Was the USS Yorktown prematurely abandoned?

Answer 1

Probably not. She had been very badly damaged, almost sunk, at the battle of the the Coral Sea. She should have spent months in drydock after that. Instead she was patched together in 48 hours! She was beiong held together with spit and bailing wire. She was attacked and hit twice during the battle of Midway. The second strike knocked out her boilers beyond the capacity to repair them at sea. Without power her pumps could not be worked, nor could she be steered. Even if she could have remained afloat long enough to be towed back to Pearl Harbor (highly unlikely in itself) to do so would have required many ships to protect her, all of which would have been endangered by having to move slowly with a carrier under tow. In all likelyhood she would have sunk, and might have cost us other ships as well. Scuttling her was the best thing to do. Michael Montagne According to Robert Ballards book "Return To Midway", the Yorktown wasn't scuttled. After being attacked and badly damaged on June 4, 1942, during the Battle of Midway, she was abondoned by all hands when she began to list severely to port. But by the morning of June 6, her list had stabilized at 24 degrees, and Captain Buckmaster decided to organize a salvage party to make what repairs they could and if possible tow the ship back to Pearl Harbor. They had improved her list to 22 degrees and the minesweeper USS Vireo was struggling to tow her when the Japanese submarine I-168 managed to sneak in and fire 4 torpedos at her. One torpedo struck the destroyer USS Hammann, which sunk in 5 minutes, one was a complete miss, and two struck the Yorktown. The order was given once again to abandon ship, and at 0458 on the morning of June 7 the Yorktown "turned over on her port side and sank in about 3,000 fathoms of water with all battle flags flying", according to Captain Buckmasters official report.M. Evans,California