USS Yorktown

USS Yorktown (CV-5) was an aircraft carrier that served in the United States Navy during World War II. Named after the 1781 Battle of Yorktown, she was commissioned in 1937. Yorktown was the lead ship of the three-ship Yorktown class. These large vessels were the first American carriers whose design was informed by actual experience with carrier operations, involving both larger vessels (the converted battlecruisers of the Lexington class) and, to a lesser extent, a smaller one (the primitive, experimental Langley; a newer small carrier, USS Ranger, had recently been completed, but not yet commissioned by the time Yorktown was laid down, and contributed nothing to the latter vessel's design).
After her commissioning Yorktown spent two years operating in the Atlantic before, in April 1939, transferring to the Pacific. Two years after that, in April 1941, she was one of a large number of major combatants that were transferred back to the Atlantic to take part in Neutrality Patrols, aimed primarily at monitoring German activity off America's east coast. The attack on Pearl Harbor took place while she was in port at Norfolk. Shortly after the attack she was sent back to the Pacific, arriving...