Kaga